Finance Committee on Oct. 3rd, 2016

[Karen Shortt]

Yes, it was cut by 8.5%, but in addition to that, the provincial government said they would like some goods in-kind to the tune of 17%. The LINC program ended up being cut by 25.5%.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

I didn't realize we did that.

Go ahead, Mr. Friesen.

[Chris Friesen]

Just to clarify that, you have to understand that the national settlement budget is allocated to each region of Canada, each province, on the basis of the number of permanent residents. Part of the dynamics in the province of British Columbia was a historic record low in the number of permanent residents. We had considerable numbers of temporary foreign workers, just as Alberta did. These temporary foreign workers are not eligible for settlement services and language programs, even if they're on pathways to permanency.

B.C. had a double hit because of the historic low number of permanent residents.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Yes, but as a government, knowing we're bringing in Syrian refugees at the rate we were, then cutting the English-language...don't you quote me on this, Richard, but it makes no sense to me.

Ms. O'Connell.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm going to start with the Pacific Salmon Foundation, please. I just want to make sure I'm understanding correctly the conservation stamp. I understand that this is an additional tag, so to speak, that's added to the licence. I'm just wondering, is this per year, per season, per fish? How does this work with or without an increase?

[Michael Meneer]

I wish it was per fish.

It is an annual stamp. You purchase it in conjunction with your saltwater fishing license. It costs $6 and it allows you to retain the pacific salmon that you catch, within regulated limits, of course, set by DFO. Some fisheries are closed. Some species are closed and others are open.

As long as you're fishing within the limit, you may retain your Pacific salmon. If you think about the value of a Pacific salmon in terms of what you might pay at the supermarket, $6 for an entire year to retain a lot of salmon is—

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

Then I'm assuming it's the same price whether it's commercial or just the average.....

[Michael Meneer]

This is only the recreational fishery. Very good question. This is just the recreational fishery.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

Recreational only. Thank you.

You answered my question in terms of per regulations and how many. That's fine, thank you.

I had a question to Ms. Shortt.

You mentioned the 921 students on the wait-list. I'm curious, and forgive me if I didn't hear it if you answered Mr. Liepert, what is the cost to have those 921 students taken off the wait-list and incorporated in the program?

[Karen Shortt]

If you take the class size of between 16 and 20 students, we would need to offer enough additional classes. The cost would be pretty much faculty costs. The building is there. The curriculum's there. We're ready to go. It's basically saying we want to meet this need and get people trained, and here are the instructors and we're ready to do it.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

Thank you.

Do you have an actual number in terms of what those costs would be for faculty?

[Karen Shortt]

As quick math in my head, I would say 900 students and if you offered enough classes for 20 students per class, just do the math. That would be it.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

How much was the cost of that in-home program that you mentioned, that was eventually cut?

[Karen Shortt]

I don't have the cost to offer the program. Again, it would be the instructors who would train the volunteers. We would have one instructor. It's called Homefront, and the ESL instructor would train volunteers who would do very basic literacy in the home with the mothers. Again, it's the cost of offering a class to between 15 and 20 English-speaking volunteers, who would then go into the home.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

Thank you.

Ms. Falconer, I'm from Ontario and our conservation authorities, for example, have significant funding. They're frankly an arm of the provincial government. I'm curious, in terms of your association, do you receive other funding provincially or municipally? You mentioned the donation you received. Do you have other partners, others levels of government? Your ask of $3 million over five years is the federal ask. What does that mean for other levels, if any?

[Sheena Falconer]

Currently we have funding from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation that will last until 2018. That pays salaries and pays rent. Apart from that we rely quite heavily on donations. We do a lot of project grant applications to do our work and we don't retain much of it. We do most of it flow-through because of the fact that we have funding from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, specifically to do this. We also run a small aquarium on the side, to generate revenue for ourselves.

We currently also have our big fundraiser that brings in approximately $120,000 a year to support basic staff. We don't have provincial funding. It's all grants and flow-through.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

It's all grants, not long-term funding.

[Sheena Falconer]

No, we don't.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

What about any municipal? Do you access municipal grants as they come up, or partnerships?

[Sheena Falconer]

We have excellent partnerships in the regional district and the city. They're a bit cash-strapped themselves. The regional district supports us to the tune of about $17,000 a year, which helps us with the rent. In return we do a lot of stream assessment work for them and we do a lot of water quality testing and bring in a lot of.... We leverage their $17,000 by doing work for them, essentially, that they would otherwise be doing.

And with the city, we again leverage. They have a system called urban stream system. We leverage funds against that, so we can create a healthy system. We're kind of putting band-aids on stuff. When you're trying to do project grants but.... We have commissioned this report. We know exactly what we need to do. To get a grant for $35,000 and do one tiny piece, then do another grant for $70,000, it would really take a long time at that rate.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Mr. Albas.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to all the people presenting today. I'm actually from the West Kelowna area, so thank you for coming to our area if you're not local.

I'm going to start first with Kathy Conway at Interior Savings Credit Union. I'm going to be keeping all of my questions very tight, so if everyone responding could keep them equally tight, I would appreciate it.

First of all, you talked about tax fairness and the changes that were made in 2013. The end result is less retained earnings and fewer loans. Is that correct?

[Kathy Conway]

Yes, that is correct.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

That's one way to grow the economy, though, by making sure there's adequate credit for small business. We heard that small business in credit unions is quite heavy in British Columbia.

[Kathy Conway]

Correct. We can leverage $1 of capital about 15 times for lending.