The month long, province-wide tour for the Provincial Government's Finance Committee arrived in Prince Rupert on Monday afternoon, the two hour session at the Highliner Plaza Hotel stop number nine on their fifteen city tour of June.
During their Prince Rupert stay the seven member panel heard contributions from the Real Estate industry, the BC Seafood Alliance, Prince Rupert Unemployed Action Centre, Prince Rupert District Teachers Union, Friendship House Association of Prince Rupert and Ecotrust Canada.
As well, the committee heard from an advocate for increased supports for parents with children who have autism.
Real Estate Industry Concerns
For the realtors one of the major issues of concern for review is the province's moves on Dual agency which Sheila Love noted is causing some severe stress for rural areas outside of the larger communities for which the regulations were designed for.
As part of their presentation Trevor Hargreaves and Sheila Love provided a snapshot of an industry steeped in frustration in the North, with buyers and sellers not quite understanding why the industry cannot provide the service that had been delivered in the past.
Such has been the tumult from the new regulations that some agencies have closed, while other agents consider leaving the industry.
Among their recommendations for the committee:
While it isn't directly a budget, question, you may ask: "Why are we adding that in a budget presentation?" At the end of the day, it is greatly affecting the community aspects of our industry in many of the remote areas of British Columbia.
We have two different regulators. They both have two different interpretations on our recommendations for our exemption.
What we would like to see moving forward…. We wanted to take this opportunity today with such representation of MLAs across the province to really speak to the fact that we would appreciate your advocating moving forwards to put into practice a logical northern exemption, or remote area exemption to be specific, so that in towns where there isn't a lot of opportunity for two real estate agents to work in tandem, it would be a logical policy fix.
Anastasia Butcher on Supports for parents of children with autism
The committee heard of the challenges faced by parents and how there is a need for greater supports when it comes to assisting families with autistic children.
As part of her commentary, Ms. Butcher reminded the committee of the government's responsibilities und the UN convention in support of persons with disabilities.
It is important to remember that the provision of support to persons with disabilities is a human right obligation of Canada, under the UN convention. Inadequate funding is preventing my daughter and many people with disabilities from enjoying the everyday freedoms that people without disabilities take for granted — for example, the right to choose where to live and the right to appropriate supports to achieve an education and employment.
When the government makes a decision to provide inadequate funding for support services, the message is clear: my daughter matters less than other citizens of this country. I want to know that this government considers my daughter and people like her to be worthy of funding. If she receives support now, in these important years, it will impact her future trajectory of life and her being a contributing member of society.
My recommendation is to increase Community Living British Columbia's annual budget to support adult services, with targeted funding for young adults with complex needs, to ensure flexible options for living arrangements and community inclusion support that respects the right to live independently and be included in the community on an equal basis with others, with enough support that meets their complex needs, as per article 19, UN convention on the rights of persons with disabilities.
BC Seafood Alliance
Christina Burridge provide the overview for the committee calling for the province to move cautiously on plans for marine protection areas, highlighting the need for consultation with fish harvesters to fully understand the impact of legislation on their livelihoods.
We ask that the committee seek the province's agreement to take the time to get the MPA network right. There needs to be time to fix methodological flaws in the process that do not take into account current conservation and management measures.
We need to complete broad consultation with fish harvesters through a process that we have developed, and we need to conduct a full socioeconomic analysis of the implications — $100 million annually and the devastation of families and coastal communities. That's simply too great a price to pay when more than a third of B.C.'s coast will be already protected.
The second recommendation was that the Province consider the creation of Loan Board for fish harvesters to assist new entrants to the industry.
This recommendation proposes that the provincial and federal governments explore establishing a loan board for fish harvesters to encourage new entrants and intergenerational transfer.
A loan board exists in every other fishing province in Canada. It exists in Alaska — there are two of them there, actually — and in other U.S. fishing regions, but not in B.C. The federal government, by the way, has just introduced a similar program for young aquaculturists but not for wild fish harvesters.
Prince Rupert Unemployed Action Centre
Paul Legace appeared as an advocate for persons with persistent multiple barriers, calling for additional funding to provide for additional supports that could assist in their daily lives.
If these folks are as vulnerable as the government suggests they are, $47 a day seems not much.… I don't see how that's really better than regular income assistance. For context, to rent a one-bedroom in Prince Rupert, it's $908. We are well $100 before even a basic rent.
What I'm proposing is doubling that $47. That's it. It's simple math — a $47 increase to these very, very vulnerable folks. Yeah, it's about a buck-50 a day. They might be able to go to Tim Hortons for a coffee, but it's something. It's something for vulnerable people.
Since this is the budget committee, the question is around money. I think it's a great bang for the buck.
Prince Rupert District Teachers Union
With the underlying theme of teacher contract negotiations making for news of late in the province; the need for increased funding was one of a number of topics for Raegan Sawka of the PRDTU who called for "real resources" to be put into the province's classrooms.
"These funding changes for the 2019-2020 school year amounted to just 1.3 percent per student, so this is far below the inflation rate. Prince Rupert students and staff are experiencing further budget and service cuts instead of restoring students' supports and services. Students in B.C. and Prince Rupert deserve better.
We are being shortchanged in comparison to the rest of Canada. Our province invests $1,800 less per student in public education when compared to the national average. As sources have told me, this is closer to $1,900 per student now. Just like when we had visited Jennifer Rice, recently — to her constituency office — we're asking as well, at this committee: why are our kids worth so much less?
They're significant, and their future in this province is less of a priority than other provinces. Teachers in Prince Rupert are urging and appealing to the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Governance to increase to sufficient education dollars. We need to reverse the current underfunding and provide educational services our students deserve."
Much of her presentation provide for a review of how BC shapes up against other areas of Canada when it comes to a range of issues, with the PRDTU offering up a number of recommendations including a call for the end of funding for Independent Schools.
From what I understand, for this current school year, $426 million has gone to independent schools. I don't know the per-student breakdown. I don't have those figures in front of me. But our concern is that is similar to some of the dollar amounts that we're missing from the public system.
When I began teaching in 2001, as a proportion of gross domestic product, or a proportion of government spending, about 20 percent of government spending went into public education. We're now between 11 and 12 percent.
We know a lot of those funds have been diverted or are being spent elsewhere, like independent schools. That might be part of the issue for generating the money to properly support our K through 12.
Friendship House of Prince Rupert
Anna Zanella provided the Friendship House briefing and recommendations for the panel, first making note as to how some of the past funding from the government has been used focused mainly on the transportation service that they offer between Prince Rupert and Terrace and then to call for renewed funding, offering some areas where any additional financial resources could be used.
My submission is that the provincial budget continue to provide renewed and additional funding for the possibility to purchase an additional bus to run more trips. We've actually been requested by different groups to do that, and they would like us to run more frequently.
Currently, our biweekly trips are in line with connecting to B.C. Transit, connecting transportation routes. There are limited modes of transportation in and out of Prince Rupert and northern communities, and it's a growing concern. People use this van service we provide for various reasons, including, but not limited to: connecting to B.C. Transit routes, airlines in Terrace; to connect to employment and education opportunities, medical appointments, family and pretty much anything that the former bus lines provided for.
We could provide additional trips and days with another vehicle and support our operations more if we had two vehicles. One could be home to do charters. In addition, we could be able to carry parcels with the larger vehicle. Currently, we cannot accept charters that fall on days of transportation service for the EVA project.
We also addressed a provincial and national issue, first by providing transportation options for the Highway 16 Corridor, ending violence against women and children.
We also support the economy of the province by connecting people to jobs and providing jobs for dispatchers and drivers, being the only service of its kind as it connects communities along the highway in the north in and out of Prince Rupert. It also addresses social issues, reduces barriers of connectivity and promotes participation in the economy and safety inclusively. The van service also provides transportation to medical appointments for individuals, promoting health and well-being. This service is available to anyone who wishes to ride and is a social enterprise not for profit that is financially sound.
Ecotrust Canada
Tasha Sutcliffe provided for her testimony by phone, with her contribution also focused on salmon habitat concerns and local fisheries in coastal communities.
Towards those goals, she highlighted the work of the Wild Salmon Advocacy Council Report.
Meaningful progress is going to require collaboration with the province and supportive initiatives in areas of common interest, such as labour force renewal, fish harvester organization, financial instruments supporting intergenerational transfers of enterprises and the many aspects of fisheries related to reconciliation with Indigenous peoples, and improving transparency in ownership of fishing assets and the lack of transparency in beneficial ownership of our public B.C. fisheries resource.
The negative impacts of that on communities were also made very clear in the province's own recent report, Dirty Money. These are all areas of shared jurisdiction and overlapping program responsibilities, where, in considering transformative change, the federal government is going to rely on active collaboration and investment from the province — investment not only of political but also financial capital. So this is not about allocation. This is about ensuring that the economic, social and cultural benefits coming from our public resource are fairly shared with our own adjacent communities and the people doing the work on the deck of the boat.
There's been broad cross-sectoral support for this kind of change recommended in the FOPO report, and we need to ensure that our local fisheries resources are first and foremost benefiting our local harvesters, our First Nations and our fishing communities, not speculative investors and multinational companies. We need a strong message of support for local and sustainable fisheries from the government of B.C. and to see this activated through real commitment of investment in the upcoming budget.
The Wild Salmon Advisory Council recommendation under goal 2 is to "protect and enhance the economic, social and cultural benefits that accrue to B.C. communities from wild salmon" and all fisheries, placing emphasis on adjacent communities. That goal, in that report, provides a great platform to convey this message and make commitments. We hope that this a line item in the new upcoming budget.
You can review the full testimony of all the participants from the Hansard record of the Monday session here.
Tuesday the group were in Kitimat, which was their only other stop in the Northwest as part of the consultation process.
You can still contribute to the Committee's work learn more about those opportunities here; the Committee will deliver their findings to the Finance Minister later this year, with the month long tour providing some background towards the Budget preparation for the year ahead.
For more items of note related to the work out of the Legislature in Victoria see our archive page here.
Cross posted from the North Coast Review.
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