The committee met at 12:00 p.m.

[Donegal Wilson in the chair.]

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): Good morning, everyone. My name is Donegal Wilson. I’m the MLA for Boundary-Similkameen and the Deputy Chair of the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services.

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

I would also like to welcome everyone who is listening to and participating in today’s meetings.

Our committee is currently conducting its annual consultation with British Columbians on their priorities for the next provincial budget. British Columbians who are not presenting to the committee can still share their views by making written comments. The details on how to provide submissions are available on our website at la-bc.ca/consultations.

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

Bryan Tepper: Hello, everybody. Bryan Tepper. I am the MLA for Surrey-Panorama. Good day.

Rohini Arora: Hello. My name is Rohini Arora. I am the MLA for Burnaby East and the Deputy Chair of the government caucus.

Debra Toporowski / Qwulti’stunaat: My name is Debra Toporowski, the MLA for the Cowichan Valley. My traditional name is Qwulti’stunaat.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): Thank you, Members.

I think we’re ready to start with our first presentation, with Ecopath Planning, Eric Doherty, and that will be virtual.

Hi there. Thank you, Eric. Each participant is going to have five minutes to speak, followed by up to five minutes for questions from the committee members, and we’re ready when you are.

Budget Consultation Presentations

Ecopath Planning

Eric Doherty: Great, thank you. My name is Eric Doherty, and my consulting firm is Ecopath Planning. I’m a registered professional planner in B.C. and have been doing research into transportation policy for decades.

I was in Paris last year, a city that has cut car traffic in half. It is a healthier, more affordable, more pleasant and more prosperous city. The people of Paris are proud to be climate leaders. Billions of euros that used to flow out of Paris to oil and auto corporations now create jobs in local businesses.

Like Paris, in B.C., cars and motor fuel are imported and drain money and jobs from the local economy. My first recommendation is that the B.C. government fully recognize that public transit and active transportation is a wise investment rather than an expense and reallocate a significant proportion of the Ministry of Transportation and Transit budget.

The benefits of public transit and active transportation include improving affordability, improving safety, improving public health, providing good jobs and better meeting the needs of B.C.’s aging population. In contrast, $1 billion spent on highway expansion in congested areas makes traffic worse, makes life more expensive for ordinary people and increases carbon pollution.

By making traffic worse, highway expansion makes the provincial economy less efficient and increases business expenses. Last year there were $9 billion in highway expansion projects on the B.C. budget docket, many in areas with existing public transit service. These funds should be reallocated towards public transit and active transportation infrastructure.

Over 650 organizations have signed the B.C. climate emergency campaign open letter that calls for B.C. to “reallocate infrastructure funds from highway expansion to transit and active transportation.”

My second recommendation is that B.C. create an intercommunity bus network that is better and more affordable than Greyhound ever was. The B.C. Assembly of First Nations’ recently released B.C. First Nations Transportation Assessment Report and Action Plan states: “Transit remains largely inaccessible for many First Nations, with no provincewide, well-structured network and limited intercity services.”

[12:05 p.m.]

The number one priority in the 2024 joint B.C. Federation of Labour and CCPA Connecting B.C. report is to connect B.C. communities everywhere through a new provincewide express bus service. This would improve mobility for people in small towns, rural areas and remote First Nation’s communities, making it easier to get health care and other

of Labour and CCPA Connecting B.C. report is to connect B.C. communities everywhere through a new provincewide express bus service. This would improve mobility for people in small towns, rural areas and remote First Nations communities, making it easier to get health care and other services, visit family or go on vacation, and stronger transit connections across B.C. would have a big impact on tourism.

The estimated investment needed is very modest, with capital costs of only $1.5 billion and an annual operating subsidy of only $100 million for a network benefiting every community across B.C. This investment would knit B.C.’s urban, rural and First Nation communities at a time when political fragmentation and extremism is a rising threat.

My final recommendation is to target transportation budgeting to evaporate traffic by reallocating road space to bus lanes, bike-and-roll routes and low-traffic zones. Carefully targeting funds can rapidly reduce carbon pollution and trigger what we call traffic evaporation, which often makes driving faster and more reliable, as it has in Paris. The key is to reallocate road space from inefficient use by private automobiles to more efficient uses, particularly bus lanes for bus rapid transit. Both TransLink and B.C. Transit have bus rapid transit proposals awaiting funding.

Road space reallocation is necessary for meeting B.C.’s climate targets but has so many benefits. It would be well worth funding, even without the climate action imperative.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much. Questions from members?

Okay, I have a question. I’m just wondering. You quoted some numbers, what it would cost — $1.5 billion to get the bus network up and going, and $100 million annually. Where were those numbers generated from?

Eric Doherty: That is from a B.C. Federation of Labour and Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives report by Marc Lee. Marc Lee, their senior economist, did those calculations, those estimates.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): Thank you. I would assume that report also includes the actual network that they were trying to build for rural.

Eric Doherty: Yes, it includes a rough outline of what the network would look like and the number of buses — 300 buses.

Debra Toporowski / Qwulti’stunaat: Thank you for your presentation. I also know the connection to Greyhound. My aunt used to take us over to Vancouver. She never drove in her whole life, so she never got a licence, and we always took public transit. So I understand the connections that we had to make to make it to downtown Vancouver or wherever we were travelling. When the Greyhound shut down, I was quite sad because of that loss. I live on the Island. People in Duncan and the Cowichan Valley, who’d relied on it to go visit people over on the Mainland, lost that. So I’m happy that you had brought that up and how you connected it all. Thank you.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): Any other questions from members? Thank you very much, Eric. I think that about wraps it up. Thank you.

We will be moving to our next presenter from the Comox Valley, Naomi Robert.

Comox Valley Food Policy Council

Naomi Robert: Hi, good morning. My name is Naomi Robert, and I’m the co-chair of the Comox Valley Food Policy Council, located in the traditional territories of the K’ómoks First Nation. We’re a network of elected officials, community members and food system stakeholders advocating for policy development in support of local food economies, food security and health.

[12:10 p.m.]

As we all know, we are in the century of climate change, which means, broadly speaking, accounting for inter-annual variability, each new year that we experience is both the hottest year we have yet to experience and the coolest year we will experience in the future. We would like to emphasize the impacts, in this presentation of climate change, on our food system, particularly that of drought. We believe the following recommendations are essential to the province’s goals of safeguarding critical services, investing in B.C.’s future.

the hottest year we have yet to experience and the coolest year we will experience in the future.

We would like to emphasize the impacts in this presentation of climate change on our food system, particularly that of drought. We believe the following recommendations are essential to the province’s goals of safeguarding critical services, investing in B.C.’s future and ensuring safe and healthy communities.

We know that healthy watersheds are the backbone of thriving economies and communities. We cannot feed ourselves without water. We cannot fight fires without water. We cannot accomplish our economic goals without water and healthy watersheds.

We are experiencing symptoms of this growing crisis. This season is currently positioned yet again to break a number of records for drought. For example, in the Comox Valley, in May, broadly, Vancouver Island’s snowpack was quoted at 27 percent of its seasonal average.

According to B.C. Hydro, precipitation in the Comox Valley was approximately 8 percent of normal, and the Comox Lake reservoir is trending downwards.

The Tsolum River, which drains the primary agricultural watershed in this region, streamflows are at records low for this time of year, and salmon rescue has already started on its tributaries.

Therefore, we recommend support for climate change adaptation, particularly drought resilience, by better resourcing programs and institutions responsible for drought resilience and adaptation, such as the Ministry of Land, Water and Resource Stewardship and the Ministry of Agriculture in the following ways.

Our first recommendation is resourcing the initiation and completion of water sustainability plans in watersheds at risk. The Ministry of Land, Water and Resource Stewardship and the Ministry of Agriculture have identified four at-risk watersheds where summer flows are below the minimum required for fish-bearing streams. We’re recommending funding to steward the complex process of developing watershed sustainability plans that engage Indigenous nations and key industries and develop equitable and, importantly, preventable drought management and healthy watershed strategies.

Our second recommendation is increased funding for on-farm adaptation measures, particularly on-farm water capture and water infiltration techniques. These programs can make water accessible to farmers feeding our communities. They can also reduce pressure on freshwater resources, rivers and aquifers.

Our final recommendation is increased support for the emergency planning and preparedness programs in the food system. As climate change advances, so does the vulnerability of the food system to disruption from extreme weather events. Here we recommend increasing the support for emergency programming to ensure food security during disruptions to water, power and access to supplies. This includes consideration for vulnerable populations, such as infants and those with precarious housing conditions among others.

Climate change adaptation, drought resilience and emergency preparedness are essential investments in B.C.’s future. We also know that proactive measures today will mitigate costs and impacts in the future and improve the quality of life in our communities.

We’re told repeatedly by experts that water issues define the 21st century and that the climate crisis is a water crisis. As such, we believe strongly that these recommendations are essential to advancing the province’s goals of safeguarding critical services, investing in B.C.’s future and ensuring safe and healthy communities.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to speak with you today.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): Thank you for the great presentation, Naomi.

Questions from members?

Bryan Tepper: On-farm water capture, can you describe a little bit about how you see that and what the process is for that?

Naomi Robert: For sure. There are some programs currently available around, particularly, dugouts, which are uncomplicated holes in the ground that a number of producers in our area have implemented since over the past few years that really boosts the water availability on their farms. So we’re not relying solely on aquifer or freshwater or pumping directly from a stream. That has been successful around here.

Then also rainwater capture throughout the wet season…. Climate change, we’re expected to have wetter winters and drier summers. So that does present opportunities for those who can access it for rainwater capture to supplement irrigation as well.

Bryan Tepper: That’s great. What’s the barrier then to doing that? What’s holding us up?

Naomi Robert: There are expenses in particular. So helping farmers with, particularly, cisterns for water storage are quite expensive. Dugouts as well can be expensive. Then there are some issues around water licensing and the need to line the dugout to comply with water licensing techniques and at what point it’s separated from the groundwater resources.

[12:15 p.m.]

We’ve understood from farmers in our area that the particularities around being able to dig a dugout and whether or not you need a license for it have been an issue for them.

Bryan Tepper: Yeah. There are a lot of aspects of this that we’ve heard

with water licensing techniques and at what point it’s separated from the groundwater resources.

We’ve understood from farmers in our area that the particularities around being able to dig a dugout and whether or not you need a licence for it have been an issue for them.

Bryan Tepper: Okay, yeah. I mean, there are a lot of aspects of this that we’ve heard licensing is an issue. Do you know how long licensing would take for a dugout?

Naomi Robert: There’s quite a backlog at the ministry around water licensing issues. And there are some cases, like particularly where we are. Aquifer 408 is an aquifer of concern. And in some…. For example, not for a dugout, but new licences to groundwater and to streamflow are not being issued.

I’m not sure the exact relationship between the licensing for a dugout versus the need to line it and how that relates to the ministry’s licensing requirements. But there are a number of moving parts here. The licensing in this region and in general has administratively been quite cumbersome and complicated and sometimes not accessible.

Bryan Tepper: Okay, thank you very much. That’s good for me. Yeah.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): Any other questions from members?

Rohini Arora: Have you mapped out costs for the cisterns in particular — at least in your particular area, what it would cost for farmers?

Naomi Robert: It is quite variable. I have not mapped out the exact…. I know that some cisterns can be $10,000, depending on the size. I’m happy to get back to you with more costing around cisterns, but I have not costed out an on-farm pricing. I’m happy to do that if that’s helpful.

Rohini Arora: Yeah I think it would be actually helpful to have an understanding. I mean, in a sense it’s the Comox Valley, but it does give us an understanding of other areas.

Naomi Robert: Absolutely, yeah. I can follow up with that information, no problem.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): Any other questions?

Debra Toporowski / Qwulti’stunaat: Thank you for your presentation. I know we are facing changes that are more frequent than before. Drought used to be every ten, 20 years. Now it seems like it’s every year. The frequency is increasing. And being aware of what each community needs….

I just wanted a question about…. You mentioned dugouts and other things. When you mention dugouts, do you mean retaining pond?

Naomi Robert: Yeah, some people might call it a retaining pond.

Debra Toporowski / Qwulti’stunaat: Yes. I know in my area, in the Cowichan Valley, that one of the farms needing to run their business…. They had a restaurant, so they did have a retaining pond. They did get some money from the government, too, to help in that, as well. But like you said, there’s water licensing that is tied up with that as well.

I just wanted to know if you knew about the funding that was available at the time. I don’t know if it’s still available. Thank you.

Naomi Robert: There has been, thankfully, and we appreciate that funding available for dugouts. Our understanding from the farming community is that more would be appreciated — a wider reach and reduced barriers to access for that for farmers who still financially have barriers. As well, the licensing component has become quite complex for things like dugouts, which are a relatively simple solution — at least, logistically — to a complex issue. They can go a long way.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much for your great presentation, Naomi. We appreciate the information you shared.

Naomi Robert: Great. I appreciate your time. Thank you.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): We will be moving on to our next presenter, which is the Island Food Hubs and Katie Lavoie.

Hi, Katie. We have five minutes for your presentation and five minutes for questions. We are ready when you are ready to start.

[12:20 p.m.]

Island Food Hubs

Katie Lavoie: Good afternoon, and thank you for the opportunity to speak today. My name is Katie Lavoie, and I

Island Food Hubs

Katie Lavoie: Good afternoon and thank you for the opportunity to speak today. My name is Katie Lavoie, and I’m speaking on behalf of the Island Food Hubs. We’re a group of eight non-profit organizations working across Vancouver Island, united in our mission to create networks of community connections around food.

Our food hubs work in communities large and small, from urban centres to rural and remote areas, supporting food access, food skills, local food resilience and community well-being. We see every day how food security is deeply connected to health, affordability, transportation, housing, social connection and climate resilience.

Today we are asking the province for continued and expanded investment in three key areas. First, we ask for continued and increased investment in community-based food security initiatives through programs like the Community Food Action Initiative. CFAI funding has helped build strong partnerships between non-profits, local governments, schools, health authorities, farmers, Indigenous communities and volunteers. These relationships are not quick to build, and they are essential to community resilience. This funding allows communities to respond locally and creatively to rising food insecurity. It supports food literacy programs, community kitchens, school food initiatives, emergency response capacity, seed saving, growing projects and culturally appropriate food programs.

Importantly, these initiatives support multiple social determinants of health at once. They reduce isolation, improve mental and physical health, strengthen local economies and increase community resilience during emergencies and climate events.

The need is growing rapidly. The recent stretched-thin report on B.C.’s non-profit sector found that organizations across the province are facing rising demand, increasing operational costs, staffing pressures and worsening community needs, while many are operating with flat or declining revenues. Without stable funding, many of these networks and programs are at risk just as demand continues to grow.

Second, we ask the province to support rural, remote, Indigenous-led and food sovereignty initiatives. Many communities on Vancouver Island, particularly in the north Island and coastal regions, face extreme high food costs and significant transportation barriers. For some residents, simply accessing affordable groceries requires long-distance travel, ferry costs or unreliable transportation options.

Community organizations are increasingly documenting these realities of food access in rural and remote communities. West valley food action society, another island food hub, has been advancing research and community conversations around food accessibility and transportation barriers on the north Island. This helps bring visibility to the true cost and complexity of access to healthy food in rural communities.

At the same time, Indigenous communities across B.C. are leading important work in food sovereignty, land stewardship, cultural food practices and intergenerational knowledge-sharing. Provincial investment should align with and uphold these priorities through flexible relationship-based funding that supports community-led solutions.

Third, we asked for investment in the Island Food Hubs as long-term infrastructure for resilience and prevention. The Island Food Hubs are much more than food distribution sites. They are places where people gain skills, build relationships, access local food and strengthen community capacity. Our hubs support cooking programs, growing and harvesting education, youth engagement, volunteer opportunities, local procurement and policy advocacy, while also helping people meet immediate food needs with dignity.

This work reduces pressure on health care and emergency food systems while supporting the local food economy and keeping food dollars circulating within communities.

The evidence of need is clear at the community level as well. The 2024 Campbell River vital signs report identified growing concerns around affordability, housing pressures, transportation and increasing strain on the social-profit sector across the region. These pressures are interconnected, and food insecurity sits at the centre of many of them.

Right now organizations are being asked to solve increasingly complex issues with short-term project-based funding that rarely covers core operational costs. Yet healthy, resilient communities require stable community infrastructure and the people who sustain it. If we want healthier, more resilient communities, we need to fund the community infrastructure that makes that possible.

In closing, our three asks are continued and expanded investment in the Community Food Action Initiative and the community food security programming; increased support for Indigenous-led, rural, remote and food sovereignty initiatives; and sustained operational investment in community food hubs as critical social infrastructure that supports health, affordability, resilience and local economies.

[12:25 p.m.]

Thank you for your time and consideration. I appreciate the opportunity to bring forward the realities and strength of community across Vancouver Island, and I welcome any questions.

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

Any questions from members?

Bryan Tepper: Yes.

Hi. Thank you for the presentation. I mean, everything you’re saying — incredibly important. Is anything that

across Vancouver Island, and I welcome any questions.

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

Any questions from members?

Bryan Tepper: Yes, hi. Thank you for the presentation.

I mean, everything you’re saying is incredibly important. Is there anything that you see in that that can be done without a price tag, basically? That’s what we’re looking for.

Katie Lavoie: I’m sorry, would you mind rephrasing the question?

Bryan Tepper: Sorry, anything that you have for recommendation that doesn’t come with an increased budget from the government at this point?

Katie Lavoie: Continued funding at the level that it’s at is still wildly beneficial, as we have been receiving it. The Community Food Action Initiative is super important, and I think that maintaining the relationships that we’ve had with the funding that we’ve had is still fantastic.

Bryan Tepper: Thank you very much.

Debra Toporowski / Qwulti’stunaat: Thank you, Katie, for your presentation. Food security is…. When people don’t talk about it, they don’t really think about where the food comes from.

Also, when I was sitting on the health advisory committee for Cowichan Tribes as a councillor there was that connection to food and to the land where it was a disconnect of the Indigenous food security to our communities and how important it is because of the health ailments that come from eating foods that actually weren’t something that we used to eat before.

So, also, the thing for Indigenous food security barriers for access to food in north Island, what do you see? I know Cowichan has started with their food security and is doing very well in the Cowichan, but how would supporting the Indigenous food security there…? What would that look like?

Katie Lavoie: There’s a really great recent report from LUSH Valley and the CVRD highlighting transportation and how it impacts food security on the north Island, and they have interviewed a number of First Nations partners. I would be happy to share that document. It’s much more thorough than anything I will probably say here but I would outline that transportation is very challenging.

We run the Strathcona local food network, Greenways, and just getting good food boxes to places like Kyuquot was a planes, trains and automobiles…. We had boats and quads involved and truckers, and it’s a lot of work to just get fresh produce to places like that.

Individual nations will have health councils. I think that they should speak for themselves but that’s something that I’ve seen as an individual.

Debra Toporowski / Qwulti’stunaat: Thank you. That would be very helpful, to send the report.

Also, I know in the Cowichan Valley, we have the Cowichan Green Community who stepped up when COVID hit. Or just when, like, the power goes out. There’s something that goes wrong for the island, like Penelakut. And they got together — a community just donated money to the Green Community and then were able to deliver the food. But again, there are many, many years of establishment, of going through all those trials and tribulations of the transportation challenges.

I’ll look forward to the LUSH Valley report and then see from there. Thank you.

Katie Lavoie: Thank you.

Rohini Arora: Thanks, Katie, for your presentation. I have a couple questions.

[12:30 p.m.]

I’m wondering when you say “maintain the funding,” is that core funding that is provided to your organization directly? Do you get it through the United Way? Do you apply for special projects-based grants or just through other organizations, other larger umbrella organizations for particular aspects — like you mentioned more funding or increased supports for rural, remote and Indigenous communities. You talked about supporting, I think, harvesting practices and other types of education, culturally appropriate food. So just wondering if that…. Does that fall under like a project-based grant for your organization or…?

Katie Lavoie: It’s a little bit messier than traditional grants

You talked about supporting, I think, harvesting practices and other types of education, culturally appropriate food. Just wondering: does that fall under a project-based grant for your organization?

Katie Lavoie: It’s a little bit messier than traditional grants.

The eight non-profits that make up the Island Food Hubs all have contracts with Island Health. Island Health has the community action initiative funding, which is about $200,000 a year. That gets split out into one organization for each regional district, except for Port Alberni and Tofino, because they’re quite far away. They split their funding into two organizations.

That funding is on a three-year contract right now with each of the organizations. We can use that in a really fluid way, which is amazing. Often what we’ll do is…. It’s really specific to the area you’re in.

Greenways, specifically, where I’m the executive director…. In Strathcona, we use it as ghostwriting funding for the nations. We let people know what we can do and help build capacity, and then they’ll come to us with a wish list. Then we can work at it that way, instead of it being a top-down approach.

I’m finding that it’s just….

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): Katie, sorry. I don’t mean to cut you off. We’re past the five minutes, so MLA Arora can catch up directly if she has more follow-up. We really appreciate your presentation, and we want to make sure no one else’s time is cut off.

Welcoming Jeremy Dunn from the B.C. Dairy. You have five minutes for your presentation and then five minutes from members.

Just a reminder to members to watch the clock when you’re asking questions so that we don’t go over. Thank you very much.

B.C. Dairy Association

Jeremy Dunn: Thank you for the opportunity to present today. My name’s Jeremy Dunn. I’m the general manager of B.C. Dairy.

B.C. Dairy represents over 400 family-run farms that support more than 12,000 jobs and contribute over $1.2 billion annually to B.C.’s economy. Our sector plays a critical role in food security, domestic processing and economic growth.

B.C. has a clear opportunity to strengthen domestic food production, expand value-added manufacturing and grow exports under the province’s Look West strategy. B.C. Dairy is well-positioned to support these goals with growing investment in processing and strong global demand for dairy ingredients.

Realizing this opportunity requires targeted government investment. We’re asking Budget 2027 to focus on three priorities: Sumas Prairie flood mitigation, the agricultural wildlife program and water infrastructure.

First, Sumas Prairie flood mitigation. This is no longer an emergency issue. It’s critical economic infrastructure. The Fraser Valley produces a significant portion of B.C.’s food and is a key transportation and trade corridor. Recent flood events demonstrated the scale of risk to farms, supply chains and processing investment.

Producers need clear timelines for funding commitments to advance the Abbotsford flood mitigation plan. We’re asking the province to commit long-term funding to implement flood mitigation infrastructure that protects farms, supply chains and economic stability.

Second, the agricultural wildlife program. Wildlife damage continues to place significant pressure on producers, particularly as input costs rise. Recent reductions in compensation have increased financial risk. This program supports farm viability and helps producers manage risks outside of their control.

We’re asking the province to increase funding and restore compensation levels to ensure meaningful support for food-producing farms.

Third, water security. I know you heard about this earlier from one of your previous guests.

Reliable access to water is becoming one of the most significant challenges facing agriculture in B.C., due to drought, changing weather and competing demand. We’re asking government to invest in agricultural water infrastructure, including storage, regional systems and long-term water planning. These investments will improve resilience, support food production and enable long-term growth in B.C.’s agriculture and food-processing sectors.

In closing, B.C. has an opportunity to strengthen food security, expand processing and grow exports. B.C. Dairy is ready to help deliver on these goals, but success depends on strategic investment in infrastructure and government support.

[12:35 p.m.]

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

Questions from members?

Bryan Tepper: Well, I was asking about the water infrastructure before as well

and government support.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much for the presentation. Questions from members?

Bryan Tepper: Well, I was asking about the water infrastructure before as well. Yet obviously, I think everybody knows we’re looking for things that don’t come with a price tag. Earlier on she talked about farms independently getting infrastructure on their own. I guess it’s not really infrastructure if it’s on their own farms, but dugouts and water cisterns, anything like that. You mentioned community water infrastructure.

Do you see a combination of those, or what are we looking at? Can you expand on it? I suppose it’s what I’m asking.

Jeremy Dunn: For sure. The watershed approach that’s being taken is an important approach. Farmers can play a role by building storage on-farm, whether that’s dugout or other methods. There have been funding programs in place to support this. Recapitalizing those funding programs would be desired. Also, removing red tape and streamlining the process, so that farmers can utilize their land as part of the water storage network, would certainly advance in this area.

Bryan Tepper: Okay, I guess we can.… What do you see as barriers for all of that?

Jeremy Dunn: There are some requirements — for certain, engineering — on a dugout. Then there is a lack of qualified professionals to perform those types of services, which hinder it moving forward. The province could review some of the regulations around a requirement for engineers, based on a certain size of water storage.

This kind of feeds into some of the dam infrastructure regulations that are out there. As you go upcountry, there are opportunities for smaller, on-farm dams. Our organization has partnered with B.C. Cattlemen’s on trying to understand this better, some of the regulations around risk mitigation, with respect to on-farm dams or community dams.

Small dams are quite restrictive in the ability to hold back water. We think farms can play a critical role. I mean, we’re not creating water; we’re trapping the water that’s already there. We’re just getting it not at the right times of year. We’re trapping a bit of water, holding it back for irrigation but also to let it loose into the water system when wild salmon are migrating, to be able to ensure that the water is there for migrating fish, to sustain those populations.

Bryan Tepper: Thank you very much. Yeah, actually, I will have to look more into on-farm damming and something like that. You and the cattlemen, if we can.… When I talk to you guys in the future, I think I’ll be bringing that more often. I will leave that for now. Thank you.

Jeremy Dunn: I appreciate that.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): The Chair has a question. Obviously, as a critic for Water, Lands and Resource Stewardship, I spent a lot of time on the dams and the dugouts. I understand much of the red tape and have spent considerable time with the minister, trying to figure out a path forward on that. I do agree we need to figure out how to keep even small amounts of water on the land for longer periods, and we should have a policy that supports that.

Mine’s about the agricultural wildlife program. You mentioned that it had had a cut and that you would like to restore the funding. Do you know the amount that was cut and/or that needs to be restored?

Jeremy Dunn: Yeah, this one isn’t massive in the grand scheme of things, but the program has had a budget of $5 million for the last number of years. However, government had been exceeding that.

Treasury Board had been approving an extra $2 million to $3 million each year to go into the program. So this was upwards of $8 million. There’s some matching federal funding that comes with the provincial investment. So the provincial side probably may not be an additional $3 million. It might be only closer to $1 million, $1½ million or $2 million.

The net result for producers is that their claims, which were typically paid at 80 percent of the claim this year, were paid at closer to 50 percent of the claim, which resulted in a material loss for those farmers. who already are dealing with crop loss due to increasing wildlife, particularly elk. on Vancouver Island and in the Interior, and also bears, particularly grizzly bears, in the Creston area and other parts of the Interior.

[12:40 p.m.]

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much. We appreciate your presentation.

We will be moving on to the next committee member. We are looking for Justine Nelson, from the Rivershed Society of British Columbia.

are looking for Justine Nelson from the Rivershed Society of British Columbia.

You have five minutes for your presentation, and then we will have five minutes for questions. Appreciate that you’re here today.

Rivershed Society of B.C.

Justine Nelson: Good afternoon. I’m joining you from the traditional territory of the Máthexwi First Nation in what is now known as Glen Valley, Abbotsford.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak today. I’m Justine Nelson, executive director of the Rivershed Society of B.C. Rivershed connects communities to strengthen the health and resilience of the Fraser watershed, which supports globally significant salmon runs, major agricultural regions, transportation corridors, local economies and is home to two-thirds of British Columbians.

As pressures on freshwater systems continue to grow, healthy watersheds are increasingly being recognized as essential infrastructure tied to drinking water, food systems, economic resilience and public safety. Through Rivershed’s work, we are seeing growing impacts from drought, flooding, erosion, wildfire and declining freshwater health throughout the Fraser watershed. These pressures affect salmon, agriculture, infrastructure, ecosystems and communities.

In the Fraser headwaters, for example, Rivershed is hearing growing concerns from local governments, landholders and residents about erosion, agricultural land loss and increasing pressures along the river, while communities continue to face limited access to long-term support to help prevent these challenges from escalating. At the same time, we are seeing growing interest from First Nations, local governments, landholders and local collaborators who want to care for land and water in their communities.

Through programs like foodlands corridor restoration, Rivershed works alongside collaborators to support place-based restoration and long-term care for land and water. Foodlands focuses on restoring and reconnecting riparian areas within working landscapes, often on privately held land, while also supporting cultural food systems, place-based learning and relationship-based stewardship.

In the sc̓e:ɬxʷəy̓əm corridor in Langley, activities include reconnecting waterways, improving salmon habitat and restoring riparian areas in collaboration with Kwantlen Land Guardians, Langley Environmental Partners Society, Kerr Wood Leidal Consulting, Lower Fraser Fisheries Alliance and landholders.

In the Bell Slough corridor in Stó:lō territory in Chilliwack, Rivershed is also working alongside local collaborators and landholders to support riparian restoration, habitat recovery and stewardship in an agricultural landscape.

In the Nechako region, Rivershed is working with Saik’uz First Nation, KWL and landholders to explore how place-based restoration and cultural food systems work may take shape over time alongside restoration planning and riparian recovery on the Nechako River.

Together, these corridors reflect growing interest in restoration and stewardship work in different regions of the Fraser watershed, alongside a growing need for stable, long-term support to help make that work possible.

Rivershed also recognizes that healthy watersheds depend on people who can live, work and care for the places they call home. Through the watershed workforce program, youth spend time on the land and water learning from those involved in restoration and stewardship while exploring career pathways connected to watershed health. In some regions, watershed workforce learning takes place alongside active foodlands corridors, allowing participants to see how long-term care for land and water unfolds in real places and communities.

Provincial investments have helped important watershed restoration and resilience work move forward in the Fraser watershed. Rivershed continues to see growing demand for restoration, monitoring, watershed workforce development and long-term support for community-led work.

Rivershed serves on the steering committee of the B.C. Watershed Security Coalition, where we continue to hear similar concerns from communities and organizations throughout B.C.

The B.C. watershed security fund provides a proven and trustworthy co-governed mechanism to help support this work. The fund is already supporting restoration, monitoring, governance and climate resilience work across the province, but funding is not keeping pace with the growing demand from communities or the scale of the challenges they are facing. Demand for investment through the fund already exceeds available resources, with implementation-ready projects seeking support throughout the province.

[12:45 p.m.]

For Rivershed, this leads to one clear recommendation for Budget 2027. As the province reviews industrial water rental rates, Rivershed recommends that a meaningful portion of water rental revenues be reinvested into long-term watershed security and resilience through the B.C. watershed security fund.

This investment would help communities throughout the Fraser watershed expand restoration and stewardship work, create more watershed workforce opportunities for youth and local communities and help reduce future public costs associated with drought, flooding, wildfire and erosion.

watershed security and resilience through the B.C. watershed security fund.

This investment would help communities throughout the Fraser watershed expand restoration and stewardship work, create more watershed workforce opportunities for youth and local communities and help reduce future public costs associated with drought, flooding, wildfire and erosion.

Healthy watersheds underpin B.C.’s economy. Communities are already doing this work, and stable long-term investment can help scale and sustain these efforts while helping reduce future public costs.

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

Any questions from members?

The Chair will ask a question then. You mentioned the watershed security fund, and we had a presentation yesterday that also included the fund. I had said then that there was $100 million put into the fund, and living off the interest….

I understand that the fund is oversubscribed, over the $7 million, I think, it gives out each year. You mentioned the industrial water rates. Are you saying that all industrial water rates you want reinvested into the watershed security fund go out each year or are you saying that it go into building up that $100 million to a bigger number?

Justine Nelson: We are asking for that amount to be going into the fund each year, but there could be an option of putting it in the investment as well.

Right now we’re looking at about $75 million worth of opportunities each year for watershed work.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): I see no further questions from members. I appreciate your presentation. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): We’re now going to hear from Ecotrust Canada, Graham Anderson.

You will have five minutes for your presentation, along with five minutes for follow-up questions. You can start when you’re ready.

Ecotrust Canada

Graham Anderson: Thanks so much. My name is Graham Anderson. I’m the director of the community energy initiative at Ecotrust Canada. Ecotrust Canada is a five-star top 100 Canadian charity with a 30-year history of proving the possible through place-based practical on-the-ground solutions.

[Paul Choi in the chair.]

We work with rural, remote and Indigenous communities toward building resilient local economies. Headquartered in B.C., we operate across five priority initiatives: climate, Indigenous homelands, fisheries, energy and food systems.

Our energy work is focused on the financial and health burdens of households that face energy insecurity due to a combination of poor-quality housing, lower or moderate incomes and rising energy prices. We address this through partnerships on the ground with rural and Indigenous communities where we draw lessons that inform our policy, research and recommendations. To date, we have supported the installation of over 600 energy efficiency retrofits with rural and Indigenous households, resulting in cost savings of over $13 million.

Our first recommendation today is to renew funding for the highly impactful and successful CleanBC energy savings program or ESP. This program provides full or substantial cost coverage for energy efficiency upgrades to households that wish to improve the health, affordability and efficiency of their homes. It has already led to transformative impacts for tens of thousands of British Columbians who have been able to access a heat pump or other measures since the program’s inception in June 2024.

We’d like to share a story from our experience. Jerry is a retired maintenance contractor on a fixed income and one of our program participants in Alert Bay. He had been using an expensive oil furnace, relying on deliveries to his remote community and facing higher home insurance costs as a result. Before the creation of ESP, Jerry had no practical way to retrofit his heating system to a more affordable alternative.

But last year, thanks to the energy savings program, Jerry was able to access $16,000 in funding to remove his aging oil tank and expensive oil furnace and replace it with a high-efficiency heat pump. With the new heating system and insulation also installed through ESP, his annual costs have dropped over 50 percent, saving him about $2,200 per year.

[12:50 p.m.]

The low- and middle-income households that are now able to access life-saving cooling benefits and lower energy bills through ESP benefit greatly from this program. This program remains the only program in B.C. providing meaningful support to address energy affordability with middle-income households. It is therefore critical that this program’s funding be renewed and strengthened so that B.C. households facing high energy bills can continue to benefit from the

energy bills to ESP benefit greatly from this program.

This program remains the only program in B.C. providing meaningful support to address energy affordability with middle-income households. It is therefore critical that this program’s funding be renewed and strengthened so that B.C. households facing high energy bills can continue to benefit from the affordability, health and comfort provided by heat pumps and other energy efficiency measures. We note that this request is aligned with the Budget 2027 priority of lowering costs and providing affordable housing.

Our second recommendation is to establish the right to cooling for residents vulnerable to extreme heat. Extreme heat can push B.C.’s health care systems to the brink. It precipitates not only immediate medical emergencies but heat-related injuries that can persist for years. These devastating impacts can be mitigated by ensuring people are able to keep cool in their homes. However, renters and manufactured home park residents currently face barriers, restrictions and bans on installing life-saving cooling systems. Local governments have repeatedly asked for provincewide action on this issue, including through numerous Union of B.C. Municipalities resolutions.

We ask government to ensure that tenants have the right to cooling in their homes and that building owners and stratas cannot unreasonably restrict them from doing so. Renters must have the right to keep their home safe and livable, whether through heat pumps, air conditioners, external shading or other active and passive cooling, ventilation and air quality measures.

We therefore recommend that government update the provincial standards of maintenance guide and sample bylaw to prohibit unreasonable cooling bans and also update the Residential Tenancy Act, Strata Property Act and Manufactured Home Park Tenancy Act to the same effect. We know that this recommendation is aligned with the budget priority towards strengthening health care.

Thank you.

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

Bryan Tepper: I’m sorry. I’m having a real problem with my voice today.

The heat pump that would…. You know what, I’ll just say: do you have numbers involved with any of the programs that you think there’s an adjustment to changes of, from what we currently are providing in government?

Graham Anderson: In terms of funding from government?

Bryan Tepper: Yes.

Graham Anderson: Yeah. The current funding, as we understand it, is $50 million. That provides support for about…. I believe the number is 8,300 households in B.C. That’s right: 8,300. And so we’re actually recommending a continuation of that level of investment from this government.

Bryan Tepper: Perfect. Thank you. Continuation — that sounds great. That’s all I need.

Graham Anderson: Thank you.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you very much. Any other questions? No? Okay.

Question for you from me: when you mentioned that we should be amending Residential Tenancy Act and those sort of legislations, how do you sort of imagine the legislation to be spelled out in that aspect?

Graham Andersons: What we recommend is that the legislation be spelled out in a way that provides, by default, a right to cooling for tenants or residents in B.C., placing the onus on landlords to establish that there’s a reasonable case for an exception.

Currently the default way that these laws and regulations work is the opposite, that tenants must demonstrate that any ban or any restriction is unreasonable. So the principle governing any revisions to these acts would be to flip that onus onto the landlords and to, by default, provide the right to cooling to tenants and residents in B.C.

Paul Choi (Chair): Okay, gotcha. So the difference there is that currently it’s on the tenants, at their expense, to install this, whereas what you’re proposing is that it will be up to the landlord to pay it out of their pocket and then demonstrate to the tenant that it meets the requirement.

Graham Anderson: Appreciate the question. Actually, we’re making two different recommendations on two different aspects of this issue.

Paul Choi (Chair): Okay.

Graham Anderson: So the first recommendation was focused on funding through this very supportive program, ESP, which tenants are able to work through to receive upgrades as well.

[12:55 p.m.]

The recommendation about right to cooling, though, is actually about the right — the ability — to make upgrades or to make changes to install air conditioning or install a heat pump in the home. And those are changes that currently tenants do have the opportunity to ban or restrict.

We see a

The recommendation about the right to cooling, though, is actually about the ability to make upgrades or to make changes to install air conditioning or install a heat pump in the home. Those are changes that, currently, tenants do have the opportunity to ban or restrict.

We see a lot of restrictions, in particular, often, with tenant households, often with manufactured home parks in the province. In fact, more than half of the home parks in the survey we conducted recently indicated that they have some type of restriction on heat pumps. So it’s not a minor issue. It’s something that does need to be addressed. So we brought it forward with this recommendation to shift the onus to the landlords or the owners to demonstrate that there’s a reasonable basis for denying or having a restriction in place.

Paul Choi (Chair): Okay, sounds good. Recognizing MLA Arora.

Rohini Arora: Thanks so much for your presentation. It hits close to home. We had the heat dome affect a lot of residents in Burnaby. Part of the challenge is that they have mobility issues. Many of them are seniors. So when they don’t have access to cooling, it can cause serious issues.

Have you also noticed that it depends on the strata council and bylaws, too? Like, sometimes within the building, because it’s an older building, for example, they’ll say “use fans instead of AC units,” etc. Are you hearing a pushback from strata councils and folks — other landlord organizations? I’m just curious about what the conversation is around right to cooling.

Graham Anderson: Great, thanks for the question. I mean, the situation on the ground is that in some cases, there are strata councils or landlords that are implementing these types of restrictions, sometimes for reasonable grounds and sometimes without, necessarily, reasonable grounds.

We did complete a research report and have actually been engaging with this issue for a number of years. But the most recent report was completed in November 2025, exploring municipal and provincial policy pathways. There’s been a number of positive actions taken by municipalities in the province, local governments, already, toward local government–level solutions.

But we believe there’s an important role for the province to play, as well, in enacting these stronger supports for tenants.

Rohini Arora: Would you mind sending that report over to us?

Graham Anderson: Not at all. Happy to.

Debra Toporowski / Qwulti’stunaat: Mine’s not a question. It’s just a quick thing. Thank you for your presentation on looking at the policy renewal for the Residential Tenancy Act and the strata.

I think when these were put in place, the heat pumps were a lot louder, and people were complaining that they were too close to the home next door. Apartment buildings are like, you know, really close. I just wanted to make that point.

The Chair: Thank you so much, everyone, for your comments, and thank you for presenting to us today.

Graham Anderson: Thanks for the opportunity.

The Chair: Thank you very much. We’ll move on to our next presenter. We have Tracey Saxby from My Sea to Sky joining us. Thanks for coming. You have five minutes for your presentation, five minutes for your question after, and you can begin when you’re ready.

My Sea to Sky

Tracey Saxby: Thank you so much. Good afternoon, and thank you for the opportunity to speak today. My name is Tracey Saxby. I am a marine scientist and the lead author of the B.C. climate emergency campaign’s open letter, which has now been signed by over 650 organizations representing 2.2 million British Columbians.

I have three recommendations for the committee today. The first recommendation is to stop investing public money in fossil fuels. The Budget 2027 consultation paper highlights LNG as an economic driver and a priority for public money. This is a risky political choice, given what that investment is costing the public in climate damages, human health impacts and higher energy bills.

I understand that this government is looking for revenue. But to put things in perspective, the projected revenue from LNG Canada phase 1 is estimated at $1 billion this year. That’s what B.C. spent fighting the wildfires in 2023.

This revenue is not going to support critical services like health care and education. It is paying for climate disasters. LNG, which is a fossil fuel, is adding more fuel to the fire.

[1:00 p.m.]

Climate damages are already costing BC an estimated $17 billion a year. To give an example of how climate change is costing everyday people, my basement has been gutted after it flooded in 2020, thanks to climate change. We now have to fight for insurance every year, and our insurance costs have gone up.

Climate damages are already costing B.C. an estimated $17 billion a year. To give an example of how climate change is costing everyday people, my basement has been gutted after it flooded in 2020 thanks to climate change. We now have to fight for insurance every year, and our insurance costs have gone up. We’ve been quoted half a million dollars to rebuild.

Climate change is expensive. It’s really expensive, and it is costing people now.

Meanwhile, the province is planning to build a $6 billion North Coast transmission line, largely to power LNG export projects, a cost that will be borne by B.C. taxpayers and ratepayers and not the fossil fuel companies. If all of the approved LNG projects proceed, B.C.’s greenhouse gas emissions will increase by 20 megatonnes, which is equivalent to one-third of our entire provincial emissions, making it impossible to meet our own legislated climate targets.

This is not a climate argument alone. It is a question of fiscal responsibility. B.C. is second only to Alberta in fossil fuel subsidies nationally. Why is B.C. using public money to prop up these risky LNG export projects, while the LNG industry profits? Ending fossil fuel subsidies and requiring polluters to pay fair industrial carbon pricing would prevent us from locking British Columbians into decades of stranded asset risk for a volatile global LNG market whose long-term viability is genuinely in doubt.

Last year, the International Court of Justice ruled that governments are legally obligated to curb emissions — Canada recently affirmed that in a vote through the United Nations — and that governments may be legally required to make reparations when they don’t. So B.C.’s continued LNG expansion is not just a climate risk. It is an emerging legal and financial liability.

The second recommendation is to invest in climate solutions that make life better for British Columbians. The budget consultation paper asks: what actions can government take to make life better? How can we build a prosperous, thriving and resilient British Columbia together?

Here’s the good news. We already have proof that investing in climate solutions — such as renewable energy, public transit, ecosystem restoration and heat pumps — works. We know that these kinds of investments reduce energy costs for everyday people, create thousands of jobs and improve quality of life. It also helps to reduce household energy bills and helps communities to become more resilient to climate damages. Installing heat pumps in people’s homes reduces energy costs while also protecting vulnerable people from extreme heat in summer.

Former World Bank Chief Economist Nicholas Stern recommends that governments should spend 2 percent of GDP on climate mitigation efforts every year. For B.C., that translates to about $9 billion a year. We need you to invest in British Columbians, and we need to ensure that public dollars deliver public benefits.

My third recommendation is more of a question: how can we finance climate solutions? It is by making polluters pay. I understand the fiscal pressures this committee is navigating, but there are revenue tools available that don’t transfer the costs to working families. If we can reform industrial carbon pricing and increase resource royalties, that will allow us to return fair value to British Columbians for our shared public assets. And none of these measures result in income taxes on working British Columbians.

We have an incredible opportunity to invest in B.C. and implement transformative policies that improve affordability, reduce pollution and create tens of thousands of jobs. I ask all of you to please be a climate leader.

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

Could you, since we have a bit of time, elaborate a little more on the different solutions that you can propose?

Tracey Saxby: Yeah. B.C. has already shown or demonstrated success with heat pump rebates. Even if you look at the e-bike rebate, that was so massively oversubscribed. And it is a very cheap and affordable way to encourage people to switch how they get around from a vehicle to an e-bike. So heat pump rebates, electric bike rebates…. I mean, we’d love to see more renewable energy encouraged and just really trying to focus on supporting British Columbians to implement those climate solutions.

[1:05 p.m.]

And that will ultimately save revenue. For example, if we have renewable energy on people’s homes, we are going to be able to generate more revenue but also support the communities when there are climate damages. So for example, if there’s an extreme

will ultimately save revenue.

For example, if we have renewable energy on people’s homes, we are going to be able to generate more revenue but also support the communities when there are climate damages. For example, if there’s an extreme storm that wipes out transmission lines between communities, if we invest in or support people to put solar panels on their homes with battery storage, that allows communities to support each other and to be independent when those kind of harms occur from climate change. And we know that those harms are occurring more frequently.

So there are lots of different solutions, and I do encourage the committee to read this report because we’ve outlined a lot of them here.

Investing in ecosystem restoration, for example, also minimizes the risk of climate harms significantly. There’s a study that shows that investing in ecosystem restoration, for every $1 invested, saves $7 to $10, by creating jobs, securing drinking water, rebuilding biodiversity and, again, mitigating climate disasters.

There’s a real benefit to investing in climate solutions. That’s one of the reasons that we’re asking for B.C. to consider investing $9 billion in this next fiscal year in mitigating climate change and supporting people to invest in the solutions that we know we need to see and that will help to enable B.C. to meet its climate targets.

As I mentioned before, that is also a risk that we need to avoid because, with that International Court of Justice ruling, it is highly likely that if B.C. continues to invest in fossil fuels, it will be targeted by other countries for reparations, and that is going to be extremely expensive. That is a fiscal-responsibility issue that this committee needs to be aware of.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you very much for that additional information, and thank you for presenting to us today.

Tracey Saxby: Thank you so much. Any other questions?

Paul Choi (Chair): No, not at this point. Thank you.

Tracey Saxby: Okay. Thank you so much for your time today, and thank you again for hearing from the public.

Paul Choi (Chair): Okay, moving on to our next presenter. We have Stephen Rayner from Clean Energy B.C.

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

Clean Energy B.C.

Stephen Rayner: Thank you very much. Good afternoon, members of the committee. It’s a pleasure to join you. [An Indigenous language was spoken.] My name is Stephen Rayner. I’m the interim executive director of the Clean Energy Association of British Columbia and an elected councillor for the Huu-ay-aht First Nation.

For over 30 years, CEBC has been the leading voice for B.C.’s clean energy sector, representing more than 200 members, including renewable energy developers, First Nations, technical experts and post-secondary institutions.

We thank you for your continued service and recognize the complex fiscal environment the province is navigating. As B.C. advances its Look West strategy to insulate our economy from global trade shocks and build long-term economic security, clean power remains our competitive advantage and is foundational, enabling infrastructure for new projects across the sector, from mining manufacturing to LNG.

I’ll jump into my first recommendation. Our first recommendation is a continued commitment to implementing regular calls for power every two years under the clean power action plan, paired with a clear, proactive signal to a long-term renewable procurement roadmap.

The success of the 2024 and 2025 calls for power proved that industry and First Nations are ready to deliver billions in clean energy investment into our grid, communities and economy. The 2024 call unlocked about $6 billion in private investment, with roughly half representing local First Nations equity. The 2025 call represents over $4 billion more, with a similar amount of local, B.C. ownership.

These procurements don’t only drive investment, revenues and community benefits. They also bolster affordability, with clean energy coming in at prices 40 percent lower than a decade ago. However, these capital-intensive renewable assets, like wind and solar storage, require multi-year horizons for engineering, environmental monitoring and community engagement.

[1:10 p.m.]

To meet the Look West goal of accelerating major projects and securing $200 billion in investment by 2035 as well as the federal government’s new goal to double the grid by 2050 under the Powering Canada Strong strategy, the clean energy sector needs a formal B.C. renewable roadmap. The roadmap should proactively signal the timing, regional focus and a range of

investment by 2035, as well as the federal government’s new goal to double the grid by 2050 under the powering Canada strong strategy.

The clean energy sector needs a formal B.C. renewable roadmap. The roadmap should proactively signal the timing, regional focus and a range of capacity of future procurements. This would not be a hard commitment by the province but, rather, an informed estimate that can be revised through integrated resource plans, to ensure decision-makers are equipped with up-to-date analysis on rapidly growing demand and how we plan to meet it.

A roadmap would provide major multinational manufacturers and proponents, both First Nations and industry, a line of sight that helps avoid boom-or-bust cycles. It would also help provide runway for meaningful partnerships to form, supply chains to be optimized and financing to be unlocked early. All these will benefit and drive down costs for B.C. Hydro’s ratepayers.

Our second recommendation is to expand the First Nations equity financing framework and prioritize clean energy projects for early guaranteed access. B.C. has pioneered a model where economic reconciliation drives major project delivery. B.C. Hydro’s recent calls require a minimum of 25 percent Indigenous equity stake, but we’ve shattered that, the floor of this, twice, with the 2024 and 2025 calls achieving 49 to 51 percent First Nations ownership. This represents billions of dollars in equity directly benefiting Indigenous and local communities.

While FNEFF is designed to support multisectors, clean energy projects operate on rigid competitive utility deadlines. If a First Nation cannot secure a loan guarantee before a B.C. Hydro RFP closes, the project fails. Prioritizing clean energy for early guaranteed access ensures nations have the financial backing they need to lead B.C.’s energy transition, advancing reconciliation and economic strength.

Our final recommendation is to ensure clean energy and transmission projects are exempt from the expanding tax measures, especially the Budget 2026 expansion of the provincial sales tax. So, effective October 1, 2026, there’s a 7 percent PST applied to 30 percent of the cost of professional services, including engineering and geoscience. So expanding that input directly inflates the development costs, creating some unnecessary headwinds.

I apologize for cutting into the question time. I tried to get through as much as I could there.

Paul Choi (Chair): No problem. Thank you so much for your presentation.

We will go to questions by members, starting with MLA Toporowski.

Debra Toporowski / Qwulti’stunaat: Thank you, Stephen. Deborah Toporowski here. My traditional name is Qwulti’stunaat. I’m from Cowichan. Thank you for your presentation.

I just wanted to ask if you could elaborate on the extra barriers that First Nations face when starting a project. Because we have extra layers, I’ve got to say.

Stephen Rayner: Thank you. I really appreciate the question.

I think they vary. I would say there is a lot of synergy in and amongst, but I will put a caveat there that all First Nations are different but, in that, definitely looking at internal capacity and potentially procuring financing.

These exterior or professional reliance models to be able to advance these types of capital infrastructure projects are critical. I can reference to, say, the expansion of the task that would have direct effect on First Nations being able to advance the projects.

I apologize. I got a little bit off track.

But, really, I think expansion of internal capacity. I think there could be individually some policy and legislative supports to help develop a clear policy that would help execute larger-scale or capital projects for nations. I only use that as a reference from my nation being a treaty nation. I actually sit on the law and policy and run that for the nation. And looking at clear paths to investment, knowing that our legislation facilitates that.

I hope I was able to answer your question.

Debra Toporowski / Qwulti’stunaat: Nope, that’s great. Thank you.

Stephen Rayner: No problem. Okay.

[1:15 p.m.]

Donegal Wilson: On your last one, the PST impacts for your projects. Can you give me a rough number on a project, just so that we can figure out what that 7 percent is actually impacting?

Stephen Rayner: It would be tough for me just shooting from…. I apologize, but for specific, say, geoscience or geotechnical

Can you give me a rough number on a project just so that we can figure out what that 7 percent is actually impacting?

Stephen Rayner: It would be tough for me, just shooting from…. I apologize. But for specific, say, geoscience or geotechnical, they would vary largely, depending on the area and so what type of topography we may be developing in.

I apologize. I won’t be able to give you, right now, a direct number. I can definitely get you some estimates of approximately what type of cost that would expand.

Definitely, this is the type of thing that would be passed down the line to the ratepayers — so looking at trying to mitigate some of those upfront costs, especially with the amount of money that needs to be put out up front to be able to move the project initially.

I’m sorry for rambling. I wasn’t able to….

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): No, that’s fine. It was a very detailed question. I wasn’t positive you’d be able to have that at your fingertips, so that’s fine.

Going on to your No. 2 recommendation. You’re talking about backing the loans for the First Nations portion to allow them to participate effectively in the call for power. Do you have a number that Clean Energy B.C. is looking for to be in that fund for backing? Just wondering what the actual budget ask might be for that.

Stephen Rayner: I think just more prioritizing. With the really short lead time coming into projects, it’s hard to…. If we don’t have a short lead time to be able to, or are further up in the queue of being able to procure that financing…. The RFP windows are very short. It’s very tough, where other sectors, and absolutely supporting…. They may have varying lead times that allow them, for a longer time, to procure loans and that.

It’s more of looking at being able to move these clean energy projects up in the queue and not to put any other industry to the side, knowing that this is foundational for most of the sectors that we would be financing beyond.

Just trying to accommodate the short lead times, making sure that we would be able to procure financing and it wouldn’t hinder the project.

Bryan Tepper: Hi Stephen. Bryan Tepper here. I always like talking to you. I always learn something, generally. Too bad you weren’t at the last meeting with our Conservative caucus.

Quickly, because we’re out of time, do you have capacity for more projects than is currently being performed under Clean Energy B.C?

Stephen Rayner: Are you talking for these Clean Energy B.C. to help support industry, or are you looking at the overall amount of projects that were procured in the last call?

Bryan Tepper: Overall — your second part there.

Stephen Rayner: What I’ll say is the sector was prepared for approximately the same amount of power requested in the 2024 call for power. We were a little bit less, by about 1,500, for the second call.

I would say that there were several projects that were ready. There were definitely some projects in the pipeline that were ready and just weren’t selected for this call.

We do really appreciate B.C. Hydro’s second 2025 call for power, and we’re looking forward to the 2028.

Bryan Tepper: You know I’m a big supporter. Hopefully, next time you’ve got the Clean Energy down here, you’ll be here, and we can get together.

Stephen Rayner: That would be amazing.

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

Stephen Rayner: I really appreciate the time. Thank you so much, committee.

Paul Choi (Chair): We will be moving on to our next presenter. We have James McLean from the Canadian Centre to End Human Trafficking.

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

Canadian Centre to
End Human Trafficking

James McLean: Thank you, Chair, and members of the committee, for the opportunity to appear before you today. My name is James McLean, and I am the director of research and policy at the Canadian Centre to End Human Trafficking.

We are a national charity dedicated to ending all forms of human trafficking in Canada. Our work brings together governments, businesses, front-line service providers and leaders with lived experience to strengthen Canada’s response human trafficking and improve outcomes for victims and survivors.

[1:20 p.m.]

In May 2019, we launched the Canadian human trafficking hotline, which is a confidential, multilingual, 24-7 service that connects victims and survivors with social services, emergency supports and law enforcement, if they

to strengthen Canada’s response to human trafficking and improve outcomes for victims and survivors.

In May 2019, we launched the Canadian human trafficking hotline, which is a confidential, multilingual, 24-7 service that connects victims and survivors with social services, emergency supports and law enforcement, if they choose. Every day our staff assist individuals who are experiencing or at risk of trafficking, help survivors navigate complex systems and support communities responding to trafficking cases. This work provides us with a unique national perspective on emerging trends, systemic challenges and opportunities for action.

Many British Columbians are surprised to learn that human trafficking occurs in communities across the province, yet the data tell a different story. Between 2019 and 2024, our hotline received nearly 23,000 calls, identified more than 2,000 human trafficking cases and recognized over 3,100 victims and survivors across Canada. British Columbia consistently ranks among the provinces with the highest number of cases identified through our hotline.

Importantly, these figures represent only the cases that come to our attention. Human trafficking remains significantly under-reported, meaning the true scale of exploitation is almost certainly much greater. We know that traffickers are highly adaptive. They move victims across municipal, provincial and territorial boundaries to evade detection and exploit gaps in services and enforcement. As governments strengthen their responses, traffickers adjust their methods.

Before discussing our recommendation, I want to acknowledge a positive step taken by the government of British Columbia. Last summer the province invested in expanding its dedicated human trafficking policing capacity. This investment demonstrates leadership and strengthens the ability of law enforcement to investigate trafficking offences and hold offenders accountable.

However, while this investment is important, it addresses only one part of the problem. Human trafficking cannot be arrested out of existence. By the time law enforcement becomes involved, significant harm has already occurred. A lasting response requires coordinated efforts to prevent trafficking, identify victims, provide specialized support and reduce the vulnerabilities that traffickers exploit.

Human trafficking is not solely a criminal justice issue. It is also a housing issue, a health issue, a child welfare issue, a labour issue, an immigration issue and a gender-based violence issue. Survivors often require access to housing, mental health and addiction supports, health care, legal assistance, education, employment services and long-term recovery supports.

Preventing trafficking likewise requires addressing vulnerabilities before exploitation occurs. For that reason, investment in enforcement, while important, must be accompanied by a broader strategy that coordinates prevention, protection, prosecution and partnership efforts across the government and community sectors.

British Columbia once had a dedicated anti-human-trafficking strategy. Since its expiry in 2016, anti-human-trafficking efforts have largely been incorporated into broader gender-based violence initiatives. As a result, British Columbia has now been without a dedicated anti-trafficking strategy for nearly a decade.

To be clear, we strongly support efforts to combat gender-based violence in all its forms. However, human trafficking presents unique challenges that require a targeted and coordinated approach. A framework designed primarily around gender-based violence cannot fully address issues such as labour trafficking, cross-jurisdictional victim movement, specialized survivor services and the complex investigative needs.

The absence of a dedicated strategy has left anti-human-trafficking efforts fragmented across ministries, sectors and communities. While important work is being done by many organizations, there is no overarching framework to establish priorities, coordinate investments, measure outcomes or ensure accountability. In practice, this means opportunities to prevent trafficking, support survivors and disrupt offenders may be missed.

We’re calling for a dedicated strategy to support the creation of the survivor advisory table, dedicated provincial leadership on human trafficking, expanded public awareness initiatives, enhanced training for front-line professionals, specialized supports for both sex and labour trafficking survivors, and increased capacity within the justice system.

Human trafficking is one of the most serious forms of exploitation occurring in our communities today. Addressing it effectively requires more than isolated initiatives. It requires sustained leadership, dedicated resources and a clear plan.

[1:25 p.m.]

Nearly ten years have passed since British Columbia’s dedicated strategy expired. During that time, traffickers have continued to adapt, survivors have continued to require specialized supports, and front-line organizations have continued to carry much of the burden. The need for a coordinated provincial strategy has not diminished. It has become more urgent.

Thank you for your time and consideration. I look forward to your questions.

dedicated strategy expired. During that time, traffickers have continued to adapt, survivors have continued to require specialized supports, and front-line organizations have continued to carry much of the burden. The need for a coordinated provincial strategy has not diminished; it has become more urgent.

Thank you for your time and consideration. I look forward to your questions.

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

We’ll move to questions by members.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): I appreciate the presentation.

You’ve referenced that B.C. has a large number of the cases that are coming through the hotline. I’m wondering. You were talking about the strategy. Is there a province that does have a strategy in place that is working well, that we should be looking to? If so, what is their investment?

James McLean: Both Ontario and Alberta are the only provinces in Canada that currently have dedicated active human trafficking strategies. I believe Ontario has allocated about $335 million over five years. What this does is, essentially, it mobilizes all arms of government to address this issue.

When we look at a per capita, we believe that if B.C. were to invest a minimum of $24 million annually into a dedicated strategy, it would put them on a similar per-capita plane as Ontario.

Rohini Arora: Thanks so much for your presentation.

I’m curious about the survivor advisory table. Was that something that was stood up when there was a strategy? Or is this an addition that you feel is necessary in today’s changing landscape and, also, the ways that victims and survivors are targeted?

James McLean: We believe that lived experience has to be at the heart of all of the policy work that happens around human trafficking. They’re the experts, at the end of the day. So one of the best practices that we’ve seen at the federal level and in Alberta and Ontario is the creation of an advisory committee made up of folks, of survivors, to inform government policy, look at programs and legislation and provide advice to, in this case, the government of British Columbia.

We think that would be a critical insight to informing policy.

Bryan Tepper: I could talk about this all day with the different levels of everything going on. But when we look at trafficking in B.C…. I know we have a large percentage of the labour trafficking that goes on, and I think people see that and don’t see it as human trafficking a lot of the time. But then we end up layer upon layer, if I am correct on this…. I will let you comment on what I say after the fact here. We are layering on, and a lot of this has now spilled over to other crimes that we come in with the extortion crisis in Surrey and whatnot.

The incredible, important work that gets done by the human trafficking group does, in my opinion, stop downstream crime in other aspects of our lives as well.

But if you could comment on the, I guess, cascading effects that we have. Do you have any comment on that?

James McLean: Yeah, absolutely. I think, like a lot of crime that we see, it stems out of socioeconomic challenges. A lot of the people who are most vulnerable are folks that come from broken homes, addiction and crime themselves. I think you’re right. This is an issue that touches many different areas.

I appreciate you talking a little bit about labour trafficking. That is an area that is not well addressed anywhere in the country, and it’s happening here in our country, and it’s impacting our most vulnerable as well. Temporary foreign workers, international students, those without status — they’re flying under the radar. Any strategy that B.C. comes up with, we would really encourage you to include that in it as well.

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

Having been a police officer in the past with MLA Tepper as well, we know human trafficking investigation can be very complicated. It can be a big spider web and very elusive. So I understand the need for dedicated focus there as well.

Thank you for taking the time to present to us.

[1:30 p.m.]

Rohini Arora: Thank you for bringing up labour trafficking. It is a serious concern. I think part of what many in the province may not understand is that…. What happens is postings are posted online. People come from.

Rohini Arora: Thank you for bringing up labour trafficking. It is a serious concern.

I think part of what many in the province may not understand is that.… What happens is that postings are posted online. People come from other countries, often. They’re offered an LMIA, and through that, once they get here, their passport and all of their belongings are taken from them, and what started out as a job actually does become sex trafficking. That is the actual goal, but it’s through, obviously, job opportunities.

We’ve seen an increase, in the Lower Mainland as well, especially with international students who, because of the stigma, refuse to tell their parents what’s going on because it would be a loss of the family honour. So I really appreciate you bringing it up. Thank you.

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

We will move on to our next presenter. We have Emiko Newman from the B.C. climate emergency campaign. Thank you for joining us today. You have five minutes for your presentation, five minutes for questions after, and you can begin when you’re ready.

B.C. Climate Emergency Campaign

Emiko Newman: Good afternoon. Thank you so much for having me. I’m speaking today on behalf of the B.C. climate emergency campaign, which is a group of civil society organizations, whose call for a renewed B.C. climate emergency plan has been endorsed by over 650 diverse organizations throughout B.C.

I recognize that the B.C. government finds itself facing substantial fiscal challenges right now, alongside an ongoing climate crisis. B.C. is going to be hit hard this summer, with extreme heat and wildfires in particular. So as the government determines its future spending, it is imperative that it helps the province adapt to our changing climate while also mitigating future impacts.

Our first recommendation along these lines relates to transportation, which is the largest source of emissions in B.C. The province should invest in public transit that is accessible and affordable, not only because this will help reduce our pollution and therefore also reduce the burden on an already overstretched health care system, but it also makes for a stronger province by helping people access education, health care and employment.

Accessible and affordable public transit means service that is frequent, reliable and speedy. It means sufficient service, reaching both urban and rural communities, that people can access without having to worry how much money is in their bank account.

The funding to pay for these improvements could come from funds that are currently allocated to highway expansion. Last year there was $9 billion put on the budget in highway expansion projects, spanning multiple years. These are funds that, if they went ahead, would only end up worsening gridlock and putting more pollution into the atmosphere.

Given the war in Iran in particular, this is the moment to be providing alternatives to fossil fuel–based transportation. Gas prices are skyrocketing, and driving is becoming exorbitantly expensive. So public transit is all the more important, and ambitious investments in this area are going to relieve pressure on roads and highways so that less maintenance is required. That will free up even more revenue for future transit improvements.

Now, last year I presented on the need to implement a national Youth Climate Corps, which is a jobs training program that would employ thousands of young people in well-paying green jobs. Last year that program was theoretical, but since then $40 million in funding for a national YCC was included in the federal Budget 2025. So this initiative is now much more concrete. As this is a national pilot project, various amounts will be allocated to each province or territory, and the federal government has signalled that they’re interested in provincial cost matches.

Our second recommendation is, therefore, for B.C. to put $4 million annually on the table for a YCC, inviting the federal government to cost-match this funding. We know that young people need jobs and are struggling to find employment. Meanwhile, we need to be training up more skilled labour, who can support the province with increasing our resilience to coming disasters. The YCC would do all of that and more. As the budget consultation document reads, the federal government considers B.C. a serious partner in building Canada’s new economy. This is the perfect way to do that.

[1:35 p.m.]

Our final recommendation is to seek additional revenue sources. This is the moment when B.C. should be taxing the windfall profits from the oil and gas industry. Again, due to the war in Iran, the oil industry in Canada has been raking in billions. Every single hour they are collecting another $10 million.

Research from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and the Centre for Future Work notes that if oil prices remain at their current levels for the next 12 months, the Canadian oil industry is on track to make $90 billion in profits

in billions. Every single hour, they are collecting another $10 million.

Research from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and the Centre for Future Work notes that if oil prices remain at their current levels for the next 12 months, the Canadian oil industry is on track to make $90 billion in profits, which is $60 billion more than it would have earned without the war. These are pretty appalling numbers.

The federal government implemented a 15 percent tax on excess profits on the financial sector during the pandemic. Applied to the oil industry today, that tax could generate $9 billion over the next year. These are federal statistics but there’s no reason why the provincial government could not implement a similar tax.

To recap, we are calling on the B.C. government to (1) invest in affordable public transit services to benefit British Columbians across the entire province, (2) to support the national Youth Climate Corps program, and (3) to seek new revenue sources by taxing the oil and gas industry to put guardrails on their excess profits.

Thank you very much, and I welcome any questions.

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

We will now turn to questions by members.

Bryan Tepper: You talk about extra taxes on oil and gas but I’m looking and Alberta forecasted a $9 billion deficit. Now they’re, because of the increase in oil prices, I think at a surplus at this point. If a province is bringing in that kind of money off of this, do we tax it and risk that the development doesn’t happen here, in this province, then so that we can benefit as Alberta has?

Emiko Newman: Well, I think I’m coming from the climate perspective. So, of course, what I’m going to say is that we need to be taxing the big polluters because the oil and gas industry…. They are the ones who are causing this problem of climate change. And so my argument is always going to be that we need to be taxing.

As I mentioned in my presentation, the amount of profits that they are making are unbelievable right now. This is not a 100 percent tax. Even 15 percent, as I said, could bring in $9 billion, and that is not very significant when you look at the whole picture of what they’re bringing in right now.

Bryan Tepper: Okay, yeah. So you’re using the tax more as a disincentive to development in the province then?

Emiko Newman: I mean, yes, I’m not going to be suggesting that we incentivize oil and gas development in B.C. I think that we know that we need to be moving in the direction of renewable energy at this time.

Bryan Tepper: No, fair enough, fair enough. I just wanted to get what the…. I was looking at it from the revenue side of this.

And, of course, we’ve just heard from Clean Energy B.C. and we love what they’re doing. So thank you very much.

Emiko Newman: Yeah, thank you for your question.

Rohini Arora: I just want to say it’s awesome to see you stand ten toes down on what you believe in, regardless. And I think MLA Tepper is coming from, you know, the place of someone within government thinking about revenues into the future. But I really do respect where you come from.

I wanted to ask you about the $90 billion and $60 billion. You talked about these numbers like they’re going to be making $60 billion more, and a 15 percent tax could generate $9 billion in the next year. Are you talking about gross or are you talking about net profit when you use these numbers?

Emiko Newman: To be honest, I would have to go double-check back from the report that I got that number from. I got the research from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and the Centre for Future Work. So that’s a good question. I’ll have to go back and check that.

Rohini Arora: I think it’s an important one for us to know in general.

Emiko Newman: Yes. Thank you, MLA Arora.

Rohini Arora: Thanks so much.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): I just would like some clarification on whether the tax that you want to put on oil and gas…. Is that on their income tax or is it…? Are you looking at the pumps, to have it like a consumer tax?

Emiko Newman: I am not advocating for a consumer tax. We know that they have been already cancelled federally and provincially, and this is not a popular policy. So I’m not advocating for a consumer carbon tax or anything of that sort. This would be an industrial tax and particularly focused on windfall profits that are being brought in right now because of the war that’s happening.

[1:40 p.m.]

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): Thank you for the clarification.

Emiko Newman: So again, we’re not trying to put pressure on the consumers. We’re trying to put pressure on the oil and gas producers.

Bryan Tepper: Yeah, sorry.

focused on windfall profits that are being brought in right now because of the war that’s happening.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): Thank you for the clarification.

Emiko Newman: Again, we’re not trying to put pressure on the consumers. We’re trying to put pressure on the oil and gas producers.

Bryan Tepper: Thank you for clarifying windfall tax on that as well. So that adds clarification to this.

Emiko Newman: Yeah, of course. This is an abnormal period in which they are making so much more than they would normally. So it feels inappropriate to let them just simply get away with that.

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

Emiko Newman: Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Have a good rest of the day.

Paul Choi (Chair): You too.

We will take a recess at this point.

The committee recessed at 1:40 p.m.

The committee resumed at 1:56 p.m.

[Paul Choi in the chair.]

Paul Choi (Chair): Okay. We’re back. I’ll call the committee back to order, and we will go to our next presenter.

We have Pat Mirenda from B.C. Disability Cooperative.

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

B.C. Disability Collaborative

Pat Mirenda: Thank you very much.

Hon. Chair and members of the committee, thank you for your time today. My name is Pat Mirenda, and I’m here as the chair of the B.C. Disability Collaborative, the BCDC, a group of 20 provincial organizations with experience supporting tens of thousands of disabled children, youth and adults. Today I’ll be presenting three recommendations related to the needs of this population of B.C. citizens and their families.

One, additional disability funding is needed for the ministries of Education and Child Care and Children and Family Development. Many disabled children and youth continue to be excluded from early intervention supports, child care and school because of budget shortfalls.

In a 2024 report entitled Too Many Left Behind, the Office of the Representative for Children and Youth estimated that at least 100,000 children and youth under the age of 18 in B.C. have a disability or support need.

Two years later, many disabled children and youth continue to be excluded from child care settings and/or schools because of shortages of staff with sufficient expertise. In addition, despite an allotment of an additional $475 million over three years in the MCFD budget for 2026, many disabled children and youth will still not receive much needed out-of-school supports.

They include autistic individuals without intellectual disability, many children and youth with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and most individuals with sensory impairments, among others. They also include disabled children and youth who require short-term intensive supports to resolve challenges that if left unresolved will end up costing the system much more in the long run.

It is critical to provide adequate funding so that supports can be made available in a timely manner rather than waiting until problems escalate and place children, youth and their families at risk.

Two, additional funding to the Ministry of Post-Secondary Education and Future Skills is required to support workforce recruitment, training and retention of professionals who provide supports to disabled children, youth and adults.

[2:00 p.m.]

In a 2023 survey by the Office of the RCY, the top out-of-school priority identified by families of disabled children and youth under age 12 was access to speech-language, occupational and physiotherapists; behaviour analysts; sign language interpreters; and deafblind interveners. These professionals are in high demand but in short supply.

In a 2024 report from the Office of the RCY,

to speech-language, occupational and physiotherapists, behaviour analysts, sign language interpreters and deafblind interveners. These professionals are in high demand, but in short supply.

In a 2024 report from the Office of the RCY, 77 percent of B.C. social workers said that they did not have timely access to the necessary range of community support resources to effectively meet the needs of children, youth and families on their caseloads. A substantial allocation of funding for additional faculty at B.C. colleges and universities is required to enable the admission of additional applicants to programs that prepare for professionals in key resource occupations.

Three. Our final recommendation is to provide increased funding through the Ministry of Health for neurodiversity-informed counselling and other mental health supports. In the 2023 RCY survey, the top out-of-school priority identified by families of children and youth between the ages of 13 to 18 was mental health counselling supports. In addition, mental health supports for caregivers and family members was identified as a top priority across the age range from zero to 18.

Such supports must be provided by professionals who understand disability and are able to deliver disability-competent, neurodiversity-affirming treatments. Unfortunately, none of the publicly funded mental health supports in B.C. currently meet this standard.

Thank you very much for considering these recommendations.

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

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

For your first one — and I know that I get quite a few letters to my office, as well, about the need for increased funding for disability — do you have what they are currently getting, and do you have a number that you hope that we will get to?

Pat Mirenda: It’s very difficult, honestly, to use publicly available resources to understand the current budget. My understanding informally is that with the $475 million increase, the total budget over the next three years will be around $1.1 billion.

Now, I know that sounds like a lot of money, and it is. We’re very grateful for the additional $475 million. But the fact is that there’s been such a long history of underfunding for this population that even that amount of additional funding doesn’t begin to catch up. The current plan is to provide supports only to individuals with very severe, very significant disability. But the problem with that approach is that children who may appear to have less severe disability are still at risk. If they don’t get a minimum amount of support when they’re young, they’re going to end up costing the system much more as they get older.

I can’t give you a number. I’m sorry about that. But we do know that the budget shortfall will continue even with the recent infusion of funds.

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

Rohini Arora: Hi, Pat. Thank you so much for your presentation. It hits a personal chord with me. I am someone with ADHD myself and grew up in a school system where there was a lack of supports. I recognize that you’ve said this, that $475 million net new dollars is an important investment. In one of the areas, I think I heard you say…. Maybe it was recommendation 2 where you talked about the RCY’s report focusing on counselling needs. But you also talked about neurodiversity-based counselling supports.

I’m curious if you know about the cost. Some social workers, for example, can do EMDR — eye movement desensitization and reprocessing. There’s EFT. There are other therapies that are really important for people who are neurodiverse. So I’m wondering. Do you know what the costs are associated with that type of counselling?

[2:05 p.m.]

Obviously it’s specialized care, but I’m just curious if you know the cost per visit or if there’s some type of average.

Pat Mirenda: That’s a great question. Thank you for asking it. I don’t know that there are specialized therapeutic techniques that are necessary. What’s necessary

I wonder if it’s…. Obviously, it’s specialized care, but I’m just curious if you know the cost per visit or if there’s some type of average.

Pat Mirenda: That’s a great question. Thank you for asking it. I don’t know that there are specialized therapeutic techniques that are necessary. What’s necessary are counsellors and mental health professionals who have an understanding of neurodiversity-affirming adaptations and supports and accommodations.

Much as we now talk about the importance of trauma-informed care, for example, this is really neurodiversity-informed care. We’re not talking about new therapies that are more expensive. We’re talking about the current therapies, many of which can be very effective for people who are neurodivergent, being delivered by counsellors and mental health professionals who have background in neurodiversity and neurodivergence.

There will be, as you undoubtedly know, some adaptations required for folks with autism, folks with ADHD, folks with Down syndrome, folks with other kinds of neurodivergence. So it’s not new therapy so much as an orientation toward neurodiversity for people who are already delivering those therapies. And that goes back to the importance of post-secondary and future skills training that includes neurodiversity-affirming approaches.

Rohini Arora: Yeah, as a follow-up, I know that it depends on the level of functioning. For example, I’m obviously high functioning. There are many others that are high functioning as well. Part of the supports that are sometimes needed are specialized care, especially with cultural nuances.

That’s why when I think about the population in this province of children, they’re all colours of the crayon box, with different cultural experiences as well. So I find language-based can be also important and just recognition of what type of pressures may exist within the cultural component of their communities. I think that’s an area that I’m really interested in myself.

I was curious if you just had any insight to not necessarily new therapies. These are modalities that have, I guess, existed but are more known about now. For me, I found EMDR very helpful — desensitization, even around sensory, because you talked about sensory issues as well. So, yeah, that was sort of the area I was most interested in, if you had any extra information about that.

Pat Mirenda: Yeah, I mean, there certainly is a growing research base — I speak as a researcher now — around the effectiveness of some of the older therapies and some of the more modern ones, if you will, for folks who are neurodivergent.

And, of course, you’re quite correct that culture plays a role here, language plays a role, indigeneity plays a role. All of these various identities feed into the importance of broadly available mental health supports that are not only geared toward folks like me, neurotypical white people who speak English fluently, but much broader. That is really lacking in the province at this point for many families.

Rohini Arora: Thank you, Pat. I really appreciate your insight.

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

Pat Mirenda: Thank you very much. I appreciate your time.

Paul Choi (Chair): We’ll go to our next presenter. We have Michael McKnight from United Way B.C.

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

United Way B.C.

Michael McKnight: Thank you so much. Thank you for the opportunity to join you this afternoon.

First of all, I want to recognize that we’re all working in challenging financial times, a challenging financial environment. We at United Way know that government is always looked at as the place for everybody to come to, to solve financial challenges. So given the situation, I thought I’d maybe approach this topic from a slightly different perspective today.

United Way thinks we all in British Columbia have a responsibility to ensure that everyone lives in a healthy, caring and inclusive community. That includes not only government but individual British Columbians and the corporate community.

[2:10 p.m.]

That said, there will always be areas in which government has a certain level of responsibility, obviously including things like health care and education. From United Way’s point of view, a couple of other ones that I can speak to from our experience as an organization are around food security and around emergency response when people are evacuated from their

has a certain level of responsibility, obviously including things like health care and education. From United Way’s point of view, a couple of other ones that I can speak to, from our experience as an organization, are around food security and around emergency response when people are evacuated from their homes due to fire and floods, as specific past examples.

But I thought I had to approach it a little differently today. Instead of saying it’s government’s responsibility to provide financial assistance to individuals during those times, I want to suggest that every part of our province needs to step up. We have experience at the United Way that when people are hungry and/or when they’re evacuated from their homes, the business community and individual British Columbians do step up and help when needed.

So what I’m going to suggest is that, given the financial challenges that we’re all facing today, maybe it’s time to look at how we support British Columbians in a different way and that government can come to the table with resources that can be used to match contributions from the corporate community and from individual British Columbians. We have a precedent of that already. The government for many years, I believe, has supported a matching program for the Red Cross during emergency situations. And while I don’t necessarily have access to those numbers, I know — or I’ve heard — that that has been a successful strategy.

I know, as a CEO of one of two charities for more than 30 years now, that matching funds of resources often motivates donors to step up, because they’re able to see their contributions expanded to a larger amount of money and therefore have a greater impact.

We have both experience in supporting vulnerable British Columbians during times of need, using a formula of philanthropy, and I think, given the unique challenges that we’re facing right now, that maybe we could….

I’d like to propose, maybe, that pilot projects are established to help the charitable sector garner additional philanthropic support from British Columbians and British Columbia-based businesses by using a matching program that can be seeded from government grants, so that when grants are provided to not-for-profit organizations like United Way and others, one of the conditions of those grants is that they can match that money with funds from individuals or the corporate community.

I’ll leave it at that for any questions. It’s just a novel way, I think, to approach a difficult financial time. We know we have experience and precedent that would establish a path to do that. I believe that it’s a positive way that we can all step up and help our people in our province who are vulnerable — and maybe even more so at this point in time.

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

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much for the presentation. Just a quick clarifying question. You’re suggesting, rather than the charity getting the money and then going to government with a match through a granting, that instead the government comes first with the grant and that you’re then able to use it for the match?

But I mean, the overall program and proposal would be the same. It would just be a reverse ask on the funding. Or am I not catching that right?

Michael McKnight: No, you are catching that right. I think the benefit to government is…. Typically, at least in my 30-plus years of experience, we get a government grant. Those are the resources that we get to use. This would enable that money to be expanded to double or triple, depending on the strategy, so that more money is available to address issues like food security or emergency response and many other ones that British Columbians face today.

Paul Choi (Chair): Any other questions? Follow-up?

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): I come from a non-profit, so I’m digging into this a little deeper on the idea side. Right now, you’re doing calls for donations for a project. You’re waiting until you get into a certain threshold, then you’re applying to government for the rest of the needed money to do the project.

You’re suggesting instead that government be the first one to the table, then you’re able to do a campaign that says: “Government will match every dollar that you put into this program up to a maximum of, say, a number.”

Michael McKnight: Whatever it is.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): Then that would encourage them to be more prone to donate, knowing it’s going to be matched.

The other way, it is still matched. It’s just that they don’t necessarily know what it’s being matched with or for. Or it’s not guaranteed.

[2:15 p.m.]

Michael McKnight: I can say we haven’t had funds from…. We’ve had a fair number of grants from government over the years. None of it has been used to match money, because the government has specific criteria around what that money is going to be used for and that contract, that rationale — well, in my experience — hasn’t

with or for, or it’s not guaranteed.

Michael McKnight: I can say we haven’t had funds from…. We’ve had a fair number of grants from government over the years. None of it have been used to match money because the government has specific criteria around what that money is going to be used for, and that contract, that rationale — well, in my experience — hasn’t included additional money from investors outside of that government fund.

In the last number of years, we have received at our organization and distributed to food security-based organizations across the province a fair bit of money. I’m just using food security as an example. That money is not being continued, so we have a growing issue of British Columbians needing food. We have no new money coming in from government to support that work and less and less donors contributing financially. That’s been the case in North America for the last 30 plus years — fewer and fewer people give.

So we’re in kind of a unique situation where no government funds are being provided. Demand of food-based security programs is increasing, and donations are going down. This I’m using as, maybe, a unique example of how we might put money back into the system of food security, coming from three different areas: government, individual British Columbians and the corporate sector. That isn’t money that’s available at the moment.

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

Moving on to our next presenter. We have Heather Ritchie from Speech and Hearing B.C. Thanks for joining us today. You have five minutes for your presentation, five minutes for questions after. You can begin when you’re ready.

Speech and Hearing B.C.

Heather Ritchie: Thank you. Good afternoon, Members of the committee. Thank you so much for the opportunity to speak today.

My name is Heather Ritchie. I’m a practicing audiologist, president of Speech and Hearing B.C. and director of audiology at a non-profit hearing clinic in Burnaby.

Speech and Hearing B.C. represents more than 1,300 speech-language pathologists and audiologists across British Columbia. Our mission is to protect and improve access to speech-language and hearing services for children and families throughout our province.

British Columbia is currently undergoing the largest restructuring of children’s disability funding in more than 20 years. First, I wanted to acknowledge the government’s commitment of $475 million over 3 years too. It demonstrates a clear intention to improve access for children with disabilities, broaden eligibility and strengthen community-based supports and make the system easier to navigate for children and families. We welcome these goals. It is a meaningful step towards equity for children with disabilities beyond autism.

However, as this transition moves forward, Speech and Hearing B.C. has one key concern. We must ensure that children do not lose access to essential communication services during the transition. The shift from a diagnostic-based model to a needs-based model is a fundamental change.

Under the current system, many families receive individualized funding that allows them access to services that meet their child’s unique needs. Under the current model, children under 6 with autism have up to $22,000 per year, between 6 and 18 have about $6,000 per year, and it’s all individualized and family directed.

Under the new model, funding levels and eligibility will be determined through a different assessment process. While some families may benefit, others may receive significantly less support than they currently do — under the new model, between $6,500 or $17,000 per year, depending on the need as assessed. And only children who are deemed significant or complex needs will qualify for the higher amounts. Some children may receive no individualized funding at all.

For some families, this could mean thousands of dollars less per year in terms of therapy access, and this reduced access happens during critical stages of development. This matters because speech-language pathology and audiology services are foundational services, not supplementary care. These services help children to communicate, to learn, to build relationships, to participate in school and engage with their communities.

When access is interrupted during key developmental windows, these effects can be really long-lasting. We see the impacts on language development, on literacy, on educational outcomes, social participation and even mental health.

[2:20 p.m.]

For children with autism, communication services are among the most important interventions that they receive. What we’re hearing from families right now is not opposition to change, but it’s the uncertainty. The transition is already underway and some families are moving to the new benefits starting July

children with autism, communication services are among the most important interventions that they receive.

What we’re hearing from families right now is not opposition to change, but the uncertainty. The transition is already underway. Some families are moving to the new benefit starting July 2026, and the autism funding program officially ends April 1, 2027. Families are asking questions like: “Will my family, will my child, still qualify? Will the funding cover services that they currently receive? Will they be able to continue working with the clinicians who know them best and who have been helping them along the way?”

Some of our members have been saying that families are more focused, not on the significant improvement over time that they’re observing in their child but in the uncertainty. “Will they be able to continue getting these services next year” is becoming the real anxiety in our patients. That uncertainty is creating a lot of anxiety in providers and in the families, and the uncertainty does have consequences because families can’t plan, providers can’t plan, and the children can risk disruption in a time when consistency is mattering the most.

So what we ask is three things: to guarantee no gaps in service during the transition period; to ensure SLP and audiology remain funded under the new model; to provide families with clear and timely communication. These are practical steps that will protect children while supporting the province’s broader goals in improving access and equity, because every child deserves the opportunity to learn and communicate and participate fully in their community. I think that with these key steps, the transition will succeed.

I just want to finish off by saying that no child should lose access to essential communication supports because of this redesign, and Speech and Hearing B.C. is committed to working collaboratively with the Ministry of Children and Family Development in whatever way we can do to support you.

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

Rohini Arora: Hi, Heather. It’s lovely to see you. I know how many people you support. I’ve seen you in action at the B.C. Fed and many other places.

One of the things you were talking about is the continued access to language therapies, and also just the need for continued communication from the government, because you’re talking about the uncertainties. I really appreciate you lifting that up.

In terms of outreach to the community, what do you feel is the best way? Is it, you know, an email? Are you looking for more of a round table kind of setting, where people can ask questions? Of course, there’s always the criteria and what’s written, and then there’s much more detail that you get when you’re sitting with folks within the ministry and they provide a little bit more information.

Like, would you find that helpful? Is that something that I should work to help set up?

Heather Ritchie: I think that any information that you can provide and opportunities to engage with the providers and the families would be so appreciated, because…. At least, what I’m understanding is that it’s a lot — the uncertainty, you know. I think that having that clear guidance and the opportunity to ask questions directly would probably be very valuable, not only to the providers but the families.

Rohini Arora: Okay. Thanks so much.

Heather Ritchie: And if there’s anything that we can do to support you or to help with any of that, please feel free to reach out to Speech and Hearing B.C., and we would love to collaborate.

Rohini Arora: I love hearing that. And I’m in Burnaby too, so I think we’re nearby.

Heather Ritchie: Wonderful.

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

As we move into consultations about next year’s budget, obviously by then, this transition will be underway. Is there any recommendation from your organization around what should be included in next year’s budget to further support that transition? And maybe some of the things that MLA Arora had mentioned around communication and things like that, but is there something specifically or a line item that you would include in next year’s budget to make sure this transition happens smoothly?

[2:25 p.m.]

Heather Ritchie: I think the key would be in identifying the children and the situations that are sort of falling through the gaps, like whoever is currently funded — who is benefiting from this funding right now — who would not be covered under the new program, and to ensure that the amount of funding allocated towards speech-language pathology and audiology services is sufficient to meet the needs of the children who qualify and also of maybe some of those children we’re talking about who could potentially be falling through the gaps.

under the new program and to ensure that the amount of funding allocated towards speech-language pathology and audiology services is sufficient to meet the needs of the children who qualify and also of maybe some of those children I’m talking about who could potentially be falling through the gaps.

Does that answer your question?

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): Yes, it does.

Paul Choi (Chair): Any other questions?

Seeing none, thank you so much for taking the time to come and present to us today.

Heather Ritchie: Thank you so much. I really appreciate the time.

You guys do amazing work.

Paul Choi (Chair): We will now move on to our next presenter.

We have Andrea Burton from Physiotherapy Association of B.C.

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

Physiotherapy Association of B.C.

Andrea Burton: Good afternoon, Chair and members of the Finance Committee.

I’m honoured to be calling in from the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh and səlilwətaɬ peoples, and I thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today.

Certainly, I recognize the vast number of requests and types of need, and I don’t envy you this work. I’m here on behalf of the Physiotherapy Association of British Columbia, and more importantly, I’m here on behalf of the British Columbians who really depend on physiotherapy to remain mobile, independent, employed and healthy.

For 25 years now, the reimbursement rate for MSP supplementary benefits has remained frozen at just $23 per visit. Actually, I’m pretty sure I wrote the speech for Colin Hansen, then Minister of Health, when the last increase announcement was made in 2001.

The benefit includes a maximum of ten visits to any combination of a physiotherapist, a chiropractor, an acupuncturist, a massage therapist, a naturopathic doctor or a non-surgical podiatrist. The people who qualify for this program are among British Columbia’s most vulnerable residents — seniors, people with disabilities, individuals on low income, those receiving income assistance, people between jobs and a lot of people living in rural and remote communities.

Today a typical physiotherapy appointment in B.C. costs between $100 and $120, but MSP only pays $23. So who pays the difference? Well, either the physiotherapist has to personally cover the cost and provide services, practically for free, or the patient has to come up with a significant co-pay that is simply out of reach for most of these families.

In effect, we have a health care benefit that exists on paper, but it’s inaccessible in practice. And when people cannot access physical therapy, they do not stop needing care. Instead, they end up seeking help in emergency departments, urgent care centres, specialist offices, on surgical wait-lists, in long-term care facilities and hospitals. Their condition worsens. Their recovery takes longer, and costs rise. The human consequences of this can be devastating.

One physiotherapist in Victoria shared a story of a middle-aged man suffering from severe neck and shoulder pain. He qualified for MSP benefits, but he couldn’t afford the co-pay required for private physiotherapy clinics, so he had to wait about 18 months before finally accessing care through one of the province’s only free clinics. During that 18 month delay, he lost his job, he became homeless, and he turned to substances to cope with the chronic pain.

When he eventually received physiotherapy, within a handful of visits focusing on education, sleep strategies, ergonomic advice and targeted exercise, he was able to reduce his pain, restore his function and return to work.

But this is not an isolated story. Physiotherapy is not a luxury service. It is evidence-based health care. A course of physiotherapy costs less than a single emergency department visit. It costs a fraction of a hospital admission, and it can help delay or prevent surgeries that cost tens of thousands of dollars per patient.

So we are asking for a reasonable and phased modernization of MSP supplementary benefits.

First, for Budget 2027, we would recommend increasing the reimbursement rate to at least $60 per visit and expanding annual coverage to 12 visits per year. But we’re not asking for an overnight transformation. We’re asking for a meaningful first step that demonstrates a commitment to addressing this long-standing gap in care.

By 2029, reimbursement should be comparable to current market rates. Eligibility thresholds should be updated to reflect today’s economic realities. Coverage should be expanded to include vulnerable groups who fall through the cracks, like children, seniors, people who receive disability supports, individuals on employment insurance and parents on maternity leave who do not have extended health benefits.

[2:30 p.m.]

Then, thirdly, what we would ask is that reimbursement rates be indexed to inflation, and mandatory review should occur at least every three years. No future generation of British Columbians should face another 25 years with lack of access to essential care.

These recommendations are not about creating a new program. They’re about restoring the effectiveness of a program that already exists. They are about ensuring that vulnerable British Columbians can

and mandatory review should occur at least every 3 years. No future generation of British Columbians should face another 25 years with lack of access to central care.

These recommendations are not about creating a new program. They’re about restoring the effectiveness of a program that already exists. They are about ensuring that vulnerable British Columbians can access the care they have already been promised. This is about fairness. If physiotherapy is recognized as an essential part of health care, and the evidence overwhelmingly shows that it is, then access to that care should not depend on whether someone happens to have workplace benefits.

Modernizing MSP physiotherapy coverage, extending benefit coverage for all professions, is an investment in prevention, rehabilitation, workforce participation and health system sustainability.

I thank you for your time and your consideration of this. I know the budget is tight, but I’m grateful for your commitment to building a stronger, more accessible health care system for all British Columbians, and I absolutely welcome your questions.

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

Rohini Arora: Thank you so much for your presentation.

I’m curious. What is the current rate? You might’ve said it. I was looking up some of the rates for physiotherapy. What is the…? Are there comparative jurisdictions that are providing a higher reimbursement that you feel is more appropriate? If so, which ones?

Andrea Burton: We’re by far the jurisdiction that has been the longest at the same rate. Yes, you’ll find that most jurisdictions across Canada are providing more. I believe Ontario is at 42 now. I’d be happy to check that and confirm it for sure, but Ontario being the closest in terms of services offered and the type of program that they run.

Paul Choi (Chair): Any other questions or follow-up?

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

We’ll now move to our next presenter. We have Vanessa Lindsay from B.C. Naturopathic Doctors.

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

B.C. Naturopathic Doctors

Vanessa Lindsay: Hello, everyone. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. My name is Dr. Vanessa Lindsay, and I’m a naturopathic doctor and the president of the association of B.C. Naturopathic Doctors.

BCND did appear before this committee last year to discuss the modernization of MSP supplementary benefits. We appreciate the opportunity to return, because unfortunately another year has passed, and the challenges facing many British Columbians remain largely unchanged.

Today individuals with household incomes below about $42,000 may qualify for MSP supplementary benefits and access up to ten visits annually shared across six professions. The reimbursement remains just $23 per visit. These figures have had no update in more than 20 years. Meanwhile, the cost of living has risen dramatically, health care needs have become increasingly complex, and more British Columbians are living with chronic disease, managing multiple health conditions and struggling to access consistent primary care.

Across British Columbia, naturopathic doctors help meet that need through primary care, chronic disease management, prevention and health promotion. For some unattached patients and those in rural and remote communities, an ND may be their most consistent health care provider and primary point of access to care. A typical naturopathic follow-up visit ranges from approximately $60 to $125, and there are a variety of cost points depending on the amount of time spent with the patient.

Many NDs do reduce fees and absorb costs for those patients in need, but the current MSP program no longer reflects the realities of today. That said, this is not about provider reimbursement. It is about access to care. For many patients, the question is not whether they need care. The question is whether they can afford to access it at the right time and consistently before a manageable health condition may become a more serious one.

We as practitioners see this every day. We see seniors managing diabetes, cardiovascular disease, chronic pain and multiple medications who benefit from ongoing support, but they struggle to continue care once the limited coverage is exhausted. We see patients who have children with chronic digestive concerns, eczema, allergies, sleep issues and anxiety who must stretch a limited number of visits across an entire family. And we see unattached patients, many without extended health benefits, who rely on their naturopathic doctor as their primary care provider.

[2:35 p.m.]

When access becomes unaffordable, people delay care, and when care is delayed, these health concerns become more complex, further burdening the system. We know that prevention and primary care are among the most effective ways to reduce pressures on our health care system. Patients without consistent

as their primary care provider. When access becomes unaffordable, people delay care, and when care is delayed, these health concerns become more complex, further burdening the system.

We know that prevention and primary care are among the most effective ways to reduce pressures on our health care system. Patients without consistent access to care are more likely to experience poorer outcomes and higher health care utilization over time. Timely and consistent primary care reduces costs and system strain. Delaying does quite the opposite. Moreover, the cost of delay is often far greater than prevention.

Naturopathic doctors are regulated primary care providers who support chronic disease management, prevention, mental health, women’s health, healthy aging and many more areas. We work alongside other providers but also serve as a direct point of access for many patients, providing continuity, prevention, education and are that ongoing access to care.

For many patients, particularly those living with chronic conditions, you cannot access care in a single visit. It is an ongoing relationship focused on prevention and education and helping people stay healthy and independent for as long as possible.

We believe there is an opportunity to strengthen access through three practical steps. First, establish a multi-year plan to increase reimbursement rates and visit limits so that MSP supplementary benefits provide meaningful support for patients accessing care.

Second, update the eligibility criteria by increasing income thresholds and expanding access for children, seniors and vulnerable populations without extended health coverage.

Third, require a regular review of the reimbursement rates, visit limits and eligibility thresholds to ensure that the program remains relevant and responsive over time.

MSP supplementary benefits were designed to improve access to care for those who need it most. Modernizing the program would help ensure it continues to provide meaningful support to vulnerable British Columbians, while strengthening access to prevention, continuity of care and community-based primary care. Helping people access care earlier is often far less costly than managing more complex health needs later on.

Thank you very much for your consideration and your time.

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

We will now move to questions by members.

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

You’d mentioned — I think it was no. 2 — updating the eligibility criteria around the subsidy. I’m just wondering if you had some suggested updates that could be made to make the program more accessible for people, especially as you’d mentioned in the primary care instance, where they don’t have a primary doctor.

Vanessa Lindsay: Exactly. So the approximate $42,000 income threshold, we would suggest that be updated to encompass a larger population of people. The $42,000 is low. If we were to increase that even by $10,000 or $15,000 per year, that would dramatically improve the vulnerable patients that are reliant on income assistance and maybe contractual income and very creative sources of funds, but they are just above that $42,000 income threshold but still are really struggling financially. The cost of living and a whole host of factors we’re all so familiar with, but even a modest increase in that that income threshold would be much more inclusive.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): Just as a follow-up, then, the other question I had was around the family dynamic. You’d mentioned that there were a limited number of appointments across a family. Does that mean that each person doesn’t get a set number of appointments? They’re actually having to decide whether one kid gets the appointment and not the other?

Vanessa Lindsay: Precisely. Yes. Currently, the ten visits are shared across professions but also across family members.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): So they get ten visits per family.

Vanessa Lindsay: Uh-huh.

Paul Choi (Chair): Any other questions? Okay. Seeing none, thank you so much.

Oh, sorry.

Rohini Arora: Sorry. I was looking it up, and I couldn’t find the answer.

When you said that it’s ten visits per year, did you say it’s for all six areas of practice? Did I hear that correctly?

[2:40 p.m.]

Vanessa Lindsay: Yeah. The ten visits are shared across six professions — naturopathic doctors; physiotherapists; chiropractors; RMTs, or registered massage therapists; acupuncturists; and non-surgical podiatrists. So a patient may not be able to access enough of one provider.

For example, if they have an injury, they may require some PT, but they also may

RMTs — or registered massage therapists — acupuncturists and non-surgical podiatrists.

A patient may not be able to access enough of one provider. For example, if they have an injury, they may require some PT, but they also may be seeing a naturopathic doctor for their regular primary care needs or a chronic condition and medication management. It is very limited.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you very much.

Any other questions? Seeing none, thank you for coming and presenting to us today.

Vanessa Lindsay: Thank you very much

Paul Choi (Chair): We’ll move on to our next presenter.

I just want to confirm if this is Chris Vallee.

Chris Vallee: I thought I still had four minutes here. Are we ready to go now?

Paul Choi (Chair): Yes, we are a bit early, but thanks for joining us.

I just want to confirm for us on our end here. We have Melissa Carr for B.C. Association of TCM and Acupuncture Practitioners. Are you presenting on her behalf?

Chris Vallee: I’m presenting. I’m the president of the ATCMA, and Melissa is our executive director. As we’re a poorer association, we’re all volunteers, so she was unable to make it work with her work schedule. Then, myself, I’m treating patients today. That’s why I was hoping for the extra two minutes here, then to be able to present.

Paul Choi (Chair): Well, at least we were able to sort out the actual person presenting to us, which is great. It’s Chris Vallee. The full name of the organization is British Columbia Association of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Acupuncture Practitioners.

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

B.C. Association of
Traditional Chinese Medicine
and Acupuncture Practitioners

Chris Vallee: As you know, my name is Dr. Chris Vallee, and I’m speaking on behalf of the B.C. Association of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Acupuncture Practitioners, better known as the ATCMA.

We’re here today to discuss the need to modernize MSP supplementary benefits coverage for traditional Chinese medicine and acupuncture care in British Columbia. The current supplementary benefits program has not kept pace with either the realities of health care today nor the needs of many British Columbians.

At present, eligible individuals with lower household incomes can access only ten shared visits annually across multiple health care professions, with reimbursement remaining at only $23 per visit, a figure that has remained unchanged for more than two decades. During that same period, the cost of living has increased significantly, access to primary care has become more difficult for many people and chronic health conditions have become increasingly common.

Every day, TCM professionals support patients dealing with chronic pain, muscle skeletal conditions, digestive concerns, sleep issues, mental health challenges, women’s health concerns and injury recovery. We also provide preventative care focused on helping people maintain health and quality of life over time.

For many patients, traditional Chinese medicine is something they rely on regularly as part of managing their overall health, keeping them out of the hospital and reducing their need for expensive surgeries and specialists, thus helping to reduce the burden on our medical system. This is cost savings not just to the medical system but also to the taxpayer too.

For many communities in British Columbia, traditional Chinese medicine also carries deep cultural roots and long-standing historical relevance. Many patients come from cultural backgrounds where TCM has been trusted and used for generations as a primary or foundational form of health care.

[2:45 p.m.]

The B.C. government has made important commitments around culturally responsive and culturally relevant decisions and investments. We believe access to traditional Chinese medicine should be part of that conversation.

A modern health care system should recognize and support the diverse health care approaches that British Columbians

The B.C. government has made important commitments around culturally responsive and culturally relevant decisions and investments. We believe access to traditional Chinese medicine should be part of that conversation.

A modern health care system should recognize and support the diverse health care approaches that British Columbians rely upon and value. Unfortunately, affordability remains a major barrier. A typical TCM or acupuncture treatment may range from $100 to $150, depending on the nature of what is being provided.

While many practitioners do their best to keep care accessible, the current MSP supplementary benefits structure provides very limited practical support for patients. As a result, many people delay care or discontinue treatment because they simply cannot afford it. We see seniors trying to manage chronic pain and mobility concerns without enough support. We see working families stretching limited coverage across multiple family members, and we see patients without extended health benefits struggling to continue to care that helps keep them functioning and healthy.

When people lose access to preventative and supportive care, health issues often worsen and become more difficult and more expensive to manage.

Another important issue is that MSP supplementary benefits currently only recognizes acupuncture and should recognize the full scope of practice for traditional Chinese medicine.

We believe there are several practical steps the province could take to move forward with this program.

First, modernize reimbursement levels and visit limits so the program provides meaningful support for patients.

Secondly, expand eligibility thresholds so more vulnerable British Columbians can access care, including seniors, children and those without extended health coverage.

And third, establish a regular review of the program so reimbursement rates and eligibility criteria do not remain stagnant for decades at a time.

Improving access to preventative, community-based care is an investment in both patient well-being and sustainability of the health care system overall. When people can access care earlier and more consistently, they often are able to avoid more serious health complications later.

I’d like to thank you again for my time. Our hope is that we can be part of the solution of our current health care crisis, and I think working with preventative measures is a big part of that.

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

We’ll now turn to questions by members.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): I dug a little bit into the income thresholds in the last presentation. This one I’m wondering if we could talk a little bit about the shared visits part of it. How many appointments is a typical treatment plan for one individual on a, say…. I know that ongoing care is an important part, but on a typical, say, an injury or a one-off.

Chris Vallee: Yeah. It is a little hard to quantify. There are a number of different things we share. But let’s say a shoulder injury. If it’s very acute, sometimes you could be looking at anywhere between maybe three to five. Therefore, you could help a patient within a short period of time.

Ongoing health concerns…. If it’s like something like IBS, you might be treating that patient more often. And that would be where we would look at a treatment once a month. So the idea is that rather than doing a combination of 10 treatments, you would be adding to that list of maybe 15 to 20 visits over the year for everyone.

The other neat thing is that this is part of complementary care. The idea is that you could utilize massage, chiropractic, physio and acupuncture for that shoulder injury. If people are working together, again, those treatments could probably be less — anywhere from five to six treatments combined — and the patient would definitely improve.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): Just a clarification, then. Do you have a suggested number if they were to stay in the shared model for the family and stay with the six, I think it was, different groups that could be physio, chiro, RMT, all of that? Do you have a number, then? If they were to stay with that model, how many shared visits would you suggest?

[2:50 p.m.]

Chris Vallee: Right now there are ten visits that the patient is allowed altogether. That’s for the full year. My idea is….

Are you looking at a suggestion for one treatment for an ailment or for the whole year?

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): The whole year.

Chris Vallee: The whole year. I mean, I think if you could…. At this point, anything you add is going to be a benefit

That’s for the full year. So, you know, my idea is…. Are you looking at a suggestion for one treatment for an ailment, or for the whole year?

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): The whole year.

Chris Vallee: The whole year. You know, at this point, anything you add is going to be a benefit to someone who has nothing. If you could add five, that would be awesome. I think if you wanted to be more proactive.… I’ve been doing this for 30 years, and my dad was a naturopath and a chiropractor.

MSP was basically.… British Columbia was the first province — and, I think, the only province — to actually create a premium, and that premium was to cover the alternative or complementary medicines. In the year 2000, that was taken off from the Liberals. It saved exactly.… The same amount in savings kept one hospital open in Vancouver for one day.

Again, I appreciate the idea that we’re looking at savings, but if we really want to create savings and benefits for the long term, I think we need to find solutions dealing with people’s problems before they get to the pain management stage — addictions, surgeries, all those things. For me, I would love to say 20 or 25 would be great, but even if you gave people five more in a year, I think they’d be very, very happy, and it would be helpful.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you so much for your answers there. Any other questions?

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

We’ll move on to our next presenter. We have Coun. Lynnette Wray from the city of Cranbrook. Thanks for joining us today. You have five minutes for your presentation five minutes for questions after, and you can begin when you’re ready.

City of Cranbrook

Lynnette Wray: Great, thank you so much. In the city of Cranbrook, our B.C. Builds project proposed to deliver a 40-unit mixed-market residential development, valued at about $13 million. It boasted a competitive construction cost, at $360 per square foot.

The true value of this project did not lie in the business case alone but in the promises it made to our community. It promised delivery of missing-middle units, at Cranbrook-specific rates tailored to the people that make Cranbrook a place people want to live, while also creating skilled, well-paying jobs. It promised an opportunity to fill the gap in Cranbrook’s housing needs by 40 units. It promised high-quality, playful and inviting living spaces and a people-first design.

It promised integrated living and improved public space in our community’s downtown, with access to green space, schools, transit and shopping. It promised a model, that this type of housing can be built in Cranbrook and in other Kootenay communities that look to Cranbrook for inspiration. It promised to show rural communities that their needs are not only being noticed but also being addressed and that we were finally getting the help we’ve been asking for.

The B.C. Builds program inspired confidence by solving local issues through the collaboration between multiple levels of government, as well as public-private and non-profit partnerships. Losing our B.C. Builds project doesn’t just feel like losing 40 units of missing-middle housing. It feels like broken promises. Cutting B.C. Builds funding is having a disproportionately negative impact on mid-size cities in rural regions, as the majority of these projects were proposed in hub communities that carry the responsibility of providing services to our respective regions.

This loss of funding displays a lack of understanding of how impactful projects of this type are in communities like Cranbrook. Many units may have been built in the Lower Mainland, but Cranbrook was just starting to see the future availability of affordable and below-market housing units, thanks to initiatives like B.C. Builds.

Our southeast corner of the province often feels forgotten when decisions are being made. Losing this project reinforces the sentiment that we are an afterthought. Initiatives like B.C. Builds provide both tangible and intangible value for communities like Cranbrook. They set a high standard for future developments in our community and remind our citizens that they are also deserving of a high quality of life.

[2:55 p.m.]

When the time for decision-making comes forward, we encourage the province to move beyond an urban-centric mindset and gain perspective on how impactful this type of funding can be for a community like Cranbrook.

Our time-sensitive and urgent ask is that the B.C. Builds funding and timeline for this important project in the city of Cranbrook

province to move beyond an urban-centric mindset and gain perspective on how impactful this type of funding can be for a community like Cranbrook. Our time-sensitive and urgent ask is that the BC Builds funding and timeline for this important project in the city of Cranbrook be reactivated and reinstated as soon as possible.

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

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much for your presentation. Very sad to hear about your project not being able to move forward.

We had another organization that presented. I believe it was yesterday. I jus want to confirm it’s the same funding that was cancelled. That’s the community housing fund under BC Builds. Was that the project that was cancelled, or is this a different cancellation?

Lynnette Wray: I just know it as a BC Builds project. I don’t know the finer details in terms of the name of the project.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): Is the project a definite no, or is the ask that the funding be included in next year’s budget? Has your city had to make the difficult decision to not move ahead?

Lynnette Wray: The community partner is the Community Connections Society of Southeast B.C. The BC Builds funding is essential for the project to move forward as planned.

So yeah, our request is that the funding be reinstated. We want to get rolling on this project as soon as possible.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): Last clarifying question. How much has your organization spent already on the project? One of the ones we heard yesterday had a significant investment already in the pre-planning that was not able to go ahead. Do you have any pre-planning costs that have already been spent?

Lynnette Wray: I’m speaking on behalf of the city of Cranbrook. Our contribution was the donation of land. From the conversations I have, I understand that yes, our non-profit partner has committed significant resources already to the pre-planning process. We’re ready to go on this project, and we really want to see it move forward.

Bryan Tepper: Hi there. Do you happen to know the vacancy rate in Cranbrook right now?

Lynnette Wray: Our vacancy rate is very low. I haven’t looked at it recently. I don’t have that number off the top of my head. But yeah, we’re slightly above zero.

Bryan Tepper: Yes. When was the last time I was in Cranbrook? Last summer. There appears to be a larger homeless population than when I grew up. I grew up in Cranbrook. But, you know, still a home to me after 30 years.

There certainly seems to be a lot more street life than there used to be, and not in a good way. Am I reading that right?

Lynnette Wray: Although we’re a city, as you know, we’re in a rural region. As the regional service hub, we’re also the regional service hub for folks who are unhoused. We really appreciate all the work that our non-profits are doing, and the city has stepped forward to be a proactive and strong partner. But it certainly is a challenge.

So we’re looking to increase our housing right across the housing spectrum. This missing-middle housing project is a key part of that for sure.

Bryan Tepper: Yeah, I could definitely see that. Has anybody done any projections on how it may affect crime in the city of Cranbrook?

Lynnette Wray: I don’t have those kinds of projections. Certainly our bylaw services and RCMP are part of our team effort to be proactive and to address the challenges in our community and to support the folks who are most vulnerable in our community.

This project is a key piece of the puzzle.

Bryan Tepper: Yeah, I think we all are aware of how this affects crime rates and everything else and the social cohesion of a city.

[3:00 p.m.]

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you very much. Seeing no other questions, thank you so much for coming and presenting to us today. Moving on to our next presenter, we have Laarif Nizar from Aboriginal Housing Management Association joining us.

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

Moving on to our next presenter, we have Nizar Laarif from Aboriginal Housing Management Association joining us.

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

Aboriginal Housing
Management Association

Nizar Laarif: Good afternoon, and thank you all for the opportunity to speak with you today.

My name is Nizar Laarif, and I’m representing the Aboriginal Housing Management Association, also known as AHMA. In partnership with B.C. Housing, AHMA supports Indigenous housing providers across British Columbia. Together our members manage more than 6,000 units serving over 10,000 Indigenous individuals and families, with an additional 1,600 units currently under development.

Approximately 75 percent of Indigenous people in B.C. live off reserve and continue to experience disproportionately high rates of housing insecurities, core housing needs and homelessness. Indigenous housing providers are doing critical front-line work to address these challenges, but the sector is facing growing financial pressures that threaten its sustainability.

Budget 2026 has significant impact on Indigenous housing providers and the communities they serve. The cancellation and the reduction of investment through the Indigenous housing fund and the community housing fund destabilized the sector and delayed urgently needed housing development. The cancellation of IHF alone resulted in a loss of 620 affordable housing units, while more than 1,200 community housing fund applications remain unfunded across the province.

At the same time, providers are facing increasing pressures. Operating costs have risen by an estimated 20 to 30 percent over the past six years while funding increases have remained below 2 percent yearly. Homelessness supports have also continued to shrink following the end of the provincial homelessness plan.

Indigenous housing providers are increasingly expected to deliver housing alongside complex social supports, without the operational resources required to do so effectively. Without action, British Columbia risks losing affordable Indigenous housing, increasing homelessness and placing even greater pressure on our health care, emergency response and justice system.

Our first budget ask is to establish a provincial urban native housing stabilization fund. Urban native housing programs have provided deeply affordable housing for urban Indigenous people and families for more than 40 years.

At the beginning of 2028, operating agreement and subsidy will expire, placing more than 1,700 housing units and over 4,600 Indigenous tenants at risk. In some rural and smaller communities, the loss of this subsidy could eliminate virtually all affordable Indigenous housing options. Without renewed support, providers may be forced to raise rents, reduce services or divest housing assets altogether.

AHMA recommends establishing a provincial urban native housing stabilization fund that includes $17.5 million over seven years for predevelopment activities, $105 million over seven years for retrofits and capital upgrades and $63 million in declining subsidies over seven years.

This is a prudent investment. AHMA estimates that replacing the existing portfolio would cost more than $1 billion. Preserving existing housing is fiscally responsible and prevents much higher long-term social and infrastructural costs.

Our second budget ask is to reinstate both the Indigenous housing fund and the community housing fund. These programs are essential to sustaining Indigenous-led housing development throughout B.C.

Recent funding reductions have stalled projects already in development, delayed construction timelines and created significant sunk costs for Indigenous housing providers. Renewed investment is urgently needed to support Indigenous youth housing, family housing and housing for Indigenous women and gender-diverse people fleeing violence. Indigenous youth continue to experience disproportionately high rates of homelessness and housing instability, particularly when transitioning out of care.

[3:05 p.m.]

Our third recommendation is to invest in an integrated support and stabilized housing operation. AHMA recommends investing $9.5 million in culturally safe, trauma-informed wraparound support for more than 7,600 households, alongside operational stabilization funding for Indigenous housing providers.

Providers are currently facing an estimated $11 million annual shortfall in non-controllable costs, including insurance, utilities, repairs and maintenance. At the same time, they are increasingly supporting tenants with complex needs. Many

households, alongside operational stabilization funding for Indigenous housing providers.

Providers are currently facing an estimated $11 million annual shortfall in non-controllable costs, including insurance, utilities, repairs and maintenance. At the same time, they are increasingly supporting tenants with complex needs.

Many Indigenous housing providers are now functioning as front-line social service organizations, without the resources necessary to sustain staff and services. Smaller providers are particularly vulnerable and, in some cases, face the risk of closure.

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

Now moving to questions by members.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): I missed a number. In your first ask, it was $17½ million over seven years for pre-development. The next number I didn’t catch, No. 2. I did catch No. 3.

Nizar Laarif: In addition to $17.5 million over seven years for pre-development activities to redevelop a third of that portfolio, we’re asking for $105 million over seven years for retrofit — that’s for capital upgrades to the existing stock — and $63 million in declining subsidy over seven years.

The aim is to make that portfolio sustainable after the transition period of seven years. But during the seven years, we need $63 million in declining subsidy year over year.

Paul Choi (Chair): Any other questions?

Debra Toporowski / Qwulti’stunaat: Mine is also clarification. Reinstate funding was the ask for No. 2. Could you repeat that again?

Nizar Laarif: The province previously had two development funds that our providers could apply through. The first is the Indigenous housing fund, IHF. And the community housing fund, CHF. Both those programs were cancelled this year, without a clear date on where they will be reinstated. We’re asking for those two programs to be reinstated as soon as the next fiscal.

Debra Toporowski / Qwulti’stunaat: Okay. Also, you mentioned No. 1 was the urban stabilization fund. I don’t know if you said a number, but I was just coming back to that.

Nizar Laarif: What we mean by the urban native stabilization fund is the three numbers that I just mentioned. That fund will include $17.5 million for redevelopment of the third of that portfolio, $105 million for capital upgrades and retrofit to the existing stock and $63 million for declining subsidy year over year for seven years.

Paul Choi (Chair): Any other questions by members?

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

Nizar Laarif: Thank you for your time.

Paul Choi (Chair): We’ll move on to our next presenter. Next we have Manon Joice, from Northern First Nations Alliance Society.

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

Northern First Nations Alliance Society

Manon Joice: Good afternoon, and thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today.

My name is Manon Joice, and I serve as the executive director for the Northern First Nations Alliance, a First Nations–led non-profit organization made up of five First Nations throughout Northwest British Columbia. They include the Gitxsan, Gitxaała, Haisla, Nisga’a and the Ts’msyen.

First and foremost, I would like to express our gratitude to the province of British Columbia for its commitment to addressing the devastating substance misuse crisis that continues to impact our families, communities and nations. The province’s willingness to invest in innovative, Indigenous-led care is greatly appreciated.

The reality is that people are dying, families are struggling, and communities are seeking help. Because of the province’s support, we have been able to move beyond discussing solutions and beginning to build upon them.

Today the Northern First Nations Alliance has developed a continuum of care that includes three key components. The first is a 12-bed land-based treatment lodge located just outside of Terrace named Red Road North. This facility provides culturally appropriate treatment and recovery services in a healing environment that reconnects people with culture, community and the land.

[3:10 p.m.]

The second is a community outreach program that serves communities throughout northwest British Columbia. Outreach workers provide prevention, education, health promotion, navigation, support and connections to treatment

provides culturally appropriate treatment and recovery services in a healing environment that reconnects people with culture, community and the land.

The second is a community outreach program that serves communities throughout northwest British Columbia. Outreach workers provide prevention, education, health promotion, navigation, support and connections to treatment and recovery services. This is particularly important for rural and remote communities where access to services remains a significant challenge.

The third component is our stage 2 recovery facility in Terrace. This facility is unique and, to our knowledge, one of the first of its kind in the region and perhaps the province. Rather than traditional dormitory-style housing, it features ten private micro-unit apartments that provide residents with greater privacy, dignity, independence and accountability.

Together, these services create a continuum of care that supports people from outreach and engagement through treatment and long-term recovery. We are proud of what has been accomplished together in a relatively short amount of time.

However, I would like to respectfully share some challenges that we believe require attention. While funding commitments have been made, the process of distributing approved funding can be lengthy and unpredictable. In our case, provincial funding is routed through another organization before reaching our organization. While we understand and respect the administrative processes involved, the result is that community organizations are often left carrying significant financial risk while waiting for approved fundings to arrive.

As an example, we only on Monday received our funding for a leased facility for a ten-bed recovery stage 2 centre. As a result of that, when every day that bed sits empty, there’s a missed opportunity to support someone on the recovery journey.

The challenge extends beyond facilities. It impacts staffing, contractor relationships, service agreements, operational planning and organizational stability. Staff cannot be hired with confidence. Contractors are asked to wait. Community organizations are forced to make difficult decisions while attempting to maintain services.

In speaking with leaders from other non-profit organizations, including some that have been operating successfully for decades, I learned that they address these issues often by obtaining lines of credit from financial institutions. Respectfully, I do not believe this is a sustainable solution. Most non-profit organizations do not have significant reserves, and in many cases, there is no promissory note or legally binding guarantee from the government that can be taken to a bank.

Instead, organizations often receive an email indicating that funding is approved and forthcoming. While appreciated, an email is not sufficient collateral for a line of credit. Even when financing is secured, it places additional financial pressure on organizations that are already operating with limited resources.

More importantly, it places volunteer board members at risk. These individuals are community leaders who generously donate their time and expertise, yet they remain legally responsible for the financial decisions of the organization, and insurances alone do not protect a non-profit from bad business decisions. This places a significant burden on our volunteer board.

I would also like to raise the issue of long-term sustainability. Our current funding commitment extends for only two years. Though we are incredibly grateful for this investment, meaningful recovery systems cannot be built on short timelines alone, and recovery is not a two-year project. Building trust within communities, developing skilled forces, establishing partnerships and supporting individuals through their healing journeys require long-term commitment and stability.

Our hope is not to simply launch programs. Our hope is to build a lasting system of care together that will continue serving northwest British Columbia for generations to come. We are not here today asking for more funding. We are asking for predictability, efficiency and sustainability. We are asking for systems that allow community organizations to focus on delivering services rather than managing uncertainty.

On behalf of the Northern First Nations Alliance, we wish to thank you for your leadership, your partnership and your continued commitment to addressing one of the greatest public health challenges of our time. Together, we can ensure that the investments being made today will create lasting impacts for tomorrow.

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

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

You mentioned that the money was going to another organization first. Is this a decision that your board has made based on sharing administration functions with other organizations, or is that something that is being imposed on you by government?

[3:15 p.m.]

Manon Joice: Yeah, so it’s being imposed. The Ministry of Health had agreed to a $171 million investment fund for Indigenous-led treatment, recovery and aftercare services. That fund has been sent to the First Nations Health Authority.

Respectfully to the First Nations Health Authority, in my opinion, they’re still a rather young health authority, and they may or may not have the capacity to distribute those funds in a reasonable amount of time. So it often

treatment recovery and aftercare services.

That fund has been sent to the First Nations Health Authority. Respectfully, to the First Nations Health Authority, it’s in my opinion that they’re still a rather young health authority, and they may or may not have the capacity to distribute those funds in a reasonable amount of time.

It often takes several months before I get an email of approval from your representatives from the Ministry of Health. And then, at that point, I’m awaiting several months for the funding to come. So for example, as I mentioned, our funding that was just received on Monday, on June 1, is for the budget year starting on April 1. So we’re already a few months behind.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much for that clarification.

Yeah, I know, coming from the non-profit sector myself, how hard cash flow is to manage and how hard it is on a board of directors to extend their own personal lines of credit or things. So I appreciate your board doing that, and the committee will take that away.

Debra Toporowski / Qwulti’stunaat: Thank you for your presentation. Yeah, sometimes the road to transparency creates more barriers. I just have to say that.

Also, when another agency has to take over funneling money to the nation…. These are the barriers that I talked about earlier. Another presenter had come forward, too, because there are different levels of government that get involved because of First Nations communities needing support. And when we have things in place, it becomes more difficult because of…. Where does that money have to funnel through to make it transparent, when it would have been best just to send it straight to you from the federal government? But that’s a discussion for another day.

I just wanted to ask you: have you gone to other places just to report this issue as well?

Manon Joice: Yes, so this is an issue within the provincial government. Our initiative is fully funded through that $171 million fund, of which we actually receive only 10 percent of that fund. So that is through your Ministry of Health, and we have discussed that with your Ministry of Health already.

I thought it was important to bring this through because I think what’s happening is there’s a lot of bottlenecking in terms of the fund flow, and then there are also additional costs. I’m pretty confident you’re paying administration fees. We’re losing out on interest earnings. And there are other applicable costs whenever you engage other third-party persons to be able to deliver the funding or process the funding and also process the assessment.

Of course, we are accountable via audits and monthly reporting, quarterly reporting, as well as annual reporting. So I don’t believe that that is the issue. It is just the issue with respect to this particular initiative and project, which has been a very large project over the last year and a half thus far, and we have two more years to go.

Bearing that in mind, it does limit our ability to gain the traction that’s needed. So, for example, renting out a building at, with overhead, $30,000 a month and not having the resources to be able to fill those ten beds over a period of time of, let’s say, six months can be quite costly and not the best use of those investment dollars.

Debra Toporowski / Qwulti’stunaat: Okay, thank you.

Manon Joice: You’re most welcome, and thank you again for the opportunity to meet with you all today.

Paul Choi (Chair): Well, thank you so much.

We will now move on to our next presenter. Okay, we have Jason Saunderson from Concrete B.C.

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

Concrete B.C.

Jason Saunderson: Thank you very much. Good afternoon, Chair and committee members.

My name is Jason Saunderson, and I’m the executive director of the Concrete Association of British Columbia. Thank you for this opportunity to appear before you today.

[3:20 p.m.]

Concrete B.C. represents 61 ready mix and volumetric concrete producers and more than 100 supplier companies operating across British Columbia. Our members operate over 1,150 concrete mixer trucks at 120 concrete plant locations in communities throughout the province. Together, our industry contributes up to $2 billion annually to B.C.’s economy and supports 10,000 family-supporting jobs.

Every housing project, school, hospital, bridge, water treatment system and major infrastructure investment

plant locations in communities throughout the province.

Together, our industry contributes up to $2 billion annually to B.C.’s economy and supports 10,000 family-supporting jobs. Every housing project, school, hospital, bridge, water treatment system and major infrastructure investment begins with a foundation. Concrete is literally the foundation of B.C.’s growth agenda.

As government works to build more housing, strengthen infrastructure and improve affordability, we believe there are three practical actions that can help deliver better value for taxpayers while supporting B.C. jobs and economic resilience.

One, prioritize made-in-B.C. concrete and modernize procurement. We encourage government to prioritize B.C.-produced, made-in-B.C. concrete and locally sourced building materials in public infrastructure and housing projects.

At the same time, government procurement should move away from prescriptive specifications and towards performance-based specifications that allow industry to innovate and deliver better outcomes. Government should utilize environmental product declarations, also known as EPDs, as the benchmark for measuring environmental performance and implement targets for your projects to achieve.

Two, improve access to local aggregate supply. Permitting timelines for gravel pits and aggregate operations are measured in years rather than months. These delays increase project costs, constrain housing and infrastructure development and force materials to be transported from farther away, sometimes even across borders. We ask government to streamline aggregate permitting while maintaining strong environmental protections.

Three, invest in workforce development. Our industry relies on more than 1,100 concrete mixer drivers across British Columbia yet faces an aging workforce and growing labour shortages. We ask government to improve access to class 1 and class 3 driver training grants, including for those currently working, and support the training of up to 100 new concrete mixer drivers in these good-paying, family-supporting jobs.

Again, our three key asks: prioritize made-in-B.C. concrete and modernize procurement through performance-based specifications and environmental product declarations. Two, accelerate aggregate permitting approvals to strengthen local supply chains, reduce costs and support housing and infrastructure delivery. Three, invest in workforce development by expanding access to class 1 and class 3 training funding and supporting the training of 100 new concrete mixture drivers.

Thank you, and I’m happy to answer any questions you may have.

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

Rohini Arora: Hi Jason. Thank you for your presentation. I wanted to ask you…. You mentioned in your first recommendation that we should be moving away from prescriptive-based and toward performance-based criteria. Can you give me examples? Concrete examples, pun intended.

Jason Saunderson: I can give you a poignant example. The lowly highway divider, known formally as a crash protection barrier, used to be subject to prescriptive specifications. In other words, we were told how much cement and other materials would go into the production of those structures.

In 2022, MOTI then moved towards performance-based specifications, which allowed the companies to innovate by supplementing cement for other supplementary cementitious materials such as fly ash and slag. By doing so, they were able to reduce 22 kilograms per crash protection barrier, 22 kilograms of CO2, or reduce the global warming potential by that amount.

I bring up that example because we can all visualize what the size of a crash protection barrier and what the impact it is by moving to performance-based specifications.

Rohini Arora: Thank you. That was a great example. And then the third recommendation…. Sorry, can I do a follow-up? The third recommendation…. You mentioned 100 concrete mixer drivers and driver grants. What does that run us?

Jason Saunderson: Currently, class 1 and class 3 driving courses…. Class 1 is for the more complicated one with the full trailer, and class 3 is for a commercial truck with an air brake endorsement. A concrete mixer truck requires just a class 3, but mostly the drivers can be class 1.

[3:25 p.m.]

The training for those courses can be $15,000 to $50,000, and they can take one month to three months of a person’s time.

We are advocating for funding support for the workers so that they’re able to

the drivers can be class 1. The training for those courses can be $15,000 to $50,000, and they can take one month to three months of a person’s time.

We are advocating for funding support for the workers so that they’re able to get access to these courses. Oftentimes workforce grants are only available to those not currently working, and we advocate that those be extended to help create that opportunity. Specific funding that could help support up to 100 of these jobs would go a long way to addressing driver shortages that we face.

In our annual workforce and recruitment and retention surveys, still three out of four members say that they’ve turned down business in the last year due to a lack of drivers. The average age of our workforce is 47.7 years, and every year that we survey, it seems to go up one year. This is a problem that we need to be able to work to address and get younger people into these roles. One of the barriers to that is having the qualifications in terms of the training.

Rohini Arora: Just so I can dig into that…. You’re talking about $15K to $50K, could be one month to three months to train these folks.

Now, it is a class 3 in order to drive. That’s what’s, at minimum, needed. That’s the minimum license. But you’re saying that…. Is it class 3 drivers that want a class 1 licence, younger folks, or is it sort of a mix? Or do you also mean like some of the skilled-trades-training funding to be focused in this direction? I mean, that’s the sense I’m getting from you.

Jason Saunderson: Yeah, the specific class 1 and class 3 is not classified under skills trade.

Rohini Arora: Okay. It’s not classified.

Jason Saunderson: However, this type of barrier is that the credential rests with the worker, and they have to be able to get those qualifications, and quite often, if they’re currently employed, they’re not able to access grants to assist them with that type of training.

Rohini Arora: Got it.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): I know we’ve talked frequently, but the question I had was…. Specifically if we were to put the money into the training for those 100 drivers, I’m assuming your members have 100 jobs available for them to start work immediately.

Jason Saunderson: Our annual estimate of the turnover is approximately 150 drivers per year. “Looking for driver” ads have commonly been up across the province.

Paul Choi (Chair): Seeing no other questions, thank you so much for taking the time to present to us today.

Jason Saunderson: Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

Paul Choi (Chair): Okay, we will move on to our next presenter.

We now have Rina Hadziev from B.C. Library Association.

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

B.C. Library Association

Rina Hadziev: Wonderful. Thank you so much for having me. I’m so excited to come and to talk to you about public libraries.

My name is Rina Hadziev. I’m coming to you from the territories of lək̓ʷəŋən-speaking People, specifically the Songhees and Esquimalt Nations. I am the executive director of the British Columbia Library Association, and I’m happy to speak to you on behalf of all of our members.

Our association was founded over 100 years ago in 1911, and it leads the library community in advocacy, professional development and intellectual freedom. We ensure that all British Columbians have equitable access to information, ideas and works of the imagination. We represent unionized and non-unionized staff from large and small libraries across the province and B.C. libraries at institutions — the biggest university libraries down to the smallest public libraries — and we are also fortunate enough to represent many library interest holders in B.C., including publishers, literacy organizations and library vendors.

[3:30 p.m.]

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

As you may know, since 2009, provincial funding for public libraries has been frozen at around $14 million per year. And while provincial funding has remained static for those 17 years, the role of public libraries has changed and expanded

need for increased funding to public libraries.

As you may know, since 2009, provincial funding for public libraries has been frozen at around $14 million per year. While provincial funding has remained static for those 17 years, the role of public libraries has changed and expanded in response to social changes, community needs and demands. Much of that expansion is tied to provincial priorities and responsibilities, including things like health, social services, housing, education, reconciliation, emergency response, community resilience, accessibility and government services.

Just to highlight a few ways that public libraries support their communities. Public libraries drive economic development. They provide workforce support by helping with job searches, résumés and printing. They provide business resources and meeting space for small business and entrepreneurs. They provide online training, from résumé basics to LinkedIn Learning courses that are far more advanced.

Public libraries also support social well-being. They provide inclusive programs, building community for seniors, new parents and more people. They also reduce isolation by offering events that bring diverse and sometimes lonely people together.

They bridge the digital divide, providing computers, Wi-Fi, and tech support to help people stay in touch with loved ones and access health information and resources — including, increasingly, telehealth appointments.

They also build community resilience. More and more, libraries are providing safe space during the increasing number of heatwaves, cold snaps and other extreme weather we’re experiencing.

They also help grow the economy by creating good jobs across British Columbia. Public libraries purchase a lot of B.C. books, they are anchor tenants in buildings, and they employ a lot of British Columbians.

I know, over the next couple of days, you’ll be hearing from our public library sector partners: the Association of B.C. Public Library Directors, the B.C. Libraries Cooperative and the B.C. Library Trustees. We are all united in asking the provincial government to increase its annual funding for public libraries to $30 million a year and index funding to inflation going forward.

This has been our ask for several years. We deeply appreciate the one-time funding support that the province has provided in the last several years, and that has temporarily stabilized public libraries, but without consistent and sustained funding, a lot of public libraries will find it difficult to meet community needs, and some will have to cut services. In fact, a few smaller libraries have already begun to reduce their open hours.

I’ve had the pleasure of presenting to this committee several times, and I’ve heard many of you and many of your colleagues share the important role that libraries play in their local communities. Whether it’s an adult computing class in Burnaby, homeschool or hangouts in 100 Mile House, employment services for newcomers in Surrey, after-school code club in Squamish, helping people sign up for income assistance in Vancouver, exam invigilation in Vernon or hundreds of other examples of the things that happen in libraries, I know that you know that this work is essential to making sure your communities thrive.

I also want to share on behalf of B.C. library workers that they are working hard because they love their communities and they want to make a difference, and we’re asking you to support them by increasing that funding to public libraries to $30 million a year.

Thank you for your time, and I’m happy to answer any questions you may have.

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

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much. I know that my local library has done some good advocacy, and I did attend an event here in Victoria last year. I’m very familiar with what it provides in my communities.

You say “increase to $30 million,” and then “index to inflation going forward.” What would that level of funding mean for small and rural ridings and communities across B.C.? If you could just articulate a little bit on that, that would be great.

Rina Hadziev: Absolutely. So this would actually be…. Several years ago the government did a one-time increase to libraries, which, if you’re familiar with your local libraries, you’ll probably know that that did make some significant differences. For many libraries, what that meant was they were able to….

[3:35 p.m.]

So that’s been three years of bridge funding, and this would essentially make that permanent. For many local libraries, particularly in smaller communities, it allowed them to extend hours. In some cases, they gave raises to staff who had not seen raises in ten years. These are usually women who are working for very low salaries. I mean, they’re working for love more than money. But obviously, every bit of money that they get then goes back into the community, in those cases.

It means that they can do…. Some of the smaller libraries were able to hire children’s programmers again. As you may be familiar, particularly in smaller and rural libraries

who are working for very low salaries. I mean, they’re working for love more than money. But obviously, every bit of money that they get then goes back into the community in those cases.

It means that they can do…. Some of the smaller libraries were able to hire children’s programmers again. As you may be familiar, particularly in smaller and rural libraries, COVID had a lot of cost increases. So there were libraries that had to do things like lay off their children’s programmers so that they could buy masks and sanitizers. That kind of increased funding allowed them to start doing more children’s programming.

There was one library…. Forgive me. I can’t think of which one it is, but the only preschool in their town closed, so they started doing more early-childhood-education-type programming. Really, what it would mean is that those libraries that are currently looking at reducing hours — as I said, a few of them already have; Creston and Cranbrook are good examples of libraries that have actually had to cut hours — would instead be able to extend those hours.

The smaller the community, the more likely that the library is the place where you go to fill in your income assistance form, do your telehealth appointment, get access to much of the government information you need these days. So it’s great if that information exists, but if the doors are shut, it’s not a lot of help.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): I know, in my communities, we don’t often have WorkBC offices anymore. We don’t have a government service or government agent office. So the library is the primary front-line service for government in those small towns. I appreciate what you do. I know what it did for my particular libraries, and I support, for sure.

Rina Hadziev: That’s wonderful. Thank you so much.

Bryan Tepper: Yeah, basically the same thing. I think a lot of people don’t understand or appreciate the education and training most of the librarians have and the great work that gets done there, and the wraparound services side. You know, big supporters of that. So thank you very much. We’ll let that go.

Paul Choi (Chair): Yes, thank you so much. I certainly also appreciate in Burnaby how much library means to our community. I try to go many times as well. It’s always full. It’s packed. It’s hard to find different desks to sit down and get work done. So I know there’s more we can do.

Thank you so much for coming and presenting to us today.

Rina Hadziev: Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity.

Paul Choi (Chair): We’ll move on to our next presenter. We have Annabree Fairweather from Confederation of University Faculty Associations of B.C. Thank you for joining us today. You have five minutes for your presentation, five minutes for questions after, and you can begin when you’re ready.

Confederation of University Faculty
Associations of B.C.

Annabree Fairweather: Thank you so much and good afternoon. Thanks for having this opportunity to present.

My name is Annabree Fairweather. I’m the executive director of the Confederation of University Faculty Associations of British Columbia or CUFABC. We represent 5,500 faculty and academic staff through their unionized faculty associations at B.C.’s public research universities. These include UBC, SFU, University of Victoria, UNBC and Royal Roads University.

Our members are professors, researchers and academic staff who teach 69 percent of B.C.’s undergraduate students and 95 percent of the graduate students at public universities. Our members are truly the backbone of the academic mission.

B.C.’s research universities are anchor institutions in this province. They drive innovation, generate ideas, support economic growth. They educate people for good meaningful jobs that strengthen this province, but their financial health is under serious threat. A growing gap exists between institutional costs and provincial operating grants, driven by high inflation, insufficient base funding and federal policy changes on international student enrolments. Post-secondary education is a critical service we must protect in these turbulent times and an investment in our shared future.

We bring three recommendations. First, we recommend stable, predictable funding for universities so they can plan effectively, retain talented faculty and staff and break the cycle of over-reliance on international student revenue. Sustainable, predictable funding means, in this case, investment in faculty so we have capacity to deliver the academic programs on which this province’s future workforce depends. It also includes investment in existing infrastructure after decades of deferred maintenance and aging buildings that are not only dangerous but compromise research and that student experience.

[3:40 p.m.]

Our second recommendation is for provincial and federal action to restore funding fairness for public universities. We urge the province to work with the federal government to ensure fair funding transfers, specifically for post-secondary education, and to remedy the fallout of changes in the international student enrolment caps.

Our second recommendation is for provincial and federal action to restore funding fairness for public universities. We urge the province to work with the federal government to ensure fair funding transfers, specifically for post-secondary education, and to remedy the fallout of changes in the international student enrolment caps.

There were bad-faith actors in the system, largely in private institutions, but the policy response has swung sharply. Its devastating public institutions, international students and the communities, all of whom had enjoyed mutually beneficial outcomes.

Canada’s reputation as a world-class education destination has been seriously damaged by shortsighted, politically motivated decisions, and we believe the province has taken the right steps to enact better monitoring and oversight legislation. But the next step is for all levels of government to work together to adjust the caps to reasonable levels and prioritize attestation letters to the public institutions to protect operating budgets and stabilize the sector.

Our third recommendation is for the province to invest in B.C.’s educated future by enhancing support for academic research. The province is investing in skilled trades, strategic infrastructure and economic diversification — all good things. University research and graduate education are equally essential engines of that future. B.C. faculty lead world-class research that directly serves this province, from wildfire prevention and climate adaptation to addressing the toxic drug crisis to developing eco-friendly food packaging that reduces plastic in our landfills and waterways.

Federal research funding is stagnating. The consequences, also, of massive U.S. research funding cuts and cross-border collaborations that have been lost risk a generation of talent and an irreplaceable loss of knowledge. B.C. as a province has to act.

We recommend transforming the B.C. knowledge development fund to expand eligibility beyond STEM, the sciences, to include social sciences, humanities and the arts; invigorate investment in whole research projects, not narrowed, limited to infrastructure; and expand the fund to support work-integrated learning opportunities for student researchers.

A vibrant research ecosystem attracts and retains world-class talent. It fosters the collaboration between academia, industry and government, and this province needs those principles to lead what comes next.

I make the case that B.C.’s research universities are a vital part of this province’s success story, but they need your support to remain strong, and it’s sustained public investment in teaching, research and infrastructure will be that down payment on our collective future.

Thanks for your time. Do you have any questions?

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

Rohini Arora: Thank you so much for your presentation.

I’m curious about the attestation. You talked about the caps. But I’m wondering. You mentioned the four universities and the members. So I’m wondering: do you know off the top of your head how many attestation letters collectively were received, and have any been returned?

Annabree Fairweather: I don’t know the number that been received; 53 percent are allocated towards the public institutions, and 47 percent have been allocated to the private institutions. Yeah.

Rohini Arora: Have you heard about any of those being returned because they’re unused?

Annabree Fairweather: There are students who have not been able to get into those institutions because their attestation letters have been denied. That’s correct. I believe the B.C. Federation of Students also has data on that information.

Rohini Arora: Yeah. Actually, we just heard from them yesterday. I did ask, but they didn’t have the numbers handy, so I thought I would ask you.

Annabree Fairweather: I have not been able to get those granular-level data out at this time, but we do know that the experience last year has just been exacerbated this year because the reduced caps have come further into effect.

Rohini Arora: Can you tell me how…? Do you know the reasons that students have been denied? Is there any conversation between professors about some of the challenges that they’ve heard about with students? I’m curious. Any concrete examples are always helpful.

Annabree Fairweather: Absolutely. Some of the experience is that the delay in processing this information, which would be a federal-level processing block or bottleneck, has resulted in students having to accept other offers that might be inferior or take them to other places that they didn’t want.

Their top priorities, they were not able to take, and that’s a huge loss for our sector and devastating for the research that faculty want to support with students and their research regimes as well. It’s a devastating loss.

Rohini Arora: Thank you so much.

[3:45 p.m.]

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): Just looking into next year’s budget, the report that we’re putting forward, you talked about stable and predictable funding for the universities themselves. Is there a benchmark amount? Is it a 10 percent increase, or has the university not necessarily communicated that to the faculty?

the report that we’re putting forward. You talked about stable and predictable funding for the universities themselves. Is there a benchmark amount? Like, is it a 10 percent increase, or has the university not necessarily communicated that to the faculty?

Annabree Fairweather: Thank you for your questions. I followed these presentations all day. Your questions have been excellent at digging into the deeper levels here.

I have some data on that. Currently we have in universities…. About 3.5 percent of the provincial budget is allocated towards post-secondary for universities. Another 1.5 percent or so are for colleges. They have very different purposes, but it’s spread across what is a total, then, of $3.58 billion shared at 25 public post-secondary institutions. This number is insufficient, so I would say anywhere upwards is a boon.

Also, if we can talk about proportions, if we could anchor it even to 5 percent of the provincial budget for the university research…. The colleges can advocate for their own. In looking at the university sector, we are chronically underfunded, and that gap is growing between what our operating expenses that are legitimate are as well as….

The province has done well to try and maintain funding without cuts, and we’re grateful for that, but it is not enough to overcome what is the changing nature of post-secondary institutions and their expenses.

Bryan Tepper: This is a poor question, I think, at best, but if you could expand on your differentiation from the STEM to the arts field, your last point there in your talk. If you could go a little further, we have 50 seconds left.

Annabree Fairweather: For sure. In the knowledge development fund, it is narrowly limited to certain disciplines and it excludes the vast majority of what are comprehensive other academic programs that are also essential to the jobs and the skills that we need in B.C. for workers.

STEM is an acronym that’s…. Well, it’s the sciences, tech, the engineering and math. They’re limiting to exclude what are social sciences. I mean, in the arts, we talk about anthropology, we talk about all sorts of other disciplines that are really critical for the work that B.C. needs. Policy-makers, political scientists — all of these areas are excluded.

The knowledge development fund could be expanded to include those other disciplines that, again, represent a greater proportion of where the jobs are in the province. Also, the knowledge development fund is limited to infrastructure, and we want to see that expanded to be whole research projects.

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

Annabree Fairweather: Have a great day. Thanks for having me.

Paul Choi (Chair): The committee will now take a one-hour recess.

The committee recessed at 3:48 p.m.

The committee resumed at 4:55 p.m.

[Paul Choi in the chair.]

Paul Choi (Chair): Okay, we are back. I will call the committee back to order and move to our next presenter. We have Mollie Cameron from the Commercial Bear Viewing Association.

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

Commercial Bear Viewing Association

Mollie Cameron: Perfect, thank you. I’m happy to be here. Thank you for having me.

Our first recommendation is to increase funding for the B.C. conservation officer service to improve response capacity, enforcement and community safety and to provide resources for vehicles, functional bear traps, landing-capable boats and wildlife safety response officers in high human-bear conflict zones to support effective operations.

Conservation officers are stretched pretty thin. They have limited personnel serving large geographical areas and many duties to fulfil. Without adequate vehicles, working traps and water-capable transport, they can’t respond effectively, putting communities, wildlife and the officers themselves at risk.

The 2027 budget consultation contains a specific point of making communities safer with $139 million already committed in budget 2026. COS funding should be considered an extension of that commitment, one that reaches rural and remote communities often overlooked in urban-focused safety spending.

We want to recognize and thank the province for recently implementing a wildlife safety response officer in Ucluelet, a community that ranked highest in B.C. for bears destroyed as a result of human-wildlife conflicts last year. This is exactly the type of targeted, effective investment that makes a difference — a dedicated person in a high-conflict area with the capacity to respond. We strongly encourage the province to implement these positions in other high-conflict communities across B.C.

Our second recommendation is to increase funding for WildSafeBC and bear-smart programs to enhance public visibility. Prevention-focused education reduces conflicts, lowers costs and saves wildlife, supporting safer communities and improving coexistence outcomes provincewide.

The cheapest conflict is the one that never happens. Prevention programs that teach residents to manage attractants and reduce conflicts are our most fiscally responsible tool we have. Every dollar in public education helps build public trust and avoid far more expensive downstream enforcement and emergency responses. These programs work, especially when accompanied by proactive enforcement of non-compliance, which can be achieved through our aforementioned suggestion, but they are often underfunded and underexposed.

The Look West strategy promotes to the world that B.C. develops its resources responsibly. WildSafeBC is a way that we can demonstrate, community by community, that economic development and ecological integrity can go hand in hand. Investors, trading partners and many First Nations communities expect environmental stewardship to be real, and this program can help reinforce that commitment.

Our third recommendation is to invest in natural resource officers, scale up field-level enforcement to match accelerated resource development and uphold provincial biodiversity targets.

Invest in expanding the capacity of natural resource officers to enhance field monitoring, regulatory compliance and habitat protection. Strengthening NRO capacity supports proactive stewardship, ensures the ecological integrity of fast-tracked projects and significantly reduces long-term enforcement and restoration costs. Understaffing our natural resource officers doesn’t save money. It defers costs onto further budgets in the form of litigation, restoration and reputational damage.

The Look West strategy is fast-tracking mines, LNG and clean energy projects across B.C.’s back country, and that acceleration demands matching oversight. NROs are the boots on the ground that make streamlined approvals credible to investors, industry and First Nations alike. They are also the operational link that turns the biodiversity office’s framework targets into measurable, enforceable outcomes on the landscape.

Beyond resource development, intact ecosystems underpin the wildlife, ecotourism and recreational economies that rural, remote and Indigenous communities depend on. Investing in NRO capacity is fiscally prudent given today’s energy projects.

Those are all my recommendations.

[5:00 p.m.]

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

Rohini Arora: I think your second recommendation was to increase capacity of officers….

Mollie Cameron: The second recommendation was….

Rohini Arora: Sorry. It was fast. I tried to….

Mollie Cameron: Oh, I’m so sorry.

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

Rohini Arora: I think your second recommendation was to increase capacity of officers….

Mollie Cameron: The second recommendation was….

Rohini Arora: Sorry, it was fast. I tried to….

Mollie Cameron: Oh, I’m so sorry. I read really fast. The second recommendation was to increase funding for WildSafeBC.

Rohini Arora: Okay, WildSafeBC. And what was the first one? I think that was increasing capacity.

Mollie Cameron: To increase funding for the B.C. conservation officer service to ensure that they have resources for vehicles, functional bear traps and landing-capable boats, as well as wildlife safety response officers.

Rohini Arora: And then your third recommendation?

Mollie Cameron: I’m so sorry.

Rohini Arora: No, no. It’s totally fine.

Mollie Cameron: Five minutes is very short.

Rohini Arora: Totally. And you finished with a minute to spare.

Mollie Cameron: To invest in natural resource officers.

Rohini Arora: Right. Okay. That’s the streamlining portion and supporting some of the natural resource development through Look West.

Mollie Cameron: Correct.

Bryan Tepper: I want maybe a definition here. What is a wildlife safety resource officer? I only wrote down the initials.

Mollie Cameron: The wildlife safety response officers are an arm of the conservation officer service, and their job is to essentially provide education to callers. There are a lot of duties outside of human-wildlife conflicts that conservation officers are responsible for. This would be, essentially, an educational officer that serves communities.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): I appreciate your advocacy on behalf of the COS and NROs. I agree, as the critic for Water, Land and Resource Stewardship and wildlife, that it’s advocated heavily enough…. My question is the difference between your officer, the WSRO, and the funding for WildSafeBC…. WildSafeBC does a lot of that human conflict education and outreach. Are you seeing those two things working together? Or is it, kind of, if we fund one, then the other one is less…?

Mollie Cameron: No. I think could be collaborative. The one thing that lacks with WildSafeBC is that there’s no enforcement capacity. A lot of times there are people that are receptive to education, but there are a large number of people who don’t care about wildlife. So having that enforcement mechanism in place to hold people accountable through monetary fines would help gain better compliance to avoid further conflicts.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): Just as a clarifier on that then, the WSRO is not just community outreach; they are still a full officer with the ability to enforce?

Mollie Cameron: The one that was just implemented in Ucluelet…. They have the authority to enforce the Ucluelet attractant bylaw, allowing them the ability to enforce local bylaws. I’m really unclear if they’re allowed to issue DWPOs, dangerous wildlife protection orders. I think that does have to be a full officer.

Rohini Arora: How many of these officers do you think are required? You mentioned that the province has provided one safety officer that you said you’re feeling the difference around. I’m just curious. How many do you think are needed? Or do you just mean one in terms of focusing on the educational aspect?

Mollie Cameron: Oh, no. I think that they should be implemented in high-conflict areas. Ucluelet lost 13 bears last year to human-wildlife conflict. The district of Ucluelet is helping to fund that position, but it would be incredible if the province could help to fund those positions as well. Sometimes that funding does come up. A few years ago there was one that was serving the south Island. That’s the range of Nitinaht to Chemainus and down. That’s one officer that can help with education and accompaniment of the five other full officers that serve that area.

Rohini Arora: How many high-conflict zones are there? Sorry, I need education on that.

Mollie Cameron: Oh, no. For sure. It changes every year. Ucluelet was high conflict last year. Second was Campbell River. It depends…. If there’s a lot of development happening in one area and there are people moving in from other parts of the country that really have had no experience with wildlife or don’t know that they live in those areas, conflict tends to increase.

There can be other food stressors as well. If we have bad berry crop or poor salmon run, that can influence conflict.

But if people are putting their attractants away, then that’s going to be one of the best ways that we can reduce those conflicts.

Rohini Arora: No chocolate bar in the car.

Mollie Cameron: No.

[5:05 p.m.]

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): One more small clarity question. You were asking for more money for conservation officer service, but not just for the WSRO. You were looking also for more COs themselves.

Mollie Cameron: More COs and more tools for the COs.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): Okay. Thank you. I just wanted to make sure we didn’t capture just one part of that ask.

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

Mollie Cameron: I appreciate it. Have a great day, everyone.

for the WSRO. You were looking also for more COs themselves.

Mollie Cameron: More COs and more tools for the COs.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): Okay, thank you. I just wanted to make sure we didn’t capture just one part of that ask.

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

Mollie Cameron: Appreciate it. Have a great day, everyone.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you very much. Okay, we’ll move on to our next presenter. I’d like to ask Alix Lavertu to come forward from B.C. Chiropractic Association. Thank you for joining us today. You have five minutes for your presentation, five minutes for questions after, and you can begin when you’re ready.

Alix Lavertu: Good afternoon, and thank you for the opportunity to address the committee. I’m Alix Lavertu, executive director of the B.C. Chiropractic Association. We represent over 1,200 doctors of chiropractic, more than 82 percent of the profession, practising in urban, rural, and remote communities across B.C.

Lower back pain is among the most prevalent conditions that chiropractors treat. Suffering from chronic back pain affects a person’s ability to work, their daily activities, their mental health, their likelihood of substance abuse, and the list goes on. It is these patients, these people in our communities, that I want us to keep in mind throughout this presentation.

Musculoskeletal, or MSK, issues account for approximately 30 percent of all primary care visits in the province. That’s back and neck pain, joint injuries, headaches, sprains and related conditions.

So how do we fiscally responsibly and proactively decrease MSK issues showing up in our pressured community ER rooms, urgent care centres and medical offices? We do so by ensuring that community-based health care providers such as chiropractors have the scope of practice and the resources needed to provide initial assessments and conservative treatment, all to reduce pressure on primary care services while expanding health care capacity.

Last year nearly one million British Columbians received care from a chiropractor. The large majority of these patients are working British Columbians accessing care through their employers’ extended health benefits plans, meaning these services are delivered without direct funding from the Ministry of Health.

Let me walk you through three recommendations relevant to this committee.

One. Save $4 million in your health care budget and gain system capacity by streamlining diagnostic imaging for patients by allowing MSP-funded imaging referrals by chiropractors. While chiropractors are trained and regulated to authorize X-rays and advanced imaging referrals in B.C. and across Canada, they can’t apply their scope effectively in B.C. If imaging is determined clinically necessary by a chiropractor, that patient will still have to book an appointment at a medical office or end up in an ER just to get a referral for a test the chiropractor is already trained, qualified and regulated to order in this province.

According to our data, this policy reform would save our primary care system resources over 100,000 physician visits per year, associated costs with these visits of $4 million, and increase patient access to care by 23 days. And 90 percent of British Columbians support this change.

Two. Expand services without expanding costs by optimizing scope to increase patient access to pain care services. Intramuscular stimulation, commonly known as IMS or needling, is an evidence-based treatment for chronic pain and myofascial conditions. Patients can receive this treatment by chiropractors in nine different provinces. Why are we limiting evidence-supported pain treatment to patients living with pain in B.C.?

Through scope optimization, the ministry can increase pain services through regulations without increasing any costs. This is called fiscally responsible workforce optimization, supported by 97 percent of British Columbians.

Three. Adjust MSP supplementary benefits program and fees. MSP benefits provide low-income British Columbians with coverage for chiropractic care. This is one of the few public subsidies that connects vulnerable patients to non-pharmacological, conservative MSK care. The current MSP fee hasn’t changed since 2001. It remains at $23 per visit, which is a third of today’s cost. Who pays the differential?

Trends show the number of patients receiving care has been decreasing over an 11-year period. This is a health equity issue. The patients who rely on MSP benefits are those who most often do not have extended health coverage and who are most likely to turn to emergency services when their conditions go untreated.

To summarize, save formula dollars in your health care budget and gain system capacity by streamlining diagnostic imaging for patients by allowing MSP-funded imaging referrals by chiropractors.

Two, at zero cost to the ministry, optimize scope through regulations to increase patient access to community-based pain care services.

Three, adjust MSP supplementary benefit fees that connect, with fiscal integrity, vulnerable populations to care providers.

Thank you for your time, and I welcome your questions.

[5:10 p.m.]

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

Rohini Arora: Thank you so much for your presentation. It’s very clear that there is more of a policy focus here. Of course, streamlining diagnostic imaging and allowing that to be covered through MSP

for your presentation.

We’ll turn to questions by members.

Rohini Arora: Thank you so much for your presentation. It’s very clear that there is more of a policy focus here.

Of course, streamlining diagnostic imaging and allowing that to be covered through MSP would have some cost charges but I can see very clearly that yourself and your organization have thought about the financial landscape that we are in.

My question for you around…. I was trying to understand the third one. You said increase MSP. That’s the supplementary — the $23. That hasn’t changed since 2001. That part’s clear.

And the scope optimization. So, if someone comes to see you and they need to get an X-ray, or you need to see an X-ray in order to be able to support them, does that mean that…? I’m just trying to think about the flow of this. So if the patient comes to you, says they need support but you need to see something — the imaging — and they have to go and make an appointment, etc., that causes delays. I think you said 23 days. Is that correct?

Alix Lavertu: That’s right.

Rohini Arora: So what happens…? You said 100,000 visits would be…?

Alix Lavertu: You would get back 100,000 physician visits because that patient has already seen a chiropractor. Because the referrals for imaging are not covered by MSP, the patient has to go to a medical office, a family physician or the ER to get that requisition.

Rohini Arora: Because the referral is covered by the family doctor but not by the chiropractor?

Alix Lavertu: Correct, despite it being within the scope of practice, being regulated and chiropractors having training to do this. And this is also what’s occurring across many other jurisdictions in Canada.

Rohini Arora: And so this is a regulatory change. It’s not a request for legislation.

Alix Lavertu: It’s a policy change because it’s already within the chiropractic scope. It’s just not funded. And so the savings is because chiropractors would not receive a kickback for that referral, right? It’s just streamlining the patient to the appropriate imaging needs or ultimately providing conservative treatment and keeping that patient out of primary care in the first place if the imaging isn’t necessary.

Rohini Arora: Thank you.

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

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much for the presentation. There aren’t many questions because you did a really great job of articulating.

I understand the part about being able to refer to imaging. Many people in rural B.C. don’t even have a doctor, so you would have to go to a walk-in to get that referral. And, I mean, the chances are that the walk-in has the same patient connection that the chiropractor has already reviewed. It makes sense to me that the chiropractor would be able to directly refer you. Your doctor would still get copies of your results.

Alix Lavertu: Absolutely.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): For the needling though, the IMS increase. You said that nine provinces allow IMS as…. And it is within your scope of practice again. So is it the same thing, where it’s a policy or change…?

Alix Lavertu: No, it’s only chiropractors in Quebec and in British Columbia that do not have IMS in their regulations. So all the other provinces do. So the question is why can Canadians access this service pretty well everywhere else in Canada, except for in B.C., when the training is available at the chiropractic school in Canada and training is available in British Columbia as well. Other professions take additional training, postgrad training, to have the skill set to be able to apply that modality for MSK conditions.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): Which leads to my second part of the question then. So the ask isn’t necessarily just for chiropractors because IMS is done by other practitioners as well.

Alix Lavertu: In fact, it was recently added to the scope of another MSK provider within the last six months.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): Yes, perfect. Thank you very much.

Rohini Arora: Which provider?

Alix Lavertu: It was added to the scope of physical therapy.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): The Chinese practitioner earlier was talking about it as well.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you. I just want to also ask a clarifying question related to that.

I believe, when I went and got a chiropractor session, I got an X-ray done. In that case, currently, as it sits, is that covered under extended benefits for that portion?

Alix Lavertu: No. X-ray is applied by a chiropractor or ordered by a chiropractor, received by a clinic. The patient would have to pay out of pocket if that requisition was received by that diagnostic imaging clinic. Most clinics actually do not receive chiropractic referrals. They will always require a physician referral, and this is the redundancy in the system that we’re seeing.

[5:15 p.m.]

Paul Choi (Chair): Okay, gotcha. Okay, well, thank you so much for taking the time and coming to present to us.

Alix Lavertu: You’re welcome. Thank you.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you very much.

We’ll move to our next presenter. We’d like to call Eric Gagnon from Imperial Tobacco Canada

a physician referral, and this is the redundancy in the system that we’re seeing.

Paul Choi (Chair): Okay, gotcha.

Okay, well thank you so much for taking the time and coming and presenting to us.

We’ll move to our next presenter. We’d like to call Eric Gagnon from Imperial Tobacco Canada Ltd. to the front.

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

Imperial Tobacco Canada Ltd.

Eric Gagnon: Good afternoon, and thank you for the invitation to be here again this year. My name is Eric Gagnon, and I’m the senior vice-president of corporate and regulatory affairs at Imperial Tobacco Canada.

Let me start with something simple. There are important health risks associated with smoking, and nicotine is addictive. In a perfect world, no one would smoke, vape, drink alcohol or use cannabis. But that’s not the reality. Some adults will continue to use these products, including nicotine. And when that’s the case, good policy needs to reflect that reality and ensure that those consumers remain in a regulated, controlled environment.

The real question for this committee is this. Do you want British Columbians buying regulated products from responsible retailers or from criminals selling from the trunk of a car without any age verification? Right now, more and more of them are choosing the second option.

When I was here last year, I was very direct about the scale of the illicit market. Unfortunately, it has gotten worse. Today the situation is critical. B.C. has the largest illicit nicotine market in Canada. Let me start with cigarettes. The latest projections show tobacco tax revenues for this year at about $290 million, just 65 percent of what was expected and the worst performance of any province in over ten years.

Over the past decade, your shortfall adds up to more than $900 million. Consumers are leaving the legal market, not because demand has disappeared but because they are finding cheap alternatives outside the system. Convenience stores are seeing volume declines of up to 80 percent. These are compliant, regulated businesses losing out to illegal operators.

That is not normal. And it should not be acceptable, because illicit tobacco is controlled by organized crime groups. Today, those same networks are tied to cocaine and fentanyl. Same groups, same channels.

Now, let me turn to vaping and nicotine pouches. Here the situation is even more concerning. Our most recent data shows non-compliance in vape shops has reached 100 percent. That means illegal products are now the norm — products that exceed size limits, products with excessive nicotine and products that are mislabelled. Compare that to convenience stores, where compliance is over 99 percent, based on recent Health Canada data. So current rules are directing consumers to non-compliant outlets.

We see the same pattern with pouches. Zonnic is Canada’s only legally available nicotine replacement therapy pouch. It is regulated as a cessation product by Health Canada, but access is restricted, while high-dose illicit alternatives are widely available in vape shops and online. As a result, consumers are being pushed toward unregulated products instead of the legal Health Canada authorized option.

Online, the situation remains wide open, with hundreds of sites selling illegal products directly to consumers. At this point, B.C. has effectively lost control of its nicotine market.

What needs to happen? First, on cigarettes, stronger penalties and more enforcement, as recently announced by Ontario, Alberta and New Brunswick.

Second, on vaping, more inspection and real consequences for non-compliance, because right now, breaking the rules is simply part of the business model. The province should also revisit current restrictions that are pushing consumers towards the least compliant parts of the market.

Third, on pouches, revisit the current framework, which is not delivering the intended outcome. B.C. should repeal its ministerial order treating these products as a schedule II substance, as recommended by this committee last year, and join other provinces in asking the federal government to amend its order restricting the sale to behind the pharmacy counter.

Finally, across all categories, stronger federal action, particularly on online sales.

[5:20 p.m.]

Let me close with this. If nothing changes, the direction is clear. The legal market will shrink, government revenues will decline, and organized crime will grow. That is not acceptable. That is not an acceptable health outcome, it is not an acceptable public safety outcome, and it is not an outcome this province can afford. You have the opportunity to correct that course and restore control to this system.

Thank you for your time.

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

acceptable. That is not an acceptable health outcome, it is not an acceptable public safety outcome, and it is not an outcome this province can afford. You have the opportunity to correct that course and restore control to this system.

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

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): I’m sorry, it’s getting late in the day for us. I clearly got two and three but I missed No. 1 for your recommendation. Sorry.

Eric Gagnon: That’s okay. Stronger penalties and more enforcement. Other provinces have done the same recently in their budget. Ontario has announced measures, Alberta did the same, New Brunswick, but we haven’t seen anything in British Columbia.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): Okay, then I question whether I got No. 2 right. I had that No. 2 is more inspection and real consequences for non-compliance. Did I just get my numbers wrong?

Eric Gagnon: No, that’s right.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): Okay. Okay. One is for pouches, and one is for…?

Eric Gagnon: One is for vaping, one is for cigarettes, and one is for pouches.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): Got it. Thank you.

Eric Gagnon: No problem.

Rohini Arora: You talked about tobacco, vaping and pouches, and then you added on at the end stronger federal action around online purchases. Can you share a little bit more about that? I just don’t have that much knowledge.

Eric Gagnon: We evaluate there are more than 200 websites right now in Canada that are selling illegal nicotine products, including cigarettes, vaping products and nicotine pouches. We believe that in order to address online sales, the federal government needs to intervene. We think it, from a provincial perspective, is going to be very challenging.

Ontario has spoken out and has asked the federal government to act in leadership in that domain. We believe if other provinces were also to be asking that, it would probably force the federal government to step in.

One way to address that would be to ban online sales, which we support. At this point in time there are a lot of illegal products available online. And funnily enough, if you order it online, it’s going to be delivered at your door by Canada Post.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): Again, I’m just wondering if the cigarette discussion…. And we were talking about the illicit market for tobacco. Does that include the stores that are on reserve that are selling cigarettes? Or are we talking about a different…? You talked about out of a trunk.

Eric Gagnon: I think it’s a combination of different things. I think what is important to understand…. There have been many media reports. The RCMP says there are 175 organized crime groups in Canada dealing illegal tobacco. So it is not a First Nation issue. We’ve seen media reports suggesting that Mexican cartels now involve Hell’s Angels and the Chinese Mafia. I think these organized crime groups are leveraging the First Nations communities in order to apply their organized crime activities.

Paul Choi (Chair): I have a question about that as well. For the illegal tobacco, what’s the proportion of it being sold in person versus online? Also do you have stats on if that illegal tobacco is made within Canada, or is it made out of country and smuggled in?

Eric Gagnon: The production is mainly on First Nations communities in Ontario and Quebec. I’ll say…. I’ll go back. I’ve been there for 17 years. Initially when I joined, it was mainly an Ontario-Quebec issue. As Quebec has introduced a model that works really well, called ACCES Tabac, they’ve reduced illicit from 40 percent to 15 percent over time.

What we’ve seen over time is that as provinces in Quebec and Ontario try to address the issue, the products are going east and west. And 15 years ago B.C. didn’t have a problem, but now it has one of the highest levels in Canada.

The production is in Canada. It’s not counterfeit products. It’s not products coming out from other jurisdictions or around the world.

In terms of sales, I think everybody that smokes knows somebody that can bring in illicit cigarettes. It’s very easy to get them. It’s not an issue in convenience stores, per se, for cigarettes, but it is easy to access either online or, like I said, in the back of a car.

Rohini Arora: At one point, you had mentioned that there were losses, I think for this year potentially $269 million, and a shortfall over a certain period of time was $900 million?

[5:25 p.m.]

Eric Gagnon: Yes. We track, basically, government projections on tobacco revenues. And what happened is earlier this year, they reduced that projection by 65 percent. It’s not like there’s 65 percent less smokers. Smoking rates in B.C. decline by about 1 percent a year. So basically it’s just readjusting based on what the market is doing. But what

on tobacco revenues.

Rohini Arora: Okay. Government….

Eric Gagnon: Right? What happened is earlier this year they reduced that projection by 65 percent, so it’s not like there’s 65 percent less smokers. Smoking rates in B.C. decline by about 1 percent a year, so basically it’s just readjusting based on what the market is doing. But what we see is that the illicit market is taking more and more of the market share.

Rohini Arora: You said it’s 97 percent compliance in convenience stores, or 99 percent. What is it in the vaping…?

Eric Gagnon: Health Canada published a report recently, and what they said is, based on their analysis, 99 percent of the convenience stores selling vaping products complied, where I believe it was 60 percent of vape shops were non-compliant.

Rohini Arora: Oh, 60 percent. Okay.

Eric Gagnon: So if you take a look at B.C. as an example, the province has allowed vape shops to sell flavors but not convenience stores, yet we see that the stores that are not complying with regulation are in those stores. So that’s another example of regulation that looks good on paper, but in real life, it’s just not working.

Rohini Arora: Got it.

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

Eric Gagnon: Thank you very much for having me.

Paul Choi (Chair): We will move to our next presenter, if I can ask Paulina Chow-White, who is online. Okay, thank you. We have Paulina Chow-White joining us online from Terry Fox Humanitarian Awards, Inc.

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

Terry Fox Humanitarian Awards

Paulina Chow-White: Let me tell you. We’ve been around since 1982. We were created at first by Pierre Elliott Trudeau, who had started the award program with $5 million, and then in 2006, another $10 million was invested by Stephen Harper, who saw the award as a catalyst to connect Canadians to each other and to showcase Canadian talent and diversity to the world from coast to coast.

In the last 44 years, we’ve been doing that very business and have funded the educations of over 1,100 students in Canada. Those awards — a significant portion have gone to British Columbians. In the last five years alone, 25.3 percent of the winners have come from B.C., and the top three provinces that receive awards are Ontario, British Columbia, and the third one is Alberta. In the last five years alone, British Columbians have increased their applications to the award by over 40 percent.

The criteria of the award are unlike any other award in the country. No. 1, it is for humanitarian service. These are the producers in our communities who contribute to their local communities through volunteer hours that are often in the thousands by the time they graduate high school.

The second category is courage and determination and overcoming an obstacle. Like Terry, they overcome some obstacle in their life that required an unrealistic show of fortitude.

The third category is civic and community engagement. What that means is that they either participate in the civic life of their churches, schools, gurdwaras or in provincial government itself, or on a federal level, for example. The UN’s youth ambassador from Canada was our award recipient in the last few years, as were three or four students that sat on the Prime Minister’s youth council.

The fourth and fifth categories are athletics and academics. Most awards look at academics as their number one criteria, and we do not. We look at it insofar as they’re a good investment in terms of the student being successful in post-secondary education.

To receive the award, you must score on those, and we receive somewhere in the area of 3,400 to almost 4,000 expressions of interest a year. Across Canada, we have about ten interview committees that decide on the students and who the winners are each year, and the House Speaker of Canada announces them in Ottawa. We just came back from our trip on May 27, where the House Speaker announced them. They were acknowledged in parliament both at the beginning and at the end, and we received a standing ovation in parliament.

[5:30 p.m.]

In 2024, I asked the federal government for $40 million. I’m trying to build the endowment to over $100 million because most endowments are at that level, and we are one of the top three most recognized scholarships in the country. If you look at the most recent Maclean’s magazine

I asked the federal government for $40 million. I’m trying to build the endowment to over $100 million, because most endowments are at that level, and we are one of the top three most recognized scholarships in the country. If you look at the most recent Maclean’s magazine, you’ll see us featured there. We’re consistently ranked at the top, but we are able to provide students with less, and run on less, than any other award in Canada.

We are trying to elevate this award to the level of that of the Rhodes and things like the Fulbright in the U.S. If you look at the Fulbright in the U.S., despite all their cuts in spending, they have still spent $667 million this year in their federal budget on Fulbrights and have earmarked more than we earmarked towards Canadian students, in the hopes of attracting them.

These awards can be used towards your first degree or to a skill or trade. As long as it’s ranked in a student loan system, a school that’s acknowledged, they can apply their scholarship in any of those institutions. The number one graduating category in the last 44 years has been health and medicine.

If you look at the award winners, they are spread throughout Canada, and we have asked that the provinces of Ontario, B.C. and Alberta match a federal contribution of $30 million and meet us at $10 million each. After those three provinces, if you’re able to invest in us, then we will be going to other provinces like Quebec and Nova Scotia and so forth in the Maritimes.

I think I’m into the question period now.

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

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much for the presentation. If B.C. were to participate in putting money in the endowment, would the money stay in B.C.? Or would it be into the Canadian fund and be distributed across Canada?

Paulina Chow-White: That’s an excellent question, and that would be up to the province. Alberta asked me a similar question, and their question was not so much that it would go to British Columbians, but that they would go to an Alberta institution.

So B.C. could build something like that and say it could be any Canadian from anywhere in the country — so it is landed immigrants and Canadian citizens — that they’d come to B.C., and use it as a talent attraction mechanism. You could also ask that it go to British Columbians.

Either would be fine, but I think the more strategic way to go about it would be using it to attract talent. You can imagine that these students are very highly competitive, if out of almost 4,000 we’re selecting 15. This year we had 15. At the high point of the war, there were 51. I think that was 1985.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): A quick follow-up. I saw in your handout — thank you for providing the handout — that right now there are 7,000 annually over four years, totalling 28,000. In your solution, you reference that, as well as adding $1,000 a month for living. So you’re increasing the tuition coverage by $500, but you’re adding a whole new $1,000. Is that correct? Or is there also a living one and the current one?

Paulina Chow-White: Yes, you’ve got it. So the award is always intended to cover everything, but as you know, the price of the education has skyrocketed by, depending on what you look at, 820 percent, and we no longer are able to cover the tuition alone.

I should mention that we just announced that we are increasing the value of the award to $30,000. This is made possible by $10 million in federal contributions that we just received in the fall, and that would be $7,500 a year.

Paul Choi (Chair): Okay, thank you so much. Any other questions?

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

Paulina Chow-White: One last thing: in November, the House Speaker of British Columbia would like to present our winners. They would like to acknowledge these high-achieving British Columbians who have contributed to their communities.

[5:35 p.m.]

We’ll be following the lead of Canada in having our winners come to B.C. and go to Victoria. We hope that you’ll attend. We’ll be sending invites, I think, to the House Speaker’s office.

The last thing I should say is that, federally and in Ontario, Alberta and B.C., we have seen what we call

of Canada and having our winners come to B.C. and go to Victoria.

We hope that you’ll attend. We’ll be sending invites, I think, through the House Speaker’s office.

The last thing I should say is that federally, in Ontario, Alberta and B.C., we have seen what we call non-partisan support for this award because this is an award to carry forth the values of Canadians as represented by Terry Fox, and there isn’t any kind of divisions across party lines. People are kind of quite joined on this.

Paul Choi (Chair): Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for your time and presenting to us.

Paulina Chow-White: Thank you. Can you just tell me a bit…. This is a format I’m not used to. What happens next? Do you reply to us? Is this our formal submission?

Paul Choi (Chair): Yes, so we will release a report probably sometime in August or September. We will make an announcement that the report is available, and then there’ll be a website that you can go to and access the report.

Paulina Chow-White: All right. And that report is the result of the Finance Committee deliberations?

Paul Choi (Chair): Yes, that’s right.

Paulina Chow-White: Okay. All right. Thank you very much for your time today, and thank you very much for devoting your careers to public service.

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

Okay, we’ll move on to our next presenter. If I can have Bassem El-Rahimy from Turo come to the front.

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

Turo

Bassem El-Rahimy: Thank you so much for having me. Hi, everybody. My name is Bassem El-Rahimy. I’m the vice-president and managing director at Turo Canada. Thank you for the opportunity to present to you today and the opportunity to answer any questions you may have about Turo. I’m pleased to be here today on behalf of more than 34,000 British Columbian residents who have used Turo in the past year.

So what is Turo? Turo is the world’s largest peer-to-peer car-sharing platform and, in British Columbia, I’m happy to report, the only car-sharing option that doesn’t charge a sign-up or monthly fee.

To participate in peer-to-peer car-sharing with Turo, it’s simple. You download an app, you sign up for free. To become a host, you list your car for others to use it, or you can be a guest with your searching to find a vehicle for your own mobility solutions.

I want to be clear that Turo does not own any cars. We’re simply a platform that makes it easier for people to have access to a car when they need it and to help average British Columbians who own a car get more value out of that asset so they can keep paying their bills as global inflation keeps making things harder for all of us.

Through sharing cars, the number of cars on the road is also reduced. We see car-sharing as a method or an opportunity to cut down on congestion and emissions.

So what brings me here today? I’m here to share a problem that British Columbians are facing. Like all British Columbians, when a Turo host purchases a vehicle, they pay PST on that purchase. But when a large car rental company, usually based outside of Canada, foreign companies, purchase a vehicle for their fleet, they benefit from a tax loophole that exempts them from that PST.

That means that when a B.C. resident uses Turo to share their vehicle through our app, they have to factor in the full price that a guest would have to pay. When massive car rental agencies based outside of Canada put these cars up for rent, they start with a massive economic advantage.

Car rental companies in B.C. pay less for every vehicle than the average B.C. resident does. Turo hosts who are sharing their personal vehicle to make ends meet or simply earn more money are placed in an economic unfair situation as they attempt to compete with multinational car rental companies, again, most of them based outside of Canada.

To help quantify this issue, the tax loophole that exempts these massive companies from not paying PST when they purchase these vehicles costs the province of British Columbia $100 million a year — staggering number. Today I want to offer two solutions for your consideration.

The first is to simply close the tax loophole and require car rental agencies to pay their fair share of taxes just like British Columbia residents do. That would level the playing field between car rental companies and the average Canadian. This policy change would make it easier for residents to share their vehicle and would bring about $100 million a year into the B.C. treasury which could go towards addressing important provincial priorities.

The second option is to exempt peer-to-peer car-sharing from the passenger vehicle rental tax, the PVRT. This decades-old tax of $1.50 a day applies to car rentals and car-sharing. By eliminating it for peer-to-peer car-sharing, it would mean everybody pays either the PST on car purchases or the PVRT on rentals, but nobody pays both.

[5:40 p.m.]

That sounds not quite as balanced as the first solution I proposed, but it would be a step to help make things fairer for British Columbians in British Columbia. We encourage this committee to recommend one of these changes in your deliberation.

Switching topics, I’d like to raise one more challenge. British Columbia, like most

both. That sounds not quite as balanced as the first solution I proposed, but it would be a step to help make things fairer for British Columbians in British Columbia. We encourage this committee to recommend one of these changes in your deliberations.

Switching topics, I’d like to raise one more challenge. British Columbia, like most provinces, charges PST on car rentals. I’m not here today to ask you to remove that PST. I’m here to ask you to make how that PST is calculated less complicated. B.C. is the only province in Canada that charges a variable PST rate on vehicle rentals based on the value of the vehicle, not a flat PST on the total value of the rental.

As vehicle costs continue to rise and vehicles become more and more expensive due to the cost of batteries or new technologies, it becomes increasingly difficult to precisely calculate the value of a vehicle, and therefore much harder to administer and enforce this tax policy. We ask the committee to recommend reverting to a flat 7 percent PST calculation for rental vehicles that is based on the cost of the service provided, not the value of the vehicle being rented.

To conclude, I simply want to iterate our thanks for having us here today to represent the voice of B.C. peer-to-peer car-sharing users. This is an important opportunity to speak to you as deliberations begin for next year’s budget. I would very much like the opportunity to work with B.C.’s elected officials to resolve these challenges, and we look forward to your questions. Thank you for having me here today.

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

Rohini Arora: Thank you, Bassem, for your presentation. I’m curious. On the third handout that you have here, it says annual income of $65,000 for the peer-to-peer car-sharing. I assume that’s from.… Is that from Turo? Or is that the average of other car-sharing companies? On the right, it says for rental car company, $40.6 billion in global annual revenue. I’m just trying to understand. That’s not global revenue on the left of that dichotomy, is it?

Bassem El-Rahimy: No, the annual income — this would be the annual income of an average B.C. resident.

What we were trying to communicate with this handout is to highlight that this individual is making 65K a year, give or take, in this example, and then they’re forced, to follow current regulations, to pay the PST on the purchase of that vehicle — almost $8,000, as you can see in the handout, or slightly less — versus a car rental company that may have in the billions, you know, $41 billion here, rounding up, in annual revenues, and they’re exempt from that PST.

As you go down the handout, you can see the staggering difference — you know, 500 percent more in taxes paid by the B.C. resident that chooses to participate in peer-to-peer car-sharing, versus who they’re trying to compete with.

Rohini Arora: Just as a follow-up — I don’t know if you know this; perhaps you do — many of the car rental companies, like Enterprise, for example, actually provide some of the vehicles of their fleet to support local charitable organizations in their work. That might require moving, transportation, etc. So there’s some work that they do that’s very critical, actually, to community, I guess, to play devil’s advocate.

I only do that because I want to hear your answer. I’m neither for nor against; I’m neutral, in just understanding. If you take away, as I guess you said, PVRT or the other one — you gave those two options — and option 1 is the one we end up recommending, what is that going to look like on costs to companies like Enterprise?

And will that remove the ability to support local charitable organizations, who really depend on these vehicles, as part of the work that they do, that support people escaping, let’s say, gender-based violence or intimate-partner violence?

Bassem El-Rahimy: Yeah, absolutely. I can’t speak to Enterprise specifically. I’m not privy to their information, but more broadly on this space. I believe that these companies, like Turo.… We partner with many grassroots organizations, like the Make-A-Wish Foundation here in Canada. The goal here is not for us to generate income with these activities. Many times, we do these services for free or at a loss — in Turo’s instance, always as a donation. We offer the service for free, to enable these wishes for kids.

It is not clear to me, in the event that that loophole is closed, that companies would stop being good corporate social citizens. I can’t speak to how much more or less that they would do, but in Turo’s example, regardless of what happens with the PVRT, we plan to continue our efforts in being good corporate citizens in the Canadian market.

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

[5:45 p.m.]

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): I just have a little question about the variable PST rate. I was not aware of this. So they actually don’t pay the full 7 percent on the actual value of the car rental? They actually pay on a prorated basis? Could you clarify that a little?

Bassem El-Rahimy: Yeah, absolutely. British Columbia is the only province

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): I just have a little question about the variable PST rate. I was not aware of this.

So they actually don’t pay the full 7 percent on the actual value of the car rental? They actually pay pro-rated based…. Could you clarify that a little?

Bassem El-Rahimy: Yeah, absolutely.

British Columbia is the only province where the PST is a range, and that range is based on the value of the vehicle. So a more expensive vehicle will of course result in a more expensive tax regime for that. This is the only province where we have that process or regulation in place. Everywhere else, it’s just a flat rate based on the transaction.

And the reason why that makes sense to me is…. As you can imagine, a more expensive vehicle will naturally demand a higher rental rate. So you’re already accounting for that difference in that asset, whereas in this case, in British Columbia, we’re doing that twice, both in the higher rate that the consumer has to pay for just getting the service and, additionally, on top of that, a higher tax because the underlying asset is more expensive.

Bryan Tepper: More of a statement to go along with that is that I talked to a couple of the rental car companies. They want the same thing, so you’re on the same page with that one for sure. I’ve got really nothing further to say, but I think it’s a great idea, because it doesn’t make sense that we’re not basing it on that.

Bassem El-Rahimy: I mean, if I may respond to that. I know it’s a comment, not a question, but if I may just…. It is incredibly hard to administer, for both operators and also, I assume, the tax regulators. So I see this as an industry win, not a company win.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): I know we’re out of time. It’ll be a super quick clarifying question.

Just on the sliding scale, though, it still only goes to 7 percent. It’s not a sliding scale of 3 percent to 12 percent? The PST remains the same?

Bassem El-Rahimy: I do have that answer.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): Oh, so it is a sliding scale.

Bassem El-Rahimy: Yes.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): Thank you. I didn’t get to that page. Which page is that on? Oh, it’s on both.

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

Bassem El-Rahimy: Thank you so much for having me. Have a great evening.

Paul Choi (Chair): We will move on to our next presenter, who is online. It looks like she is on already, which is great. We have Celeste Hayward from B.C. Association of Aboriginal Friendship Centres.

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

B.C. Association of
Aboriginal Friendship Centres

Celeste Hayward: Thank you. Good evening, and thank you for the opportunity to speak to the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services. As he said, I’m here representing the B.C. Association of Aboriginal Friendship Centres. We are a provincial umbrella organization supporting 25 friendship centres across B.C.

I am with [Indigenous language spoken] from northern British Columbia, and I’m on the territories of the Secwépemc Nation in Salmon Arm.

Essentially, in B.C., approximately 80 percent of the Indigenous people live off reserve, and friendship centres are the largest urban, rural and remote Indigenous service delivery network in Canada, not just B.C. Every day, friendship centres provide essential services including housing supports, food security, health navigation, cultural programming, Elder supports, mental health and wellness services, youth programming and employment assistance, just to name a few.

They are not single-service organizations. They are essential community hubs that support Indigenous people and their families across the entire life cycle and through every major transition, sometimes with lifelong relationships.

In Budget 2027, we are calling on the province of B.C. to make sustained, long-term investments in urban, rural and remote Indigenous service delivery through friendship centres. This call comes at a time when communities are facing multiple overlapping crises, like housing instability, the toxic drug crisis, the rising cost of living, mental health challenges and gender-based violence.

While these pressures intensify, friendship centres are being asked to do more, often with stagnant operational funding, short-term contracts and recruitment and retention challenges because of those things. This is not a sustainable model.

We’re asking the province to focus investments in three priority areas. First, increased and sustainable capacity funding for friendship centres. The most urgent issue facing friendship centres is the gap between the scale of need in our communities and the capacity funding available to meet it. Current funding does not reflect the complexity or scope of the work being done.

Friendship centres are expected to operate as full-service community hubs, but they are funded through short-term, restrictive agreements that make long-term planning nearly impossible. Staff are constantly forced to shift resources between programs just to keep services running and doors open.

[5:50 p.m.]

At the same time, friendship centres are increasingly responding to systemic gaps in housing, health care, mental health and income security. Communities turn to friendship centres first because they are accessible, culturally safe and trusted. But that responsibility should not translate into unlimited capacity without stable investment.

Operational funding must reflect the real cost of delivery of culturally safe, Indigenous

housing, health care, mental health and income security.

Communities turn to friendship centres first because they are accessible, culturally safe and trusted. But that responsibility should not translate into unlimited capacity without stable investment.

Operational funding must reflect the real cost of delivery of culturally safe Indigenous services, supporting staff, administration, facilities, technology, transportation, culture and Elder and youth engagement. This is the foundational infrastructure required to deliver consistent and safe care. Stable organizations create stable communities.

Second, dedicated and flexible youth services funding. Indigenous youth across B.C. are navigating intergenerational trauma, racism, housing instability, mental health challenges, substance use and transitions, all while seeking connection to culture and community. And yet in a lot of places, there are no safe youth spaces. With consistent programming, we can provide those safe cultural spaces that connect youth into their community, and friendship centres are already doing this to the best of their ability in a very low-funded space.

Youth services need to be flexible, culturally grounded and community driven. Indigenous youth should not have to rely on fragmented or unsafe systems. Access to safe, consistent services saves lives.

Third, expending Indigenous-led mental health investments, making sure programs like complex care have an Indigenous-led priority. Friendship centres are often the first point of contact for Indigenous people experiencing crisis, trauma, grief, addiction or housing instability. In many communities, they’re also one of the only culturally safe supports available. So providing mental health funding and ensuring Indigenous priority in Indigenous-led opportunities is really important.

In closing, friendship centres are essential infrastructure for Indigenous communities in British Columbia. For decades — more than 50 years, 60 years — they have provided safety, connection, cultural continuity and healing. But they’re doing this within outdated and unstable funding models that undermine sustainability.

They need commitment from the province, and I think that Budget 2027 is an opportunity for the province to strengthen Indigenous communities by investing in stable, long-term funding for friendship centres. This includes capacity funding, flexible youth programming and expanding Indigenous-led mental health services.

Thank you. That was five minutes.

Paul Choi (Chair): Absolutely. Right on time.

Thank you so much for the presentation. Now we’ll move on to questions by members.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much, Celeste, for the presentation. I did work in the friendship centres in both Smithers and Houston in a previous life. At this point, it was probably 25 years ago now — dating myself.

The question I have is around the admin operation funding. You said to increase. Can you give us some sense of what it’s at now and what it needs to be at — as a percentage or an amount, whichever is easier?

Celeste Hayward: Currently we receive funding from MIRR. We confirmed ’25-26. This year in January is when we actually received the funding for ’25-26, and we received $2.8 million, which was, in the end, about a $50,000 cut. We ended up choosing to cut our friendship centre student bursary program.

In our current application for fiscal year ’26-27, we’ve asked for $3.38 million to increase provincial capacity at friendship centres. Part of the programming also supports the Gathering Our Voices — a very small portion. We also include Elders and training development.

So that’s the gap for us. It’s about $1 million.

I’m doing bad math. Apologies.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): Nope, it’s all good. But looking then at ’27-28, which is the budget that we’re putting forward, I’m assuming at least $3.3 million. But what is the number for the report then?

Celeste Hayward: I would like to ask for…. Well, I mean, if you’re asking pie in the sky, $4 million would be great. I would love if we can keep at $3.3 million or even go to $3.5 million, if I was going to be realistic in this time of austerity.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you very much.

Follow-up?

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): If there’s nobody else, I’ll just…. I’m assuming that does not include the dedicated flexible youth programming funding as well as the mental health funding?

Celeste Hayward: No.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): So those are separate. That’s just your core operating. And to be clear, it was 25 friendship centres, and that funding would not increase the number of friendship centres. That’s just to make those ones sustainable.

[5:55 p.m.]

Celeste Hayward: That would not increase the number of friendship centres. And in fact, if we could go up even more, we would have the capacity to increase by three more friendship centres, as we have them waiting in the wings.

If we’re talking about youth funding, I think a really comprehensive project and engagement with friendship centres would need to see, probably, something like…. If you were talking about comprehensive, I would

even more, we would have the capacity to increase by three more friendship centres, as we have them waiting in the wings.

If we’re talking about youth funding, I think a really comprehensive project in engagement with friendship centres would need to see probably something like…. If you were talking about comprehensive, I would like the projects to be $200,000 at each friendship centre. So $200,000 times 25 I think would be a good starting point.

If we’re talking about mental health, this is a very complex conversation. I am aware of complex care. That’s been rolling out over the last four years. I know there are four dedicated Indigenous-led projects. Actually, no, there are, I think, eight Indigenous-led projects. There was an announcement a couple years ago that there would be more, but those haven’t come through yet.

I just really want to make sure that whatever mental health project programming looks like, it needs to have this Indigenous-led stream to it as well. I think that’s really important. Connection is the correction, and culture is part of that pathway.

Paul Choi (Chair): Any other questions? Seeing none, thank you so much for taking the time to come and present to us.

Celeste Hayward: Thank you. We probably knew each other, because I grew up in Smithers. I hope you have a great day.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you very much.

Okay, we’ll go to our next presenter. We have Reem Girgrah in person here with us from Restorative Justice Victoria.

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

Restorative Justice Victoria

Reem Girgrah: Thank you so much for having me. My name is Reem Girgrah. My pronouns are she and her. I’m here representing Restorative Justice Victoria. I’m the new associate director, and I’m very privileged and honoured to be here with you folks today.

I’m here to bring forward the recommendation of stable and protected annual core funding for Restorative Justice Victoria based on three themes: the renewed calls for restorative justice programs to be used in cases of sexualized violence and intimate-partner violence; restorative justice programs reduce the pressure and costs on criminal justice system; and restorative justice programs are chronically underfunded, even though they have been evaluated as being a more satisfactory experience for victims and offenders with better outcomes.

Accepting our recommendation today aligns with the direction already being set by provincial and federal governments, due to recent reports and peer-reviewed research regarding justice options for survivors of sexual assault and intimate-partner violence, as well as the effectiveness of restorative justice programs.

On a provincial level, the B.C. Attorney General appointed Dr. Kim Stanton to conduct a systemic review of the province’s treatment of victims and survivors of sexualized violence and intimate-partner violence in the criminal justice system. This report explored how and why survivors continue to face barriers in the legal system and pointed towards restorative responses as one of B.C.’s broader implementation agenda for safer, more coordinated and more survivor-centred justice.

On the federal level, the Office of the Federal Ombudsperson for Victims of Crime led a systemic investigation into how survivors of sexual assault experience Canada’s criminal justice system. They found that many survivors experience the criminal justice system as harmful, inaccessible and unable to provide meaningful accountability and called for restorative justice to be made available as a safe, voluntary and stably funded justice option.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s call to action 31 calls for sufficient and stable funding for community-based alternatives to imprisonment.

While Restorative Justice Victoria is not a substitute for Indigenous-led justice systems, our program serves Indigenous and other racialized clients and supports a broader shift towards community-based accountability as a realistic and proven alternative to imprisonment.

The mandate to the Minister of Finance by Premier David Eby directs government to address gender-based violence with partners and people with lived experience.

There’s a growing body of peer-reviewed research that demonstrates that restorative justice practices have a positive psychological impact on survivors, and these impacts persist over time. A decrease of post-traumatic stress symptoms is more expressive in victims who undergo restorative practices compared to victims who go through conventional legal processes. Victim justice needs are broader than what can be achieved through criminal prosecution alone.

The Department of Justice meta-analysis on the effectiveness of restorative justice practices in 2022 noted that offenders who participated in restorative justice programs tended to have substantially higher compliance rates than offenders in other arrangements — meaning that victims and survivors would have a greater likelihood in receiving compensation, such as restitution for the harm caused, and offenders would actively accept responsibility.

[6:00 p.m.]

Restorative justice programs, on average, yield reductions in recidivism compared to non-restorative approaches to criminal behaviour.

In summary, survivors need meaningful justice options, including restorative justice where appropriate.

and offenders would actively accept responsibility. Restorative justice programs on average yield reductions in recidivism compared to non-restorative approaches to criminal behaviour.

In summary, survivors need meaningful justice options, including restorative justice where appropriate. Community-based programs need stable core funding to deliver these options safely, consistently and accountably. And restorative justice processes are effective and appropriate responses to serious crime.

Restorative Justice Victoria is a not-for-profit society established in 2005. We have a small team and a large extensively trained volunteer base. We have MOUs with the local police departments and B.C. prosecution services. In a year, we receive from 75 to 100 referrals from the legal system, schools and community.

We have a specialized program to address intimate-partner violence and sexualized violence called Transform, which has been piloted in partnership with the Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General with one-time allocated funding that runs out April 1, 2027. We have been noted to be uniquely positioned to take on this work, and in 2023, we are the only RJ program with an exemption to deal with power-based offences.

Currently our funding structure does not support the work that we do. It treats it as a short-term grant projects. Most of the victims and offenders who participate in our process report high levels of satisfaction and recommend our programs to others. Without the stable funding, we run the risk of severely limiting the number of folks we can support and run the risk of closing, which would be another betrayal to the victims and survivors who have expressed what their interests are.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you so much. Right on time again, as well, for your presentation.

We’ll now move on to questions by members.

Bryan Tepper: How many paid staff do you currently have?

Reem Girgrah: Currently we have eight paid staff and a number of casual contractors, and we have 60 volunteers. We initially had a team of three and have expanded quite a bit. With this one-time funding we got, an increase of about $300,000, we were able to hire more staff.

Bryan Tepper: I actually have a further question because you said you were able to deal with…. Was it power offences?

Reem Girgrah: Power-based offences.

Bryan Tepper: Okay. Can you explain that, please?

Reem Girgrah: Yeah. That’s the intimate-partner violence and sexualized violence and hate crimes. Is that what you…? Just the type of offences — is that what you were wondering?

Bryan Tepper: That is what I was wondering. And how is that working?

Reem Girgrah: You know, it’s a challenge. So we started this work…. We’ve been supporting survivors and offenders when it comes to sexualized violence and intimate-partner violence since 2011 in a different way. We received this…. We had the moratorium lifted in 2023 and got the support from the ministry.

It’s going well. What we’re recognizing: it takes a tremendous amount of capacity. So with offences that are not power-based, like we were talking about, we find that the case tends to take about 20 hours of labour. When it comes to these other offences, it’s up to 120 hours. So we’re needing very specially trained staff to handle these cases. We don’t give them to volunteers.

We have a different structure than other restorative justice programs, where we have mentors who walk with victims and with offenders, right from the beginning to the end of the process. So they’re both getting supported on what their justice needs are. The offender is getting supported on understanding what the impacts are, what the roots of the harm came from in order to not do these kind of things again. So in this, it is quite an intensive process, and the processes can take up to a year to 14 months.

As I said before, we have a high rate of satisfaction with our programs. Many people who do take it would suggest to other people to do the same.

Bryan Tepper: I wouldn’t mind maybe visiting or something sometime in the future.

Reem Girgrah: Yeah, absolutely.

Bryan Tepper: We’ll do that. Yeah.

Reem Girgrah: Yeah. Happy to come in and do more, have more conversation. I’m happy to do that.

Rohini Arora: Reem, thank you so much for your presentation, and I think it’s incredibly valuable that you’re talking about survivors and offenders simultaneously. It’s often isolated or siloed, I should say, and you’re looking at both sides.

I’m just curious, and this is purely out of curiosity. Are the mentors survivors and offenders, and have they ever gotten back together after and then become mentors to kind of show the process they’ve gone through? I’m just curious.

[6:05 p.m.]

Reem Girgrah: Yeah. We have an openness to that. There are certainly a lot of people who do come to the program who have that experience of being both. So we do have a vetting process for that.

But folks who’ve been through this kind of thing before are the most valuable to have, especially when it comes to offenders, to be able to say: “I know what you’re talking about. I’ve been there. I have thought that

to the program who have that experience of being both. We do have a vetting process for that.

Folks who’ve been through this kind of thing before are the most valuable to have, especially when it comes to offenders, to be able to say: “I know what you’re talking about. I’ve been there. I have thought that. And here’s where I am now.” For survivors, it’s the same thing — letting them know what they’re experiencing is not isolated to them, right? It is systemic and normalizing what they’re going through and what their needs might be throughout the process.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): Looking at next year’s budget, you referred to stable and annual funding. You’d mentioned that it was a one-time grant of, I think you said, $300,000. I’m assuming that was over a couple of years.

Reem Girgrah: Yes. It was over three years.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): So $100,000 a year. What is the actual ask for the stable…? Like what is needed to keep your organization going in a stable way?

Reem Girgrah: In a stable way? Maybe $500,000 is the ask.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): Per year?

Reem Girgrah: Yeah.

Rohini Arora: So $500,000 would help you maintain. Is that again over a period of three years?

Reem Girgrah: Each year. We run a budget of about $500,000 a year. If you’re thinking about…. There is an executive director and an associate director. Each of those are about $80,000 each. Then we have our case coordinators. One is part-time at $40,000; another one is full-time, another $80,000. So these are the kind of math.

Then we have a victim support worker, which is really necessary because what we’ve noticed is that about a third of victims know right away that they want to participate fully, but the other two-thirds are unsure. So we really need that that one person to be able to be available as things shift in the process and people change their minds. That would be another full-time, because having one person at part-time right now is not sustainable.

Rohini Arora: And you are the only organization, I think you said in the province, that’s an RJ program that has an MOU with the local police and….

Reem Girgrah: We’re not the only one with the MOU. We’re the only one who’s had the moratorium on car-based offences to be lifted to do sexualized violence and intimate partner violence cases.

Rohini Arora: Got it. Thank you very much.

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

Reem Girgrah: No problem. Thank you for having me.

Paul Choi (Chair): We’ll move on to our next presenter who is online. We have Paula Gordon with us. Thanks for joining us.

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

Paula Gordon

Paula Gordon: Thanks so much. Thanks for the opportunity to present to your committee.

I’m Dr. Paula Gordon. I’m a clinical professor at the University of British Columbia. I’m a breast radiologist practicing in Vancouver for over 40 years, but I am not speaking on behalf of any organization.

I want to talk about increasing access to early breast cancer diagnosis for B.C. women. B.C. led the way in 2018 to a huge opportunity for more women to be diagnosed with breast cancer early. We were the first province to acknowledge the importance of women knowing their breast density and the associated risks.

Women were informed of their breast density, that having dense breasts was the main reason that many cancers were undetectable on mammograms, and MSP started to cover screening ultrasounds for those women in 2019. That was so obviously important that all the other provinces have followed and now inform women of their breast density.

But B.C. didn’t go far enough. The ministry did not and still has not created a specific fee for doing screening ultrasound that covers the actual costs involved. They told radiologists to just use the fee for diagnostic ultrasound, which is a limited exam and inadequate for screening the entirety of both breaths. As a result, very few hospitals or clinics accept the patients who are referred for screening ultrasound.

Women are desperately seeking these so-called MSP-covered exams from private clinics who are gouging them and not even performing all the necessary follow-up tests, including mammograms and needle biopsies. The private clinics do neither of them. Women are stuck trying to find out where to go for those additional tests if something suspicious is seen.

Now a reasonable fee for doing screening breast ultrasound of both breasts would be about $275. For perspective, the MSP fee of a bilateral diagnostic ultrasound, which is what we’re only allowed to bill, is $112. And the private clinics are charging anywhere from $525 to $750.

[6:10 p.m.]

Now the reason this is important is that breast cancers can be masked, hidden by normal dense breast tissue and undetectable on mammograms. We miss up to 40 percent of cancers in dense breasts. Women with dense breasts who get mammograms alone are far more likely to be diagnosed

to $750.

Now, the reason this is important is that breast cancers can be masked, hidden by normal dense breast tissue and undetectable on mammograms. We miss up to 40 percent of cancers in dense breasts. Women with dense breasts who get mammograms alone are far more likely to be diagnosed when their cancers have grown large enough to be felt as a lump, and by that time, many have already spread to lymph nodes and other organs. These women need much harsher treatment and have a worse prognosis than when cancers are found early.

And the treatment is much more costly to the health system. It costs total about $39,000 per woman to treat her if she’s diagnosed at stage 1. But treatment of stage 4 cancer can cost over a half a million dollars per woman. That’s $39,000 compared to over half a million.

Now, for perspective, we find roughly five cancers per 1,000 on screening mammograms. But when we do screening breast ultrasound for women with dense breasts, we find an additional six to seven early cancers per 1,000 screening ultrasounds. That’s a lot of cancers that would have been found when advanced if those women had not had the ultrasound.

We’re more than doubling the detection rate of early cancer, and that’s why I’m here, begging for you to make it feasible for my colleagues to start offering these life-saving tests. Increasing the fee is the only incentive that will work. They already know how many more cancers they’ll find, because we’ve published our data results twice in a Canadian journal. Other provinces cover MRI for some of these women, and in B.C., women are struggling to get ultrasound, which is less sensitive.

Another issue that can’t be ignored is the shortage of trained technologists. This is a national problem, but it’s fixable. B.C. needs to offer more training spots at BCIT and more practicum spots to train them, as has been done in other provinces, and we need to pay technologists higher salaries so they’ll stay in the province.

Ladies and gentlemen, I’m 71 years old and still working — but part-time. The heartfelt request I bring to you today is not for my personal gain. This is for the women of B.C.

I know that doctors’ fees are usually distributed through Doctors of B.C. to the radiology and other societies, which then micromanage the allocation, but because MRI and other interventional radiology tests are paid so richly, the radiology society will weight the allocation to them and not allocate adequate funds for screening breast ultrasound. This technologist training and retention need to be funded from a separate pocket by the government to save more B.C. women.

This is my request to the finance committee to consider. It would allow more breast cancers to be diagnosed early, save lives, reduce health care costs and improve the quality of life for women with cancer.

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

Rohini Arora: Thank you so much, Paula. It’s very clear that you’re incredibly passionate about this. We did meet with maybe a colleague of yours yesterday that also spoke about breast density. And we learned the same figures, actually. So when you first said the five out of 1,000, I was thinking about six or seven because that’s what we had heard yesterday. But then you touched on that six and seven out of every 1,000 screenings. You gave some extra information.

So just so you know, there are other people equally passionate about you bringing it up here. I thought you would really appreciate hearing that.

Paula Gordo: Do you mind me asking who made the presentation?

Rohini Arora: I can’t remember. I was actually going through my notes on my phone to try and figure out who it was, but we may be able to get it to you before this ends.

What I wanted to ask you is…. You said something earlier. It’s $112 for the bilateral. That’s covered. The cost is….

Paula Gordon: That’s what we currently bill, because we’ve been told we can just use the diagnostic fee.

Now, let me just get a little more into the weeds here. When a woman has a diagnostic breast ultrasound, it’s usually because she has a lump or something abnormal has shown on her mammogram. We do an ultrasound just of that spot, just the lump or just the area of the breast where something showed on the mammogram.

This may come as a surprise to you, but the way MSP works is that if doctors do two things on the same day, we get paid 100 percent for the first one and 50 percent for the second one. So we’re getting a fee that’s basically enough to scan a quarter of the breast, and we’re supposed to do both breasts, top to bottom, side to side, for 1.5 times that amount.

[6:15 p.m.]

And that comes out to about…. I think it’s $115 or $112. So those women who can’t get it done…. That’s not enough to pay your technologists and your rent and buy the equipment and so on. That’s not enough to pay the real overhead, which is why I’m suggesting off the top of my head that $275 would be a

and that comes out to about…. I think it’s $115 or $112.

Rohini Arora: Thank you.

Paula Gordon: So those women who can’t get it done…. Because that’s not enough to pay your technologists and your rent and buy the equipment and so on. That’s not enough to pay the real overhead, which is why I’m suggesting, off the top of my head, that $275 would be a reasonable amount. But the private places that are picking up these desperate women are charging them as much as…. I mean, the place down the street from us charges us $750.

Rohini Arora: Right, yeah. That’s important.

Paula Gordon: They’re not even supposed to be billing privately for something that’s covered by MSP. But that aside, I mean…. And then what happens is they do the ultrasound. They don’t have mammography equipment in those places, and often, when we see something, we want to do a mammogram and see if there’s anything that we can see in retrospect, in hindsight. They don’t do that. The woman needs a biopsy. They don’t do that, and these women are kind of stuck looking for a place that’ll take them in.

Rohini Arora: Thank you. I wanted to let you know it was Breast Density British Columbia that came through yesterday.

Paula Gordon: I’ve never heard of them.

Rohini Arora: You should connect with them. I feel like you might be kindred spirits.

Paula Gordon: Oh, I think I know who that might be. It’s somebody who….

Rohini Arora: Michelle.

Paula Gordon: Michelle, yes. She used to be affiliated with an organization called Dense Breasts Canada that I volunteered with, a volunteer medical advisor. She left the organization. I don’t know why, but she has kind of…

Rohini Arora: We’re getting the tea.

Paula Gordon: …gone out as an individual patient. And what she previously recommended that I was aware of…. She’s basically been sold by the equipment companies, and she thought everybody should be doing automated whole-breast ultrasound. Anyway, she no longer wants to hear my name or associate with me.

Rohini Arora: Oh, well, never mind then.

Paula Gordon: It’s okay, I just had no idea somebody else was doing this.

Rohini Arora: I think, Deputy Chair, you had a question as well for Dr. Gordon.

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

You’ll be pleased to know it was almost the same message.

Yeah, my question, I guess, is: can we…? Those ones that go to the private clinic and kind of get lost in the…. I don’t know what you want to call it, but they still have to come back and probably have another scan, right? They still probably come back into the medical system. Or are they able to take that scan that they got privately and come back into the medical system?

Paula Gordon: Well, that’s currently what’s happening, but it’s really hard because we’re all so busy looking after our own patients. But it would be very fixable if there was a decent fee and lots of…. I mean, if you made a decent fee, people would be fighting to do it instead of refusing to do it. It’s not done at any hospital, and there are some places that do like three a week. We do about a hundred a week in our practice.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much. One last quick clarifier, only because I know we’re going to break, so that I’m allowed to ask a little extra.

My question was around the dedicated envelope for training. Do you have a number that you think should be on that dedicated envelope to be included in the report?

Paula Gordon: I don’t.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): Okay, thank you.

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

We will at this point take a quick recess.

The committee recessed at 6:18 p.m.

The committee resumed at 6:28 p.m.

[Paul Choi in the chair.]

Paul Choi (Chair): Okay, welcome back. I’ll call the committee back to order and go to our next presenter. We have Mary Stambulic from Heart and Stroke Foundation.

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

Heart and Stroke Foundation

Mary Stambulic: Thank you. Hello, my name is Mary Stambulic and I’m the director of health policy and systems for B.C. and Yukon at the Heart and Stroke Foundation.

It’s good to see many of you again, and thank you for the opportunity to contribute to the Budget 2027 consultation process. As the committee considers its recommendations for Budget 2027, there are measures that I will suggest that reduce long-term fiscal pressure on the health care system while generating stable, predictable revenue.

[6:30 p.m.]

We know a growing share of public health care spending is driven by preventable chronic diseases which not only place a significant burden on the health care system but also reduce quality of life for those affected.

that reduce long-term fiscal pressure on the health care system while generating stable, predictable revenue.

We know a growing share of public health care spending is driven by preventable chronic diseases, which not only place a significant burden on the health care system but also reduce quality of life for those affected.

One effective way to address the growing strain of chronic diseases on the health system is to require industry to bear its fair share of the costs associated with their products that contribute to or cause these diseases. This ensures that the taxpayer is not left carrying the full cost of preventable health care harms. In this context, our recommendation focuses on two of the most significant drivers of preventable cost, tobacco use and sugary drink consumption.

First, we recommend the province introduce a tobacco manufacturers cost recovery fee. B.C. currently spends about $25 million each year in tobacco control and enforcement, costs that, right now, are borne by the taxpayer. These costs should be recovered through an annual fee on tobacco manufacturers based on their market share. The federal government has implemented such a fee to recover its costs and there is an opportunity for B.C. to follow suit.

This approach is grounded in the polluter-pay principle and good public policy, where a product is a clear and ongoing driver of systems costs. There is a strong rationale to recover those costs at their source. Without this, these costs are effectively subsidized by the public.

Tobacco remains a leading driver of systems costs, including hospitalizations, drug expenditures and care for the diseases it causes. A cost-recovery fee creates a stable and predictable funding stream while ensuring ongoing costs of tobacco use are more appropriately borne by industry.

We also recommend introducing an annual tobacco retail authorization permit fee to strengthen the current system. A modest fee of, for example, $365 or $1 a day could generate about $1.6 million annually, based on roughly 4,400 retailers, while recovering administrative, compliance, enforcement and training costs. Many jurisdictions across Canada require tobacco retailers to pay an annual fee.

This would also improve the accuracy of tobacco vendor data. Currently reporting of change is inconsistent, which limits effective oversight. More accurate data would support regional health authority inspections and strengthen enforcement of legislation. Together these measures would shift more of the financial burden from taxpayers to the companies that profit from tobacco use.

Lastly, we recommend that the province introduce a comprehensive sugary drinks levy designed to reduce consumption across all sugary drink categories. Sugary drinks are the leading source of added sugar in the diet and are strongly linked to rising rates of chronic disease. They are a clear driver of avoidable system costs and preventable disease.

From a fiscal perspective, these products create negative externalities and impose costs on the health care system that are not currently reflected in their price. A levy would help to correct this and ensures these costs are not borne solely by taxpayers.

While it was in place, experience in Newfoundland and Labrador demonstrated that even a modest levy of 20 cents per litre can reduce consumption while generating revenue. We estimate that a well-designed and similar levy in B.C. could generate about $90 million to $100 million annually, creating a new and stable source of revenue that could be reinvested to reduce long-term system costs and improve system sustainability.

Taken together, these measures provide a practical and evidence-informed approach to cost recovery, revenue generation and fiscal sustainability. They also create the conditions to reduce the prevalence and impact of chronic disease over time by lowering consumption of high-risk products, enabling sustained investment in prevention and health promotion. Thank you.

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

We will now turn to questions by members.

Bryan Tepper: A lot of questions actually. But the sugary drink…. How do zero-calorie sweeteners…. Does that fit into that or is that two different aspects to this?

[6:35 p.m.]

Mary Stambulic: I guess that would depend on how the tax levy was designed. I don’t know if Newfoundland included that. I don’t believe they did.

Again, it would be all dependent on how the levy was designed. Whether it would just include

Mary Stambulic: I guess that would depend on how the tax levy was designed. I don’t know if Newfoundland included that. I don’t believe they did.

So again, it would be all dependent on how the levy was designed, whether it would just include those sugary drinks that are high in sugar and don’t contain artificial sweeteners or not.

Bryan Tepper: Okay, yeah. No, I was looking for what you would be looking for on that as an input.

Mary Stambulic: As an input. Again, I would…. Because this would be a comprehensive sugary drinks levy based on sugar content, I would probably think it wouldn’t be considered as a product that would be subject to the levy. I’m thinking more along the lines of sweetened carbonated and non-carbonated drinks like pop, iced tea, sweetened coffees, lemonade.

Bryan Tepper: Perfect. Now, I think it was the first portion that was about collecting money for the harms done with tobacco products. We’ve had settlements in the past. I have no idea, but do you know how that would affect anything ongoing in the future if there’s any settlement around that that we’ve accomplished?

Mary Stambulic: So the settlement dollars that the province received as a result of the tobacco lawsuit is more for those harms that happened in the past. They would be more geared towards treatment for cancer, for instance, or smoking cessation programs or even research in treating tobacco-related diseases.

Whereas the cost-recovery fee is more proactive. It’s automatically collected. It’s going to fund prevention and enforcement. It’s predictable year over year. It’s more regulatory, and it’s meant to recover, more, the ongoing harm of tobacco.

Does that answer your question?

Bryan Tepper: Yes, it does. Thank you very much. Appreciate that.

Rohini Arora: You said that it would be a $1.4 million collection per year on the levy to tobacco, but I don’t know that you gave one for the sugary drinks.

Mary Stambulic: You mean, like, the rate?

Rohini Arora: Yeah.

Mary Stambulic: Well, Newfoundland had introduced a 20-cent-per-litre excise levy, and I would probably suggest something very similar in B.C. However, if the province doesn’t want to introduce a sugary levy, one option that they can consider is to eliminate the PST exemption on non-carbonated sugary drinks.

Right now there is PST applied to carbonated drinks, but not non-carbonated drinks, so there’s an inconsistency there. A non-carbonated drink would be like iced tea, lemonade, fruit drinks, energy drinks. So if the province wants to consider doing this in a phased approach, perhaps eliminating the PST exemption on non-carbonated drinks, and then consider a sugary levy of 20 cents per litre.

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

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): We had a presentation earlier today — it might have been yesterday; no, it was definitely today — specifically about illicit tobacco sales. I’m just wondering how the cost-recovery fee and the annual permit will actually drive more to illicit sales. What are your thoughts on that?

Mary Stambulic: That’s a good question. I know that contraband tobacco is a problem for the province, but the mechanism that…. Where this fee would be applied is more at the tobacco manufacturers’ level and according to their market share. So contraband….

[6:40 p.m.]

Actually, if a cost-recovery fee were to be implemented, it in itself would pay for the enforcement costs and could help to reduce the issue of contraband in the province. So I don’t see it causing

a cost recovery fee were to be implemented, it in itself would pay for the enforcement costs and could help to reduce the issue of contraband in the province. So I don’t see it causing a problem for that. I think it could actually strengthen enforcement, going forward.

Rohini Arora: Yeah, I think I was sort of thinking along the lines of MLA Wilson as well. The tobacco folks had mentioned that Canada health’s projections were 65 percent lower than projected profits in the year prior. So from — I can’t remember — the $1.1 billion, maybe, to $265 million — a $900 million shortfall. That’s currently. So if projections are based off of that levy providing $1.4 million, is that off of the $1.1 billion or the $265 million?

Mary Stambulic: So the $1.4 million is actually what the province could collect in the tobacco authorization permit fee. That’s separate from the manufacturer’s cost recovery fee. The cost recovery fee is meant to recover the province’s cost of tobacco control, which is about $25 million. And that fee would be based on the manufacturer’s market share and is not the same as a direct consumer tax increase.

So it’s less likely to affect the purchasing behaviour in some ways and would prevent…. Because one of the reasons why contraband is such an issue is because it’s, certainly, cheaper for consumers to purchase their tobacco illicitly, but I can’t see how the cost recovery fee could make that worse. In fact, I think it can make it better because there’s money there to increase enforcement resources.

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

Mary Stambulic: All right. Thank you so much for your time.

Paul Choi (Chair): We’ll move on to our next presenter.

We have Jen Dart from Redd Fish Restoration Society.

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

Redd Fish Restoration Society

Jen Dart: Good evening, and thank you for the opportunity to speak today.

My name is Jen Dart. I’m with Redd Fish Restoration Society based on the west coast of Vancouver Island in the traditional territory of the Yuułuʔiłʔatḥ Nation. We work in partnership with Nuu-chah-nulth Nations, mainly in Clayoquot and Barkley Sound, to restore watersheds, rebuild salmon habitat and support long-term stewardship.

Today I want to speak about watershed restoration, not simply as environmental work but as economic infrastructure and workforce development that directly supports British Columbia’s long-term resilience.

B.C. is already experiencing the economic impacts watershed insecurity. Floods, droughts, fires, damaged infrastructure, water shortages and declining salmon populations are no longer future risks. They are current economic pressures affecting communities, industries and government budgets across the province. At the same time, there’s a major opportunity emerging. Restoration is a growing sector that aligns directly with provincial priorities around climate resilience, regional economic development, reconciliation and workforce development.

The restoration economy is particularly important for Indigenous and rural communities because these are place-based jobs that cannot be outsourced. They create long-term employment tied directly to the stewardship of lands and waters.

At Redd Fish, we see firsthand how restoration projects become platforms for Indigenous employment, youth training, guardian programs and long-term stewardship careers. These investments do far more than restore streams and rivers. They build local capacity, support economic resilience and keep people working in their home communities.

We also need to recognize that healthy watersheds are critical infrastructure. Healthy floodplains, wetlands, forests and rivers reduce flood risk, improve drought resilience, stabilize slopes, regulate water temperatures and protect drinking water supplies.

According to research cited in the B.C. Watershed Security Coalition’s 2026 business case, healthy watersheds can provide services like flood mitigation and water purification at approximately half the cost of equivalent built infrastructure. Watershed restoration is one of the most cost-effective ways to reduce future disaster costs while protecting the infrastructure and resources that sustain our communities and economies.

[6:45 p.m.]

Importantly, this work is also highly leverageable. One of the strongest returns on provincial investment is the ability to unlock additional federal, philanthropic, Indigenous and private sector funding. Through past funding from the BCSRIF, for example, the B.C. salmon and restoration

sustain our communities and economies.

Importantly, this work is also highly leverageable. One of the strongest returns on provincial investment is the ability to unlock additional federal, philanthropic, Indigenous and private sector funding. Through past funding from the BCSRIF, for example, the B.C. salmon restoration and innovation fund, our organization was able to leverage $3 million into $10 million of funding to go towards watershed restoration on Vancouver Island.

I would encourage the committee to consider watershed restoration and watershed security investments through three lenses that span several provincial government ministries — first, as Indigenous workforce development and economic reconciliation; second, as climate adaptation and natural infrastructure that reduces long-term public costs; and third, as a major economic development opportunity for British Columbia, the way it is in other areas, including the Pacific Northwest of the U.S.

B.C. is well positioned to expand the restoration economy through strategic investments in watershed security, salmon recovery, climate adaptation and Indigenous-led stewardship programs. Organizations like Redd Fish are ready to deliver immediately. We already have crews, partnerships, technical expertise and shovel-ready projects on the ground. What is often missing is stable, long-term investment that matches the scale of the challenge.

Thank you so much for your time and consideration.

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

Any questions?

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): I appreciate the presentation.

You had mentioned the fact that you turned $3 million into $10 million. I’m assuming that’s leveraging additional grants both from private and possibly from federal government.

What do you see as being that stable investment? Are you looking at that as watershed by watershed for your organization, or are you advocating for all watersheds? And if so, how much?

Jen Dart: We’re advocating for a regional approach, so not just our area, but it could be the west coast of Vancouver Island. It could expand into the Port Alberni area and up the coast to the north, similar to the Great Bear Rainforest, with an endowment fund.

I mean, there’s so much work to be done. We have estimated approximately $5 million per watershed — and looking at that as more of a broader regional approach.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you very much.

This issue was already presented to us. We have canvassed the issue already, so that’s why members have less questions about it. Thank you so much for coming and presenting to us today.

Jen Dart: I appreciate your time. Thanks.

Paul Choi (Chair): We’ll move to our next presenter. We have Rosemary Fromson from Illuminating Counselling Services.

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

Rosemary Fromson

Rosemary Fromson: First of all, thank you for the invite to speak to you all tonight. I’m not here on behalf of my counselling service. I’m here on behalf of capping for seniors complexes and, in particular, in the mobile parks.

I’m going to use my unit as an example. Some people in these places have higher, some a little bit lower, but pretty much, in Abbotsford, they’re the same.

I moved here in 2016. The pad rental was $670. The owners increase it every year, despite even when they’ve had tax breaks, which I know is their right. The pad rental rate as of September 1, 2026, is going to be $834.68. The current rate is $811.10. I have my place up for sale, and I’ve been informed by the manager that the new owners’ pad fee will be increased to $1,150.

[6:50 p.m.]

That’s an additional 37.77 percent increase based on the new September increase. If it sells before September, the increase would be 41.78 percent.

When I look at the amount of money that

That’s an additional 37.77 percent increase, based on the new September increase. If it sells before September, the increase would be 41.78 percent.

When I look at the amount of money that we get for CPP and OAP, based on that and based on what the current payments will be, that is 55 percent of my CPP and OAP per year. When I called the tenancy branch and told them about the new owners and what would happen, they said it’s illegal; they can’t be doing this. They could only increase it by the 3 percent that it was in 2025, for a total 6 percent increase.

They asked me to fill out a complaint form so that they could investigate. However, you have to deliver it to the owners, and we don’t have their address. And the manager here won’t give it to me, anyway. They’re called YMC Properties Ltd. When you google them, they show up in the U.K. There’s nothing for here.

I did send an email to Grant Cho, the owner, in 2025. I explained to him that I was putting my place up for sale and that the real estate agent had informed me that the new pad rental would be $1,100. This is exceptionally high for seniors. Many seniors downsize, and not everybody has a pension plan.

I called the mobile tenancy, and they informed me that yes, he could increase, but he couldn’t increase it more than the 3.5 percent that it was that year — the 0.5 being for the increase from Abbotsford city on sewers and water. So $811 to $1,100 is a 36 percent increase, on top of the 3.5 percent that it will be increased to — now, I’m talking 2025 — for a total of an almost 40 percent increase. He did not respond.

I’m asking the committee to look at capping these seniors complexes. These fees are outrageous. There are people here who can’t even afford to pay theirs. In one case, the church is paying for theirs. I don’t know who oversees the owners of these places for what they can and cannot be charging for pad rental fees or for maintenance. I don’t know how it’s possible to randomly increase these fees.

That’s my pitch: to help seniors be able to live on the money that we get, because CPP and OAP are just not enough. I thank you for listening.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you so much for your presentation. Before we go to the question period, I just want to confirm a couple of things. First of all, did you say you represent a certain organization, or no?

Rosemary Fromson: No, I’m here speaking for those of us that live in these mobile senior parks.

Paul Choi (Chair): Okay, sounds good. We got your ask, and I’m sure we’ll have some more questions regarding that during questions. As we look at and consider this as part of the budget report, I would also encourage you to reach out to your local MLA, if you haven’t already done so.

Rosemary Fromson: That’s who gave me your info.

Paul Choi (Chair): Okay. As we are doing this, this is for the budget for next year. So do know that it does take time for it to get recommended and, potentially, get implemented. In the meantime, please continue following up with your MLA to see if that MLA can help you out for your specific current case as well. It’s good to know that you’re already doing that.

We will be moving on to questions by members.

[6:55 p.m.]

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): Thank you, Rosemary, for advocating on behalf of seniors. It is an important issue. I’m in the South Okanagan. We have many of these affordable homes available for seniors, which are becoming.… They’re affordable to get into, but they’re not affordable, like you said, once you get into these homes, whether it’s strata or fees.

The power of the committee is around funding, but perhaps we’ll find a way to include some policy discussion within the report, because there’s not really a financial

affordable to get into, but they’re not affordable, like you said, once you get into these homes, whether it’s strata or fees.

The power of the committee is around funding, but perhaps we’ll find a way to include some policy discussion within the report, because there’s not really a financial ask here; it’s a policy question. But we definitely hear you and appreciate your advocacy.

Bryan Tepper: Thank you for taking the time to talk to us. I just want to recognize that, yeah, we have some issues with seniors and affordability. Last year’s budget wasn’t extremely kind in the senior realm. Hopefully next year will have a little something more to offer the seniors like yourself.

Paul Choi (Chair): Any other questions? Seeing none, thank you so much for taking the time and coming and presenting to us.

Rosemary Fromson: Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

Paul Choi (Chair): We will move on to our next presenter. We have Sasha van den Berg joining us from Mackenzie Community Services. Thank you for coming.

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

Mackenzie Community Services

Sasha van den Berg: All right. First, I would like to acknowledge that I live, work and play on the traditional territory of the McLeod Lake Indian Band and the TseK’hene People.

I’d like to thank you for this wonderful opportunity to present the Rest of Us program.

Mackenzie is a small northern community located two hours north of Prince George. It’s the home to approximately 3,700 people. In addition to supporting our local community residents, we also support residents in McLeod Lake, TseK’hene and the Kwadacha Nations.

Mackenzie Counselling Services Society is a registered non-profit organization in operation for approximately 49 years. We are CARF accredited. The accreditation ensures that our standards and services are up to date and that we provide professional services. In June 2025, we received another three-year accreditation.

I am speaking to request your support for the Rest of Us program, a critical counselling initiative serving adults in our community who do not meet the eligibility criteria for our other funded programs. This program provides inclusive professional mental health support in a safe and validating environment where individuals can explore personal challenges, develop coping strategies and build resilience.

The Rest of Us program is staffed by clinical counselors who are registered through the B.C. association and provide support in the areas including men’s support, women’s support, grief and trauma, stress management, suicide risk and intervention, general mental health support, substance use support, communication and relationship skills and much more.

Unfortunately, Mackenzie Community Services has exhausted the funding required to sustain this program and support the individuals currently on the caseload. With the decrease in the number of grants available to cover wages and overhead costs, intake for these valuable grants has increased.

Since January 2026, the Rest of Us program has been on hiatus. We have reached out to larger community partners, with a few mentioning they are tapped out financially. We have also written grants, four of which we have been unsuccessful in, and we’re still waiting on word on two.

At the present time, the Rest of Us program has 26 active clients who are just waiting around for funding to continue their services. And 19 since January have closed their files for various reasons. We currently have 11 community members on the wait-list.

Half of the program’s caseload consists of men and members of the 2SLGBTQI+ community, populations that often experience additional barriers when accessing mental health support. In addition, the program has also greatly supported Indigenous members, low-income residents and diverse populations.

[7:00 p.m.]

The need for accessible mental health services in rural and northern communities is well documented. Across Canada, nearly 6 million people, approximately 16 percent of the population, live in rural or remote areas, where access to mental health services is significantly more limited. Residents often feel

rural and northern communities is well-documented.

Across Canada, nearly 6 million people, approximately 16 percent of the population, live in rural or remote areas, where access to mental health services is significantly more limited. Residents often face longer travel distances, fewer service providers and extended wait times for care. At the same time, national data shows that more than 5 million Canadians met the criteria for a mood, anxiety and substance disorder in 2022.

Currently, we only have one mental health counsellor in the Mackenzie area while we wait for funding. Programs such as the rest of us provide early intervention and prevention, which are highly recognized as key strategies in reducing emergency service use, hospitalization and long-term-care costs.

As you all know, there was a tragedy in Tumbler Ridge a few months ago, which is our neighbouring community. In light of that, the need for accessible preventive mental health services in northern communities has become even more evident.

I believe that the rest of us program would be a good funding fit for the Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions. The rest of us program is already established, just waiting for funding to continue offering the services to the community.

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

Debra Toporowski / Qwulti’stunaat: Thank you for your presentation. Yes, I know mental health in my community was amplified after COVID as well, and then all these multiple stresses that we face every day are troubling. More people are coming to ask for help in different stages of what they need for their help as well.

In your ask, you didn’t ask for a dollar amount to continue. You mentioned something about…. There are 26 active clients, and they’re waiting. What would fill this gap?

Sasha van den Berg: We have done a three-year projection. Ultimately, for one year, to fund 1½ counsellors plus additional direct expenses and administration costs, we’re looking at approximately $175,000 for year 1. Year 2 with inflation and wage increases…. We’re also unionized, so every year there’s a union wage increase. It’ll increase to approximately $181,000. And then year 3 would be approximately $186,000.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): Just to highlight that Mackenzie also is fairly geographically isolated as well. I think it’s important to recognize that.

For the increase in funding for mental health programs, as we would not be submitting your specific program to the provincial budget, it would be an overall increase to mental health funding. Is there something in that request that we can include that would ensure communities like Mackenzie were eligible?

Would it make sense to have communities under a certain threshold have their own pot of money or communities that are a certain distance from a hospital…? What would help to ensure that you can compete with the other community service societies and the bigger centres when funding does become available?

Sasha van den Berg: Northern communities, northern rural communities, are at a disadvantage in order to obtain funding, especially from the bigger construction companies that are in larger centres. We quite often…. It’s harder to recruit. The retention and recruitment is a lot more difficult.

[7:05 p.m.]

So when we have clinical counsellors already in Mackenzie, we want to keep them. Otherwise it can be extremely challenging to recruit. And one-on-one here is really important because it’s such a low socioeconomic

counsellors already in Mackenzie. We want to keep them. Otherwise, it can be extremely challenging to recruit. And one-on-one here is really important because it’s such a low socioeconomic population here who don’t necessarily have access to electronics.

Paul Choi (Chair): Follow-up?

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): Yeah, I would just…. My experience is that quite often when you go to northern rural communities, connectivity is not always widely available or cell phone services. Understanding that, if there was some kind of criteria around northern rural….

As well, I’m wondering if there’s anything around that recruitment. I’m assuming that you need…. We’ve talked to other non-profits, and there’s been discussion around core operating funding over a longer planning horizon because they’re…. I worked in the non-profit sector. I know that every year you’re fighting to keep your doors and your lights on.

Just wondering if that is something for your group as well that is a challenge, that core operating expense.

Sasha van den Berg: Yes, very much so. Sustainability is super important when you live in a small community, and it has been a challenge to get funding more than one year. There’s not that reliability in services.

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

Sasha van den Berg: You’re welcome. Thanks for having me.

Paul Choi (Chair): We’ll move on to our next presenter. We have Brandon Aboultaif from the Canadian Gaming Association.

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

Canadian Gaming Association

Brandon Aboultaif: Good evening, Chair, and committee members. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. My name is Brandon Aboultaif, and I serve as vice-president of western Canada for the Canadian Gaming Association.

The Canadian Gaming Association is the national trade association representing gaming operators, suppliers and stakeholders from across Canada’s gaming industry. Our members include land-based casinos, online gaming operators, technology providers and businesses that support the sector.

Today I would like to speak about the need for British Columbia to undertake a comprehensive review of its gaming framework. The reason is simple. The gaming marketplace has changed dramatically over the past decade. Consumer behaviour has evolved, technology has transformed how gaming is accessed, and online gaming activity now occurs at a scale that would’ve been difficult to imagine only a few years ago.

In our view, a review should focus on three key questions.

First, are we achieving the consumer protection outcomes British Columbians expect? British Columbians are already gambling online. The question is not whether online gaming exists. The question is whether that activity is taking place within a framework that provides effective safeguards, oversight and accountability.

Consumer protection tools, such as age verification, identity verification, responsible gambling measures and self-exclusion programs, are most effective when consumers are participating within regulated environments. Recent research commissioned by the Canadian Gaming Association found that more than 60 percent of online gamblers in British Columbia use unregulated sites exclusively. That means that a significant amount of gaming activity is occurring outside the provincial system.

In some cases, consumers may be accessing platforms that are not subject to the same standards and protections that British Columbians would expect from regulated operators. Some may have limited age verification requirements, while others may have little to no meaningful identity verification processes in place.

If a significant share of gaming activity is occurring outside the provincial system, it is reasonable to ask whether the current framework is achieving the consumer protection outcomes it was designed to deliver. That is why we believe a review is warranted.

Second question is: do we have a complete understanding of the market as it exists today? Public discussions have often referenced an online gaming market worth approximately $900 million annually. However, available research suggests that the market may be significantly larger.

The exact figure is less important than the broader point. This is not a future market; it is an existing market. A substantial amount of online gaming activity is already taking place today, and a review would provide government with a better understanding of the scale of that activity and how it fits within British Columbia’s broader gaming landscape.

[7:10 p.m.]

Third, how do we ensure the long-term sustainability of British Columbia’s gaming sector? Land-based gaming facilities throughout the province have long played an important role in supporting jobs, local economies, community organizations, tourism and public revenues. However, consumer behaviour continues to shift online. That reality presents challenges, but it may also present opportunities. The question is how local

gaming sector.

Land-based gaming facilities throughout the province have long played an important role in supporting jobs, local economies, community organizations, tourism and public revenues. However, consumer behaviour continues to shift online. That reality presents challenges, but it may also present opportunities. The question is how local operators can remain competitive while continuing to support jobs, investment and community benefits throughout British Columbia.

Increasingly, jurisdictions are exploring ways for online gaming and land-based gaming to complement one another rather than compete against each other. A review would allow British Columbia to examine how local operators can remain competitive in a changing marketplace while continuing to deliver economic and community benefits throughout the province.

Taken together, these questions point towards a single recommendation: British Columbia should undertake a comprehensive review of its gaming framework.

I would note that these same themes were recently reflected in a letter submitted to government by the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade, which similarly called for a comprehensive review of British Columbia’s gaming framework.

We believe that reflects a growing recognition that the marketplace has changed and deserves a closer look. The goal is to develop a made-in-B.C. solution, one that reflects British Columbia’s priorities, strengthens consumer protections, supports a responsible and sustainable gaming sector and ensures policy keeps pace with the realities of today’s marketplace.

Thank you for your time, and I look forward to your questions.

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

Bryan Tepper: All I’m going to do right now is just basically say, yeah, I agree. We do need a review of that. I don’t remember our recommendation from last year, but I know we did discuss much of this. I think we’ll have a hearty discussion and deliberations about this again.

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

Do you have a timeline that you think that comprehensive would take? Is it a one-year project, a two-year project? What do you think the funding envelope would be required to undertake that kind of review?

If you don’t know, it’s okay.

Brandon Aboultaif: That’s a heavy question. I also have a lot of government experience. I previously worked for the Alberta government when they undertook their online gaming review. They did that review in almost two years. It was quite a quick process, but it’s almost coming to fruition now. I believe they’re scheduled to launch on July 13. So I’d say about two years is a pretty good timeline.

I don’t have a particular envelope, but I can emphasize that revenue implications are substantial for any gaming review. There are lots of changes that are needed within any gaming framework. It presents a great opportunity for any government.

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

Brandon Aboultaif: Thank you for your time. I appreciate it, everybody.

Paul Choi (Chair): We will invite our next presenter. We have Avril Torrence from Council of Canadians, South Okanagan Chapter.

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

Council of Canadians,
South Okanagan Chapter

Avril Torrence: Thank you very much for having me this evening. My name is Avril Torrence, and as was said, I am the co-chair of the South Okanagan Chapter of the Council of Canadians. I’m here to present this evening on potential for improved public transit, both provincially and regionally.

I’m going to begin with something of a personal story, and then I will offer you three recommendations for your consideration that align with the six key goals of Budget 2027 as I had read it.

I live in Penticton, and I am a user by choice of public transit. I certainly own and operate a car as well, but I am also someone who believes strongly in public service and public good.

[7:15 p.m.]

Recently I had the unfortunate experience of having to travel frequently to Kelowna, which is not the very best, Highway 97 between Penticton and Kelowna. That was for radiation treatments. I offer up a personal example to begin for you to put in context the recommendations that I will offer now.

The first one is to provide

Highway 97 between Penticton and Kelowna, and that was for radiation treatments. So I offer up a personal example to begin for you to put in context the recommendations that I will offer now.

The first one is to provide relief to the existing municipal burden that exists within the public transit system here in the Okanagan and elsewhere throughout British Columbia. The second is to recognize public transit as a driver of, and not a deficit to, B.C.’s economy. And the third is to create a lasting legacy for the future.

The first one is a municipal burden that shows disparate funding and service provision throughout the Crown corporation of B.C. Transit, which is our region. And why is that? Well, that’s primarily due to subcontracting.

The Kelowna Regional Transit System recently offered its three-year contract to 2029 to Transdev, which operates out of France.

The Penticton Transit Service Limited, often known as South Okanagan–Similkameen Transit, is Berry and Smith since 1977. It offers great service but hasn’t really changed significantly.

We have multiple players of councils, Indigenous bands, RDOS, B.C. Transit and private providers. Yet, clearly, the 2025 B.C. Chamber of Commerce report offered a sustainable approach for transit that showed that moneys lost to private providers through profit actually are diminishing the system.

We have a patchwork of inequitable service across the region. Penticton youth travel for free up to age 24. In Kelowna, you stop at age 18.

There’s lots of sustainable economic growth for our region. Public transit is a driver and not a deficit to that economy. We know that health, safety, climate — all of those could be improved.

I’m suggesting that you draw financing from at least the following places: other ministries such as Health, Energy and Climate Solutions, Children and Family Development, Housing and Municipal Affairs.

We know, also, that other communities use congestion pricing.

The federal government is offering up its public transit fund. It launches in ’26-27 and moneys could be obtained that way.

And the B.C. Chamber of Commerce itself actually suggests using an annual vehicle levy, regionally targeted via ICBC, to allow for appropriate development of B.C. Transit in ways that really serve community. They estimate $1 billion in investment in public transit can yield $5 billion in return.

And finally, I’d conclude to say that B.C. has a chance to create a legacy for the future. The current funding, especially for B.C. Transit, is unsustainable, and its ridership is flat where its costs are inching upward. We have a positive future for the region and the province that can increase our Okanagan populations, especially in Kelowna, and see an interconnected transit system throughout that region with dispersive, enhanced tourism, seniors aging in place living happy, healthy and long lives.

I look forward to your questions. Thank you.

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

We’ll move to question by members.

Debra Toporowski / Qwulti’stunaat: Thank you for your presentation. You mentioned providing a relief for municipalities. Did I hear you correctly?

Avril Torrence: Yes, you did. Thank you.

Debra Toporowski / Qwulti’stunaat: Okay, can you elaborate a little bit more on that again, just to touch base on that?

[7:20 p.m.]

Avril Torrence: Certainly. One of the things that happens is that B.C. Transit, as the Crown corporation, then works with various municipalities, but those municipalities in and of themselves work also with the Indigenous bands in their area, with the regional district and with the private providers that they contract to — all of which is to say that, often, political inputs and so on are affecting the decisions rendered, making it very difficult to actually create a kind of integrated transit system across the entire Okanagan, which is one of the main things that I think would drive the economy in this area.

Debra Toporowski / Qwulti’stunaat: Yes, thank you

the decisions rendered, making it very difficult to actually create a kind of integrated transit system across the entire Okanagan, which is one of the main things that I think would drive the economy in this area.

Debra Toporowski / Qwulti’stunaat: Yes, thank you for that. I know we face those similar challenges within our region as well.

Thank you for also bringing up Transdev, which is out of France. I’m talking to our regional board director on how we can work with this. I know that UBCM also talked about transit and echoing what you’re speaking about right now and creating something that can work better for communities. Because someone in France wouldn’t know how our community is working here, right? Not necessarily the same.

Avril Torrence: Thank you for that. I agree.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much, Avril.

Obviously, I’m the MLA for Boundary-Similkameen, so well aware of the region that you’re speaking and the patchwork of funding mechanisms that we have in place.

I know one of the challenges we’re seeing specifically is how the municipality — like Princeton, who’s a very small municipality — is able to initiate public transit within their town. They’re also looking at integrating school busing, a whole bunch of things to try to make that work, as well as I know there’s a group working on trying to get more buses between communities.

At the same time, I want to support your notion around the other ministries pitching in, because the Ministry of Health is centralizing services in Penticton and Kelowna for the specialists and all the things we need. But if you don’t have a car, you have no way to get from Princeton to those appointments.

Right now the bus runs once a day. If your appointment does not line up with when the bus is coming and going back, you end up having to overnight in Penticton for a basic appointment because you can’t get home again.

Avril Torrence: That’s correct.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): So we need more services. Having one bus a day going there and back is not servicing the need. So I do see the wiseness of going into other ministries, because if we are going to centralize different services into bigger centres, we need to provide mechanisms for people to get there.

So I just wanted to say that I appreciate your advocacy, and I live it day to day.

Bryan Tepper: I did have some questions. MLA Wilson has answered them, so we’re good there. She’s helping you in the presentation.

Avril Torrence: Thank you very much.

Paul Choi (Chair): That is great. Well, that’s the collaboration we like to see here.

Thank you so much for coming and presenting to us today.

Avril Torrence: I really appreciate it, and all the best to you and your work. Thank you.

Paul Choi (Chair): We’ll move to our next presenter. We have Heather Evans-Cullen from the Association of B.C. Public Library Directors.

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

Association of B.C.
Public Library Directors

Heather Evans-Cullen: I’m sure you’ve had a long day, so I appreciate you fitting me in.

Greetings, everyone. I’m the library director at the Gibsons and District Public Library, but I’m here today as chair of the Association of B.C. Public Library Directors.

I would like to begin by acknowledging the obvious — that these are unusual and difficult times. We are aware that there are challenges inherent in asking for financial consideration during economic downturns, so we appreciate this opportunity to speak with you.

With that in mind, I’m going to focus on how public libraries are a critical community infrastructure that serve everyone in our province. I don’t know if you all know, but during economic downturns, the use of libraries dramatically increases. It’s true, during tough times, there’s a noticeable increase in use. People are looking for free technology, connectivity access, resources and a safe, welcoming space.

Every day more people walk through our doors seeking a wide range of services and support, asking for assistance to build their resumes, conduct job searches, complete their government forms and taxes.For some people, I have to tell you, doing online forms is a big hurdle, so the support that libraries provide is essential to living in the digital age.

[7:25 p.m.]

They often use the library store and take themselves to a new community or language, pursue their educational goals, access legal information and, of course, find resources. Children, youth and their families come through our doors every day to participate in programs and discover resources that enhance their lives. Many of our libraries have

They often use the library story and take themselves to a new community or language, pursue their educational goals, access legal information and, of course, find resources.

Children, youth and their families come through our doors every day to participate in programs and discover resources that enhance their lives. Many of our libraries have now developed STEAM kits and libraries of things, more non-traditional items that you may not know that your local library has, everything from telescopes to sewing machines to robotics kits, great takeaways for families that are at no cost to them.

We are the great equalizer. We provide free space and resources to everyone, including our most marginalized populations.

As you know, there was a special resolution that passed unanimously at the 2025 UBCM convention regarding the need to prioritize increased annual funding for public libraries, and this objective is more important than ever in the midst of rising costs. We very much appreciate the $14 million in grant money the province has provided our sector annually since 2010, but the truth is it’s simply not keeping pace with the growing needs of our communities.

The uncertainty of year-to-year funding creates stress and anxiety, particularly in small communities, and the lack of any increase to the grant in the face of powerful inflationary pressures means we are falling behind in our ability to meet the increasingly complex needs of our world.

I do want to mention with great appreciation that the library sector received a one-time year-end provincial grant for use in 2023 to 2025. I can’t express to you just how much wind that put in our sails. We were able to undertake fresh, new initiatives that were very much needed and welcomed.

Our library was able to create a new study pod for people to be able to work and have a place to take Zoom meetings, that type of thing. We were also able, in our library, to create a new youth space with that enhancement grant, which was wonderful.

This one-time year-end funding was proof that we can do more if we have more, so I want to take a minute to just assure you that B.C. public libraries across the province work closely with their local governments, and you can be sure we are applying pressure to ensure local funding for libraries keeps pace. But it can’t be an either-or situation. We need the support of both levels of government to sustain our essential services.

We are seeking stability and support, so how the funding is provided is as important as how much. That’s a bigger conversation. For now, we are asking the province to increase its annual contribution to the public library sector to $30 million. We’re one of the best investments you’re already making, and we hope you stay invested.

Thank you very much for your time.

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

Debra Toporowski / Qwulti’stunaat: Thank you, Heather, for your presentation. We did hear about libraries already today. I’m kind of like my colleague from across the way. They’re going: “Was that today or yesterday?” But I’m sure this won’t be the last time we hear about it — of how important libraries have become.

Like you said, in troubling times like through COVID and trying to maintain that connection with our community, the B.C. libraries did a great job in providing that safe space for everyone. Also during heat waves and winter times when it’s cold, so people can come in and hang out and read a book or whatever.

So not necessarily an ask for you, but I did want to share a story, if my colleagues will humour me. My grandson, at five…. We were we were out getting a coffee at Tim Hortons or something. “What would you like to do? “ He looked at his grandpa, and he said “I want to go to the library.”

He looked at me, and he said: “Is there a library here in Ladysmith?” And I said, “Yes, there is. I’ll show you where it is.” So we drove down the road, and he just loved it there, didn’t want to leave. His grandpa had to get a card for the first time at the library.

Heather Evans-Cullen: Oh, that’s great. I’ll pass it on to my Ladysmith colleagues. That’s awesome.

Debra Toporowski / Qwulti’stunaat: Yes. And I know, being a municipal councillor, the difficulties faced by the local libraries — of funding and always having to make sure that you have those services provided for the community. So I thank you.

Heather Evans-Cullen: Thank you for your acknowledgment.

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

[7:30 p.m.]

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

Heather Evans-Cullen: Thanks so much. Good luck with your process. Nice to see you all.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you very much.

We will invite the next presenter.

none. Thank you so much for coming and presenting to us today.

Heather Evans-Cullen: Thanks so much. Good luck with your process. Nice to see you all.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you very much.

We will invite the next presenter. We have Steve Jones joining us online.

Thanks for joining. You have five minutes for your presentation, five minutes for questions after. You can begin whenever you’re ready. Thank you.

Steven Jones

Steven Jones: Good evening and thank you for your time. My name is Steve Jones, and I’m speaking today about funding for parks and recreation as a member of the public and not as a representative of an organization.

That said, my perspective has been informed by my experience. I have a degree in engineering and I’m a chartered financial analyst charter holder. I have volunteered with the Federation of Mountain Clubs of B.C. I run an advocacy group for improved access to North Shore provincial parks. I’ve been on the board of directors of leave no trace Canada and I’ve served on advisory committees for the B.C. Search and Rescue Association.

Like countless other people in British Columbia, the park system has played an essential role in my physical and mental health. At times, I’ve been challenged with anxiety and the ability to connect deeply with nature in our parks has been vital. These benefits are not just theoretical. They are well supported by research. Through the PaRx program, which was started in B.C., doctors across the country have written an estimated 1.5 million prescriptions for time in nature.

Parks aren’t only a cost-effective way to relieve burden on our strained health care system, they are also a critical economic driver. In a chaotic global environment, tourism is a sector where we can control our own destiny. This government recently launched the B.C. outdoor recreation strategy, which noted that the sector contributes $4.8 billion to the provincial economy.

The strategy identified many challenges and barriers to growth but did not announce the funding that will be required to overcome them. B.C. Parks and the B.C. Recreation sites and trail systems are in a serious state of underfunding. This didn’t happen overnight. For many years, perhaps decades, funding levels have not kept up with the combined impact of population growth, inflation, increased tourism and natural disasters, and now we are in a deep hole.

Due to understaffing, trail conditions reports are sometimes out of date by almost a year, potentially contributing to search and rescue incidents. Deferred maintenance on infrastructure, from boardwalks to cable cars to outhouses, is reaching critical levels, leaving many areas closed, unsafe or unusable.

Only 2 percent of the land within B.C. Parks has been developed with a visitor-use focus. Crowding has become so severe in recent years that people log-in at 7 a.m. to compete for day pass tickets to access hiking trails, and they frequently miss out. In a province with such vast wilderness, this is a ludicrous state of affairs and not something we should accept as normal.

The province spends money through Destination B.C. to attract tourists who will visit our restaurants and adventure tourism businesses, but it’s so hard for them to secure campground reservations that they are forced to book their trips to Alberta, Alaska or Washington instead.

If I had more time, I would also love to talk about the governance and transparency challenges because reporting changes over the past decade have significantly reduced information that is available to stakeholders. B.C. Parks manages over 14 percent of the land in the province, but we no longer even know what the B.C. Parks budget is.

So I ask you to think boldly about funding for parks and outdoor recreation. The status quo is resulting in real, unnecessary harm to both human health and our economy. The good news is that this is one area of the budget where investments pay for themselves, and British Columbians are strongly united in their love and support for parks and outdoor recreation.

With all of that in mind, my three recommendations are:

One, a one-time $100 million investment to address the deferred maintenance and recreation expansion projects to restore equilibrium between supply and demand.

The second recommendation is a 50 percent increase, in annual operating expenditures for B.C. Parks; B.C. Recreation sites and trails; and supporting groups, including the B.C. Search and Rescue Association.

The third recommendation is a return to previous levels of transparency, to rebuild public trust, including a return to listing B.C. Parks as an independent line item in the 2027 budget.

Thank you for your time and happy to answer any questions.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you so much for your presentation. I just want to quickly check. I don’t know if I missed it, but do you represent any particular organization?

[7:35 p.m.]

Steven Jones: No, I’m speaking tonight just as a member of the public.

Paul Choi (Chair): Okay, sounds good. Thank you so much for that.

We will turn to questions by members.

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

Steven Jones: No, I’m speaking tonight just as a member of the public.

Paul Choi (Chair): Okay, sounds good. Thank you so much for that.

We will turn to questions by members.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much for the presentation. The 50 percent increase in operational funding for B.C. Parks, rec sites and trails…. You also mentioned search and rescue. Is search and rescue funded under the same line item as parks and…? I’m not even sure it’s the same ministry.

Steven Jones: No, it’s a different ministry. That generally goes through emergency management B.C.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): Okay. So you want a 50 percent increase in operational funding at Ministry of Environment for parks and rec and then a 50 percent increase in operational funding at EMBC for search and rescue. Is that correct?

Steven Jones: That’s correct.

I’ll also highlight some of the challenges for stakeholders and groups to advocate accurately for those increases. In the past, B.C. Parks used to publish an annual report, for example. Since 2017, they don’t publish an annual report, and about three years ago, the B.C. Parks stopped being called out as a line item in the budget. We don’t know what the current funding is. So it’s kind of hard to guess how far behind it is, but we know from on the ground it is behind.

Paul Choi (Chair): Any other questions?

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

That concludes all the presentations we have today. Any other business?

Seeing none, I want to thank everyone who presented today.

I also thank all the members and staff and Hansard and everyone involved, especially today. We have sat later into the day to ensure we can be more accessible to some of the public who have to come after work. So thank you, everyone, for your extra accommodation and understanding today.

I will also conclude today’s meeting. We will be returning tomorrow for more in-person and virtual public hearings.

I will seek a motion to adjourn.

Motion approved.

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

The committee adjourned at 7:37 p.m.