The Honourable Chrystia Freeland, PC, MP

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance

House of Commons

Ottawa, ON K1A 0A6

Dear Minister Freeland,

I want to thank you for providing Canadians across the country the opportunity to contribute to the development of Budget 2021 through pre-budget consultations. Last week, I had the opportunity to host three separate pre-budget consultations in West Vancouver, on the Sunshine Coast and in the Sea to Sky Corridor.

These lively and informative discussions provided valuable insight into steps our government can take in Budget 2021 to support Canadians through the pandemic, position our communities for economic success as we Build Back Better, adapt and mitigate the impacts of climate change and promote reconciliation with First Nations. As a result of these discussions, my team prepared a What We Heard: Pre-Budget Consultations in West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky Country report which I have attached below.

We hope you will consider this report in developing the upcoming Budget and that Canada can make a real and positive change in supporting our communities to address major priorities regarding healthy lifestyles, education levels, employment, and family safety.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Patrick Weiler, MP

West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky Country

What We Heard: Pre-Budget Consultations in West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky Country

Office of Patrick Weiler, MP
West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky Country

Executive Summary:

Our office hosted three pre-budget consultations with communities across the three distinct regions of West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky Country. The discussions provided an opportunity for local leaders to share their knowledge and expertise of what is needed in our communities and across the country from Budget 2021. Some of the initiatives include capital infrastructure projects, addressing and mitigating the impacts of climate change, addressing the opioids and mental health challenges, leveraging our non-profit sector to support communities and opportunities to support affordable housing and build on our Government’s National Housing Strategy. A large part of the discussion was contextualized around the COVID-19 pandemic and how our Government can continue to support the health and economic livelihoods of Canadians as we look to Build Back Better.

Background:

On January 25, 2021, our Government launched pre-budget consultations with Canadians. Fighting and defeating COVID-19 remains our most pressing and immediate priority. The virus is still with us and still doing great harm. This pandemic has also been a setback for our economy. Once the coronavirus is under control it will be time to rebuild. When our economy is ready to absorb it, we will inject targeted stimulus to jump-start new economic growth. The timing will be critical. This is why the work of identifying investments begins now. Our growth plan will create good jobs for the middle class by investing between $70 and $100 billion, or roughly 3 to 4 per cent of GDP, over three years. These pre-budget consultations will help inform our growth plan and the measures and investments that will make up Budget 2021.

Overview of Consultations:

During the course of our pre-budget community consultations, we heard from a range of sectors, regions, and industries to discuss ways to ensure a strong economic recovery once the virus is defeated. Our office hosted three pre-budget consultations to address the unique and specific needs of three major regions in my riding. On Monday, February 8, we held a pre-budget consultation with the communities of West Vancouver, Lions Bay and Bowen Island. On Tuesday, February 9, we held a pre-budget consultation with communities on the Sunshine Coast. On Wednesday, February 10, we held our last pre-budget consultation with communities in the Sea to Sky Corridor.

Budget 2021 Consultation

Housing

The COVID-19 pandemic has not cooled housing prices, and real estate transactions are at record levels. Increasingly, residents of Vancouver and other large metropolises are moving further afield to be able to afford housing to raise a family, among other things. This has exacerbated already strained housing affordability and it now represents the greatest impediment to economic growth through much of my riding and many others.

Our Government introduced Canada’s first National Housing Strategy and has taken strong action to improve affordable housing for Canadians. The NHS was first introduced as a 10 year, $40 billion program and has increased to a 10 year, $70 billion program with the most recent $12 billion increase in funding for the Rental Construction Finance Initiative announced in the Fall Economic Statement. There is more work to do, and I am proud of our community for identifying housing initiatives to build on this important progress:

• Develop affordable housing by removing the 25% cap CMHC places on non-housing in a building or providing flexibility for proposals that can show it meets their unique housing needs assessments and can match employment space for the people who live there.
• Provide funding to local governments or access to financing for land purchases so that when funding for housing opportunities become available, municipalities can work directly with BC Housing and CMHC.
• Prioritize workforce housing for vulnerable people and for frontline workers like police, fire workers, ambulance workers who require housing and form the backbone of local economies. This can be accomplished in part by providing tax allowances or a five-year tax credit to help reduce housing cost for essential workers.
• Adjust and redefine the First Time Home Buyer’s proposed expanded definition of the ‘Vancouver Region’ to include Squamish, Whistler, Pemberton, and the Sunshine Coast so that these communities have an attainable path to home ownership.

Childcare and Affordability

Across my riding, family decisions are heavily influenced by available and affordable childcare options. Fast growing areas of my riding are in dire need of childcare spaces. Squamish only has 16 spaces per 100 children. The Fall Economic Statement proposes to establish a new Federal Secretariat on Early Learning and Child Care, and Budget 2021 will lay out the plan to provide affordable, accessible, inclusive and high-quality childcare. To assist families and community development, our consultations identified the following initiatives to support childcare and affordability:

• Our community supports efforts for space creation and developing proper wages for childcare workers.
• Implement a National Childcare Program that is able to service and accommodate high cost of living areas while also focusing on training programs for care providers, immigration programs to fill care provider gaps, and funding infrastructure for space creation.
• Continue to rollout the Universal Broadband Fund while identifying opportunities for the federal government to bring cellular connections to rural communities.
• Reduce costs for seniors by introducing an internet affordability program modelled after the Connecting Families program.

The Connecting Families initiative helped bridge the digital divide for Canadian families who struggle to afford access to home internet while making ends meet. The pandemic has illustrated the dire need for seniors to also have access to technology, connectivity, and affordable home internet. Our Government needs to implement a reduced cost internet program, similar to Connecting Families, that targets seniors and encourages them to participate in the digital world.

Environment and Climate Change

The Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change and the more recent “A Healthy Environment and A Healthy Economy” plan lay out a strategy for Canada to exceed our 2030 GHG emission reduction targets. Our community is deeply supportive of implementing these and other measures to ensure a healthy climate and habitable planet. We must work hard to ensure our Government delivers a concrete plan on how we are going to achieve net-zero by 2050. To help mitigate the effects of climate related events, such as floods, fires, water issues, heat waves, and sea-level rise, the following initiatives were identified for federal support:

• Develop and implement a national program similar to the Peace Corps, but focussed on environmental projects (such as planting 2 billion trees), that can take the science, academics, jobs, research, youth engagement, leaders, projects, and drive to help us get back the lost time, accelerate our progression, and bring innovative ideas to the table.
• Investing in accessible and resilient natural areas provides many benefits including job creation, conservation, tourism, and ecological protection. The Government should increase investments into nature conservation.
• Provide support to local governments and First Nations who are on the frontlines of addressing and mitigating the impacts of climate change, and build climate action into our plan to Build Back Better. This should include Government incentives to encourage local climate action in the community.
• Help fund the Just Transition for workers in the fossil fuel industry so they can find meaningful employment and incentive retraining for workers in those communities.
• Continue to invest in water system projects with programs such as the Clean Water Wastewater Fund.
• Continue to invest in sustainable technologies like solar and wind, electric and innovative technologies such as hydrogen, wood buildings.
• Increase our efforts on remediating environmental damage in our lands and waters.
• Following through on the single-use plastics ban with our 2021 timeline.

Public Infrastructure and Transit

Investing in public transit infrastructure shortens commute times for families, creates good middle-class jobs, grows our economy, and cuts air pollution. Infrastructure investments were a core focus of our pre-budget consultations and many submissions were provided covering social, green and public transit infrastructure investments:

• Our Government must support transit for rural and marine areas and capital fund costs for infrastructure projects while supporting energy efficient initiatives.
• Continue to invest in communities through the Disaster Mitigation and Adaptation Fund (DMAF) and provide opportunities for big capital, small and large projects that will help local municipalities combat the impacts of climate change.
• Continue to invest in green infrastructure projects that allow nature to do the work of addressing climate change for us.
• Support local municipalities whose infrastructure assets (sewage, roads, transportation facilities, built infrastructure) are near or at the end of life by providing no interest or extremely low interest loans for municipal retrofits and infrastructure projects.
• Determine federal involvement in the potential construction of a Sunshine Coast Highway.
• Clarify the rules around investments from Innovation, Science and Economic Development (ISED) and the Canada Infrastructure Bank (CIB) with different program requirements to encourage multiple applications and success in acquiring federal funds for projects.
• Continue to invest in highly popular programs like those delivered by Community Futures that will benefit rural and small-town economic development.
• Ensure that a gender lens is applied to all stimulus investments and that Government funding does not only support jobs by men, such as infrastructure, but focus on long-term care homes, transportation and caregiver support.
• Support the Federation of Canadian Municipalities Municipal Asset Management Program to help their key priorities and community deficits.
• One of the top priorities identified by NXSTPP (a steering committee with elected officials from all levels of government across the North Shore that finds solutions for chronic congestion) and independently by the Squamish Nation Council, is to complete the Western Lower Level Route extension. This route would not only provide improved east-west connectivity across the North Shore, but also direct access to lands identified by the Squamish Nation as key to their economic prosperity and self-determination. The Government should invest in this transit project

Supporting BC Enterprise

Our diversified economy took a major hit in 2020. To ensure that impacted sectors like tourism and forestry rebound, and existing and future growth opportunities are seized, our community requests that this budget:

• Swiftly establishes the BC RDA with equal per capita funding of its national counterparts.
• Supports job training/re-training, and internship programs, with a focus on young Canadians, and other underrepresented groups.
• Implement tax incentives to encourage Canadians to patronize businesses in hard hit sectors such as tourism, hospitality, arts and culture, when it is safe to do so.
• Ensure that the newly created BC Regional Development Agency (RDA) is well-staffed and more inclusive so it can assist the not-for-profit sector, focus on non-traditional economic development and support innovative leaders in the not-for-profit and social enterprise sector.
• Support the location of the new BC RDA headquarters in a rural community.
• Look at alternatives for the repayment of Canada Emergency Business Account loans. The effects of COVID-19 on the economy and small businesses may exceed the loan repayment deadline. We need to find surrogate solutions to help organizations avoid the costly process of converting loans to debt and the consequences of being valued as high-risk after conversion, such as allowing loans to stay in organizations’ portfolios.

Supporting Tourism

Located in the most beautiful region of the country, it is no surprise that tourism and the hospitality industry represent the largest employment sector in my riding. The tourism industry has been disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, with the ensuing lockdowns and absence of any international visitors. Below are some of the key issues raised during our community consultation:

• Our Government must provide travel incentives to Canadians to travel in Canada such as airline ticket incentives or promoting local tourism packages.
• With a return to normalcy in domestic and international visitors not expected to be realized until 2022, our Government must continue to provide support to the tourism industry until it is able to recover.
• Our Government can help invest in the future of the tourism industry by providing funding to expand destination development and infrastructure.
• Our Government must help to manage the impact of the pandemic on the tourism industry by providing security for small businesses in the tourism sector and local governments that are on the frontlines of promoting tourism experiences.
• Our Government must continue to look at the results of rapid testing pilot projects, such as the Alberta COVID-19 Border Testing Pilot Program, and integrate these into our economies to begin welcoming visitors back in a healthy and safe way while providing screening options for communities.
• We must apply a climate lens to the tourism industry by considering long-term investments for innovative solutions to lower airline and other transportation emissions.

Opportunities for Youth

Young Canadians have disproportionately paid the economic costs to protect our seniors and most vulnerable with job losses predominantly felt in entry level positions and sectors dominated by young Canadians. This is an inequity that this budget must rectify to ensure that this generation will have a fair chance at success as we emerge from the pandemic. Youth in our community raised the following concerns to be addressed through Budget 2021:

• Our Government must create opportunities for career paths for youth by continuing to invest in programs like the Canada Summer Jobs program.
• Help young Canadians obtain entry level positions and a pathway to a career by supporting internships, applied learning, and public sector jobs.
• Ensure that we support post-secondary access for the community and extend those educational opportunities to vulnerable Canadians.
• Incentivize young Canadians to participate and become employed in climate change projects, utilizing their ideas, drive and lack of employment opportunities as a result of the pandemic.

Seniors

For an increasing number of seniors in my riding, quality of life has been diminished as a result of the pandemic, with more seniors experiencing isolation and poverty. During our pre-budget consultations, there was strong advocacy for measures that will benefit the lives of seniors in our community:

• Seniors Planning Tables are offering vital and essential services; they mitigate system costs and support older adults to live healthier lives as well as enable them to contribute to their communities. Our Government must support and invest in core funding programs to support Seniors Planning Tables.
• Continue to invest in popular and effective programs like the New Horizons for Seniors Program.
• Reform older adult care by implementing a national seniors strategy, which includes national standards tied to funding for long-term care and home and community care, investments to expand home and community care and address the social determinants of health.
• Improve financial supports and investments in tools and programs to assist informal caregivers.
• Ensure long-term retirement income security for low-income seniors who qualify for Old Age Security and the Guaranteed Income Supplement.
• Protect pensions over the long-term by creating a strong policy environment that encourages innovation and makes defined benefit plans more available to Canadians.
• The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted and exacerbated longstanding and well-known issues with respect to seniors and long-term care in Canada. Understanding that healthcare administration is a provincial responsibility, there are still many things in which the Government of Canada is able to undertake. These include the creation and implementation of national standards of care as an inclusion of long-term care under the Canada Health Act.

Supporting Canada’s Blue Economy

Already a large part of the economy of my riding, and of our province, our oceans have tremendous potential to create jobs and wealth by leveraging the many assets and advantages and opportunities in the blue economy. With the report to be released in Fall 2021, there are initial steps we can take to support this new economy:

• Support programs like the Abandoned Boats Program for marine debris removal.
• Strongly engage and work with essential smaller companies and Indigenous communities that have experience and can be large players in Canada’s blue economy.

First Nations and Reconciliation

The Government is working closely with Indigenous Peoples to better respond to their priorities, to better support their plans for self-government and self-determination. Our riding is home to four First Nations whose territory we greatly appreciate calling home: the Squamish Nation, Lil’wat Nation, N’Quat’qua, and Shishalh Nation. Our communities are committed to walking the path of reconciliation. The ideas outlined below will be another step in that important process:

• Increase funding for Indigenous capital expansion to acquire additional capital assets, increasing the number of housing units to combat rising homelessness and add to the affordable housing stock.
• Increase in funding for the Indigenous Housing Providers operating costs to cover additional maintenance expenses as the housing stock gets older, close the wage gap between social housing support staff and the market wage and increase their internal capacities to serve their client’s needs better.
• Allocate funding for a National Indigenous Urban Housing Strategy.
• Allocate a second round of the CMHC Rapid Housing Initiative with a carve-out for Urban Indigenous Projects.
• Allocate funding to create an exclusively Indigenous Housing Strategy, designed by Indigenous people to overcome homelessness, mental health issues, discrimination and to give more funding for support services.
• Allocate funding to provide a Financial Literacy Program for all tenants to reduce financial stress and help them to manage their money better to become financially independent.

Health and Safety

COVID-19 is a respiratory illness that is caused by a novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2. It has quickly grown global in scale, affecting people on all continents across the world. Our Government has been hard at work to address these unprecedented challenges. At the same time, our community is still struggling with the opioid crisis. In our pre-budget consultations, we identified several initiatives to promote the health and safety of our communities:

• Follow through on delivering a national pharmacare program that is universal, single payer, and public.
• Continue to work in partnership with provinces, territories, the RCMP and communities, as they respond to these drug overdoses and their associated harms, including providing drug testing equipment and supporting efforts to address mental health issues.
• Continue to invest in mental health supports and facilities to break down the stigma of mental health by sharing virtual mental health resources and tools to support mental health and well-being.
• Invest in safe shelters to support vulnerable Canadians, including those facing unsafe domestic situations, and provide funding that allows for counselling not just through private health care plans.
• Provide a grace period of at least one year before the Town of Gibsons is required to pay for additional RCMP services once its population hits 5,000 people.
• Our Government must commit to the Senate's monetary recommendations and increase federal funding to Alzheimer and related dementias research. Increasing funding for Alzheimer and Dementia research is incredibly important not only for Canadians who suffer from these diseases, but also their families who often take on the caregiving and financial burden.

Immigration

In October 2020, Minister Mendicino tabled the 2021‒2023 Immigration Levels Plan, which sets out a path for responsible increases to immigration targets to help the Canadian economy recover from COVID-19, drive future growth, and create jobs for middle-class Canadians. Our community and Canada benefits when newcomers join us. During our pre-budget consultation, the following initiatives were highlighted:

• Clarify and streamline immigration processes as we return to the Immigration Levels Plan and recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Fix the Temporary Foreign Worker Program to support communities like Whistler that rely on the program in order to allow small businesses to succeed.
• Attracting and retaining individuals in careers that care for Canada’s seniors has become increasingly challenging. Ensure Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship prioritizes the Caregiver Program to provide a path toward citizenship and employment in Canada’s long-term care sector.

COVID-19 Response

As we distribute vaccines across Canada, bold action continues to be necessary to fight COVID-19, save lives, support people and businesses throughout the remainder of this crisis, and Build Back Better. Our pre-budget consultations noted the following areas for inclusion in this budget:

• Our Government must continue to adapt the programs implemented for business and people, especially in highly affected sectors, such as CRB, CEWS, etc. and demonstrate our Government’s willingness to adapt to changing circumstances.
• Our Government must create funding streams to support not-for-profit organizations’ staff and volunteers’ access to PPE.
• Community organizations and not-for-profit organizations are essential in buffering and alleviating the social consequences that arise from a global pandemic. Our Government needs to provide funding to reduce the saturation of their capacity capabilities and support their financial stabilization.
• Not-for-profit organizations support essential services and programs for the most vulnerable in our communities. Introducing permanent funding for not-for-profit organizations so they are able to continue their operation of essential services, such as food bank services, and meet their administrative and capacity needs, such as the acquisition of new staff members instead of relying solely on volunteers.
• Help municipalities address the chronic issues that have arisen out of the pandemic, such as homelessness and food insecurity, by continuing and increasing funding to the Emergency Community Support Fund.
• Introduce a category of charitable giving that offers a tax treatment or incentives for public donations to communities and community resources.
• Adjust the Canada Recovery Sickness Benefit to accommodate and support symptomatic Canadians so that they do not have to make tough decisions about losing a day of pay while waiting for their COVID-19 test results.
• Redesign the Canada Summer Jobs program to reflect the reality of COVID-19 and the long-term employment needs of businesses and not-for-profit organizations by increasing the number of weeks allowed for each hired employee.