SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON
PUBLIC ACCOUNTS
Tuesday, February 21,
2001
9:30 a.m.
Douglas Fir Committee Room
Parliament Buildings, Victoria
2000 Legislative Session: 4th Session, 36th Parliament
SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC ACCOUNTS
MINUTES AND HANSARD
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SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON Tuesday, February 21,
2001 |
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Present: R. Thorpe, MLA (Chair); D. Miller, MLA (Deputy Chair); S. Orcherton,
MLA; E. Walsh, MLA; M. Coell, MLA; G. Farrell-Collins, MLA; V. Roddick, MLA; R.
Kasper, MLA
Unavoidably Absent: P. Calendino, MLA; A. Petter, MLA; D. Streifel, MLA;
J. Weisgerber, MLA
1. The Committee was called to order at 9:37 a.m.
2. The Committee considered Auditor General reports �Towards a More
Accountable Government: Putting Ideas into Practice� (1999/2000 Report 11) and
�Report on the Implementation of the Recommendations of the Budget Process
Review Panel� (2000/01 Report 2). The Committee heard from the following
witnesses:
Office of the Auditor General:
� Wayne Strelioff, Auditor General
� Keyvan Ahmadi, Senior Principal
Ministry of Finance and Corporate Relations:
� Chris Trumpy, Deputy Minister
� Murray Crowther, Director, Special Projects, Treasury Board
3. The Committee considered its draft report to the House on �Fostering
a Safe Learning Environment: How the British Columbia Public School System is
Doing.�
4. Resolved, that the Committee accept and adopt the draft report as
discussed. (G. Farrell-Collins, MLA)
5. The Committee considered its draft report to the House on �Protecting
Drinking Water Sources: A Follow-up Report.�
6. Resolved, that the Committee recommend that where practicable, the
Ministry of Health should be the lead agency for drinking water. (R. Kasper)
7. Resolved, that the Committee recommend that the ministries responsible
for workplans to implement the recommendations on drinking water made by the
Auditor General and the Select Standing Committee on Public Accounts report to
the Committee every six months. (R. Kasper, MLA)
8. Resolved, that the Committee accept and adopt the draft report as
discussed. (V. Roddick, MLA)
9. The Committee considered the Auditor General report, �Strategic
Direction and Funding Proposal,� and heard from the following witnesses:
Office of the Auditor General:
� Wayne Strelioff, Auditor General
� Peter Gregory, Assistant Auditor General
10. Resolved, that the Chair deposit copies of the reports adopted by the
Committee with the Clerk of the House pursuant to the Committee's terms of
reference. (G. Farrell-Collins)
11. The Committee adjourned to the call of the Chair at 1:10 p.m.
| Rick Thorpe,
MLA Chair |
Craig James |
The following electronic version is for informational purposes only.
The printed version remains the official version.
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2001
Issue No. 95
| Chair: | * Rick Thorpe (Okanagan-Penticton L) |
| Deputy Chair: | * Dan Miller (North Coast NDP) |
| Members: | Pietro Calendino (Burnaby North NDP) * Steve Orcherton (Victoria-Hillside NDP) Andrew Petter (Saanich South NDP) Dennis Streifel (Mission-Kent NDP) * Erda Walsh (Kootenay NDP) * Murray Coell (Saanich North and the Islands L) * Gary Farrell-Collins (Vancouver-Little Mountain L) * Val Roddick (Delta South L) * Rick Kasper (Malahat-Juan de Fuca NDP) Jack Weisgerber (Peace River South Ind) |
* Denotes member present
| Other Members Present: | Richard Neufeld (Peace River North L) |
| Clerk: | Craig James |
| Committee Staff: | Richard Morrow (Committee Researcher) |
| Witnesses: | Keyvan Ahmadi (Office of the Auditor General) Peter Gregory (Office of the Auditor General) Wayne Strelioff (Auditor General) Arn van Iersel (Comptroller General) Chris Trumpy (Deputy Minister of Finance and Corporate Relations) |
[ Page 1717 ]
The committee met at 9:37 a.m.
R. Thorpe (Chair): Good morning. If we could, we'll get started
Before we start today, I noticed we have some guests with us, and I'd just like to recognize
The first report on the agenda today is a consideration of auditor general reports No. 11, "Towards a More Accountable Government: Putting Ideas into Practice," and No. 2, "Report on the Implementation of the Recommendations of the Budget Process Review Panel." If we could have the auditor general's department start off, please.
W. Strelioff: Okay. Well, thank you very much, Chair, and good morning, members. As the Chair said, you have before you today two reports issued by my office. Mr. Ahmadi will lead you through the highlights of our report on the implementation of the Enns committee recommendations. But before he does so, I'd like to speak to the issues raised in the earlier related report, one issued by my predecessor, entitled "Towards a More Accountable Government: Putting Ideas into Practice."
I think the message it contains provides a useful backdrop to your deliberations today, whether they are focused on the status of the Enns recommendations, the Budget Transparency and Accountability Act or in general on the need for good performance planning and reporting in government. The key message in the report of my predecessor is that the foundation for open, transparent and accountable government is leadership and legislation -- legislation that would require a government to report on both its plans and results, and to do so publicly and in a timely way, and leadership to ensure that it happens.
That legislation is now in place, the Budget Transparency and Accountability Act. In passing this legislation B.C. has joined other jurisdictions seeking to provide their publics with more meaningful information about the performance of government. My office has worked with the deputy ministers' councils, with public accounts committees and with other legislative auditors across Canada to make it clear about what constitutes meaningful information. Public reporting will be meaningful if it focuses on intentions and results, covers all aspects of performance using a diversity of measures and uses standards developed by authoritative, independent institutions to make sure that such reporting is comprehensive and inclusive of all government organizations. The use of governmental, generally accepted accounting principles for senior government is not mandated in the Budget Transparency and Accountability Act. In other respects, however, the Budget Transparency and Accountability Act is a very important, good first step forward.
[0940]
Legislation alone, though, is no guarantee of success, of course. Giving substance to the act requires commitment and support from elected and appointed government leaders, and it requires continuous management. Organizations must have the capacity to translate the good intentions set out in the legislation into actions. Resources, training, staff and information systems will be necessary if government organizations are to provide the public with the meaningful information envisioned under the act. Much work is required by many.
Of course, the Legislative Assembly also has a part to play. Information about government performance takes on a greater meaning when it is used, an important responsibility of the assembly. This, as previous Public Accounts Committees have recognized, is largely an issue of capacity. Included in the committees' reports to the assembly were important recommendations to address this, among them that sectoral committees of the assembly be established and given expanded terms of reference, and the short- and long-term plans and annual reports of the ministries and Crown corporations be referred to these committees for review.
Certainly as auditor general I also have a role to play. Under the Budget Transparency and Accountability Act I'm required to report each year on the status of the implementation of the Enns panel recommendations. But I believe there's more that can be done. I'd like to return to this subject again when Mr. Ahmadi has concluded his presentation. I think it important for you to know that I continue to contribute to supporting the initiatives that have been undertaken through the Budget Transparency and Accountability Act to help ensure meaningful public reporting and debate in B.C.
Now I'm going to turn over the presentation to Mr. Ahmadi.
K. Ahmadi: Thank you and good morning. In 1999 the auditor general's report to the Legislative Assembly entitled "A Review of the Estimates Process in British Columbia," discussed both the governance and management aspects of the estimates process. The report recommended changes to the way in which the cabinet develops the provincial budget and the way in which the Legislative Assembly scrutinizes and approves the government's spending plans.
The report also recommended significant changes to the way the government plans its finances and programs, monitors actual results and reports on its performance to the assembly. The government established a budget process review panel in April 1999 to seek a broader view on some of the major recommendations in the auditor general's report.
In September 1999 the panel issued its final report, entitled "Credibility, Transparency and Accountability: Improving the B.C. Budget Process." The report contained 26 recommendations. These recommendations reaffirmed our recommendations with respect to the estimates process. They echoed the previous thinking of our office on accountability and performance management, and also they echoed recommendations of the Public Accounts Committee on the substantive reform of legislative committees.
The government publicly responded to the panel's recommendation in its "Budget 2000 Reports," indicating agreement with most of the recommendations. It then introduced new legislation, entitled the Budget Transparency and Accountability Act, which the Legislative Assembly passed on July 6, 2000. This act is often referred to as BTAA.
The BTAA incorporates the requirement of the auditor general to report each year on the implementation of the panel's recommendations. In making assessments under this
[ Page 1718 ]
requirement, we determined to report not only whether the legislative provisions exist or not but also whether the provision has been complied with in a way that is consistent with the spirit of the panel's recommendations.
[0945]
Overall, we concluded that the government has made reasonable progress in implementing the recommendations of the budget process review panel in its first year of implementation. In summary, we found that of the 26 recommendations made by the panel, 22 required legislation. Of these, 13 have been fully reflected in the BTAA. Six have been partially reflected in the act, and three have not been reflected.
We also found that of the 26 recommendations, nine had been fully implemented by September 2000. Three recommendations have been partially implemented, and four recommendations had not been satisfactorily acted on. For the remaining ten recommendations either work was in progress or future action was expected. We believe there are significant departures from the panel's recommendations. I'll expand on these later in more detail.
Appendix A of our report, starting on page 20 -- and I'm referring to this report, No. 2 -- provides information and comments on the status of the implementation of each recommendation in the order they appear in the panel's report. However, to be more efficient in taking you through this report today, I have reorganized the 26 recommendations in three main groups.
First, there are those recommendations that were to be acted on after the end of September of last year -- that's the date of our report -- or that were in the early days of being implemented. I have provided you with a list of these recommendations, and I'm referring to this two-page document which was distributed this morning.
There are ten such recommendations. Two deal with the prebudget consultation. Six deal with improved accountability for results, and two with provision of better information. The implementation of these recommendations, which are grouped under No. 1, will be monitored and reported in the future.
The second group includes the eight recommendations that were satisfactorily implemented during the first year. The first one of them is the budget timing. We believe that the BTAA requirements on budget timing are reasonable. The government tabled the estimates for the 2000-01 fiscal year and presented this Budget 2000 on March 27 of the year 2000. These are the recommendations which have been implemented.
The second one is the Economic Forecast Council. We believe that moving this requirement to the BTAA is appropriate. We reported that the views of the council were included in the Budget 2000.
The third such one is about disclosure of material assumptions. This requirement is legislated in BTAA and has been implemented in Budget 2000. We have not examined the secretary to Treasury Board's attestation that assumptions are complete. This is an area that we may be able to, in the future, provide assurance to the Legislative Assembly on.
The next one is about disclosure of fiscal forecasts that differ from most likely forecasts. This recommendation is a measure taken in the BTAA to help in making prudent forecasts. The relevant information was fully disclosed in the Budget 2000 document.
The next recommendation in this group is focused on the summary reporting entity. We are pleased that the government publishes only the auditor's summary financial statement as its only set of financial statements. We look at the extended reporting entity which relates to this matter later on.
The next one is the gross basis of accounting. The BTAA requires the summary financial information to be presented in the estimates on both gross and net.
The next recommendation is about reports and information release dates. The BTAA requires specific issue dates for important government financial publications and financial statements. We note that up to now, the quarterly reports on the public accounts have been issued on time or earlier.
The last one in this group is monitoring progress of implementation, which resulted in the report that we are going through now and the government's report, both of them issued before September 30 of last year.
[0950]
Now I'm going to move to the third group, the one that I'll provide more detailed information on. These include recommendations that are either only partially enforced in legislation or partly implemented or not implemented satisfactorily. There are seven such recommendations. Two of them deal with better transparency, one with reliability of information, one with improved accountability for results and three with improved accounting.
The first one is sectoral legislative committees. The panel recommended that the legislative committee system be reformed for the estimates, debate and review of business plans, and annual reports. The government has said that it is prepared to support this recommendation, but despite some effort on the part of the government and the official opposition and other members, a reformed legislative committee system has yet to be established. Therefore we have a new recommendation on this. We recommend that the government, and in fact all Members of the Legislative Assembly, intensify efforts to reform the legislative committee system.
The next one in this group is about curbing the use of special warrants. In the first year of implementing BTAA, the government used special warrants, though it was accompanied by a public report as required by that act. On subsequent occasions the government used supplementary estimates. We recommend that the government continue to use supplementary estimates in the future for approving additional spending for ongoing operations that are not considered a true emergency.
The third recommendation in this group is about attestation by the secretary to Treasury Board. In Budget 2000 the statement by the secretary to Treasury Board met the spirit of the panel's recommendations. However, the BTAA itself only partially reflects this recommendation. It does not require the secretary to attest to the completeness of the latter disclosure. Therefore we recommend that the government propose an amendment to the BTAA to require the secretary to Treasury Board to attest to the completeness of disclosure relating to any factors that may be included to make the fiscal forecast different from what the government believes is the most likely result and the amount by which the forecasts are adjusted.
[ Page 1719 ]
The next recommendation that we deal with in this group is about government strategic plan and annual report. The implementation target date is for before the budget day 2001. However, the BTAA does not explicitly require the government's strategic plan and annual reports to include indicators of financial condition, as it was suggested in the panel's report. Therefore we recommend that the government propose an amendment to the BTAA to require its strategic plan to include expected results for standard fiscal indicators such as those recommended by the CICA, as well as explicitly require a three-year governmentwide financial plan.
The next recommendation is about reconciling surplus or deficit with changes in debt. This panel recommendation called upon the government to explain in a single audited statement the increase or decrease in the total provincial debt in relation to its operating resources. For example, it's important for the Legislative Assembly and the public to understand why, in the 1999-2000 fiscal year, there was an increase in the total debt of $2.2 billion, although the province had a surplus of $52 million from operations. We recommend that the BTAA be amended to require this audited statement in the summary financial statements.
Then we move to the accounting policies for estimates. The BTAA states that the estimates and the public accounts must be prepared using the same accounting policies. Therefore financial information with respect to the CRF and non-CRF entities should be consolidated in the estimates at a level consistent with the summary financial statements.
[0955]
In its 2000-01 estimates, the government did not consolidate the expected revenue and expenses of non-CRF entities, choosing instead to disclose only the entities' net income. However, the government has stated that it will include the expected revenues and expenses for the larger non-CRF entities in its 2001-02 fiscal year. Therefore we recommend that the government show in the estimates all the financial information, including revenue and expenses of government organizations, required for full disclosure so that the estimates are presented on a consistent and complete basis with the summary financial statements.
These six deficiencies are, in our opinion, a significant departure from the panel's recommendation. Added to these six is the last deficiency, which I am referring to today. It has a much more serious effect on the transparency and accountability of the government's financial planning and reporting. In explaining this part of our report, I'll combine three recommendations by the panel: recommendations No. 16, 18 and 19. They are all under the improved accounting section of the panel report. They are about generally accepted accounting principles, interpretation of accounting policies and also the issue of government reporting entity.
The panel recommended that legislation require financial information to be presented in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles, or GAAP, for senior governments, established by the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants. In our view, that would mean, for example, expanding the reporting entity for the government's budget and financial statements to include the SUCH sectors.
The panel believed -- and we concur -- that requiring compliance with GAAP would result in better accounting and in full and fair disclosure of financial information. The government, however, continues to present financial information in accordance with accounting policies which do not, in certain significant respects, follow GAAP.
The panel also considered the separate issue of how the accounting policies, once set by Treasury Board, should be interpreted in various circumstances. To address this matter, it recommended that legislation provide the auditor general with enhanced authority -- and also the responsibility -- to influence the interpretation of accounting policies. The panel reasoned that while government should continue to have the authority to establish policies, the auditor general should be given the specific authority to influence the interpretation of those policies in the context of generally accepted accounting principles.
As an auditor, the auditor general has a professional responsibility to assess the fairness of the financial statement presentation on the basis of the most appropriate accounting policies. On the other hand, the Auditor General Act currently requires the auditor general to express his opinion on the basis of government's accounting policies, which may or may not be the most appropriate. This creates a situation that may result in a confusing message to the users of the government financial statements, including Members of the Legislative Assembly. To deal with these deficiencies, we have three recommendations.
We recommend that the government propose an amendment to the BTAA to require the government to establish its accounting policies in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles for senior governments in Canada.
We also recommend that the government propose an amendment to the Auditor General Act to confirm the expectation that the auditor general provide an opinion on whether the government's financial statements are fairly presented in accordance with GAAP for senior governments in Canada.
We also recommend that the government propose an amendment to the BTAA to require the inclusion of school districts, universities, colleges and health authorities in the government's reporting entity in accordance with GAAP for senior governments in Canada.
[1000]
That was the implementation of the recommendation. Now let's look at the future. In this report we recognize that progress has been made and is being made in British Columbia. We also recognize that both the assembly and the government have signalled commitment to make tangible improvements in how the government budgets, manages, measures and reports on its programs and services. However, successful implementation will require concerted, consistent and continuous leadership from elected and appointed government leaders over a number of years.
The capacity to anticipate, collect, report and use information about results will need to be developed at every link in the chain of accountability. Government will have to allow open and deliberate public participation. The Legislative Assembly will need to consider its own capacity in terms of dealing with public participation in an open and deliberative process and of scrutinizing the information that government will be producing about its plan and actual results and performance. Also, the auditor will need to develop the capacity to verify the additional information that will be forthcoming. These are the things that the auditor general referred to earlier on.
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To meet these capacity challenges the government will need to make suitable investments in time and money for system improvements, people and training. The government will need to manage its efforts pragmatically, with a rigorous, structured approach. Such an approach will mean developing management infrastructure that will coordinate the efforts of all involved in the planning, execution and monitoring of the reform efforts.
W. Strelioff: Thank you, Keyvan. Our office will continue to report each year, of course, on the status of the implementation of the Enns panel's recommendations, and we'll be making it a priority to assess and report on the quality of the performance plans and reports of government. My aim over the long term is to provide legislators with assurance about the quality of the information included in government performance plans and reports, just like we do now for financial statements. But much work is required by many to get there.
Overall, our report indicates that reasonable progress has been made by government, particularly in the context of the newness of the recommendations and the magnitude of change advocated by the panel. Of course, the Budget Transparency and Accountability Act is an important step. We are concerned, as Keyvan noted, that the recommendations ensuring rigorous accounting measurement used in the plan and results have not yet been implemented. But overall there is much work to be done, and this is a reasonable step forward.
R. Thorpe (Chair): Thank you. We would now ask the Ministry of Finance and Corporate Relations to make their presentation. Chris, if you and Murray -- whoever is doing the talking -- could introduce yourselves to the Hansard people, it would be appreciated.
C. Trumpy: My name is Chris Trumpy. I'm the Deputy Minister of Finance and Corporate Relations, and with me today is Murray Crowther, who is the director of special projects with Treasury Board staff. I'll try not to go over the same ground that Keyvan went over and focus perhaps on the areas of disagreement rather than those of agreement, so I think my comments will be fairly short today.
From our perspective the Budget Transparency and Accountability Act represented a fundamental change in budgeting and reporting in British Columbia, and it's fairly unique. It's quite unique, actually, amongst Canadian provinces. One of the unique provisions is the reason that we're here today. That's the requirement in the legislation for both the government and the auditor general to report on the status of implementation of the recommendations, which is contained in legislation. I don't think you find that kind of joint reporting requirement in many pieces of legislation.
I think we would have preferred a joint report, because in theory these are reports on matters of fact. Unfortunately, I guess, accountants -- and I hold an accounting designation, so I feel comfortable saying this -- and lawyers and physicians suffer from a similar affliction. That is that they are capable of coming up with different diagnoses given identical fact patterns. And that seems to be what we've got today.
My comments will focus on four topics: where the government didn't accept the Enns recommendations; areas where the auditor general and the government differ on whether the government accepted the recommendations; what's been happening; and I'll make some observations on how the implementation has been going, because we are learning as we go through this process.
[1005]
There were two main recommendations that weren't accepted by government, in our view. I'm not quite sure about the auditor general, as Keyvan indicated. First is the bigger entity, which means the inclusion of schools, universities, colleges and hospitals. The government did expand the reporting entity to include Crown corporations, but the government's view is that the primary accountability of the SUCH sector is to locally appointed boards.
I'd also add that the impact on the bottom line is quite small. Last year I think the number was about $13 million. In the two previous years it was in the tens or twenties of millions of dollars. Last year it would have reduced the surplus. The two previous years it would have reduced the deficit. But the dollars that we're talking about aren't large on the operating side.
The big impact of those sectors is on debt, and all of the debt of those sectors is reported in government's financial statements, because the government borrows on behalf of the schools, the hospitals and the universities, and then off-lends to them. Public accounts also discloses in schedules income statements and balance sheets of those sectors, so the information is publicly available. It just isn't rolled up into one income statement and balance sheet.
The second area of the recommendations not accepted by government -- although I note that in the auditor general's comments they call this "needed to be acted upon in the future" -- was that there be a document produced that summarizes ministry and Crown performance plans. That was recommendation 13 of the Enns committee.
The Enns committee envisions three levels of reports: one government level, one summarizing ministries and Crowns -- so a step below the high-level government one -- and then individual reports by ministries and Crown corporations. The government's decision was not to include that mid-level report, particularly at this time. But I guess we will see whether that additional information is required at some point in the future. Right now there will hopefully be lots of information out there for people to look at, and the view was that this would just clutter that landscape.
Recommendations where the auditor general and the government differ on whether the recommendation was accepted. The first one
The reconciliation of debt and deficit or debt and surplus. Although the information was included in both the public
[ Page 1721 ]
accounts and the estimates last year, the office of the auditor general has indicated that the recommendation of Enns is that that public accounts inclusion be part of the audited financial statements. We've discussed this issue with the report authors, and our understanding is that the panel's recommendation or panel's intent was just that the information be available. It's available now in the public accounts and the estimates. We think that meets the test.
On the interpretation of accounting policy and the enhanced role of the auditor general, the auditor general comments on our accounting policies today -- and does a good job commenting on our accounting policies today. The auditor general is heavily involved in any changes or interpretations of accounting policies that we can consider. We have many exchanges of views between the Ministry of Finance and the comptroller general and the auditor general, and there are some fairly heated debates on some topics. But that process is in place. So I think our view is that you don't need legislation to do something you're already doing. Now, that isn't necessarily what Enns said, but we think it passes the spirit of the Enns test.
[1010]
On the attestation issue, as Keyvan indicated, the attestation that was in last year's budget meets the Enns test. Keyvan's view is that it goes a little bit beyond what the legislation requires and that the legislation needs to be strengthened to meet or to comply with Enns. I think my reading of the interpretation in section 7, where it says that there is a requirement to attest to material assumptions underlying the fiscal forecast, is that any variance from what you assume is most likely a material assumption, and therefore it needs to be attested to under the legislation. So I think that test is met in principle.
I think the rest of the recommendations
In terms of what's been happening, I think the entity changes. The expansion of the entity that government accepted has been reflected in all documents. It was reflected in the estimates, in public accounts, the quarterlies. The deadlines are being met and set out in legislation -- at least in the public accounts quarterly yesterday. A budget consultation paper was released in October, and a consultation process was undertaken with a report out by the end of December. As I indicated, supplemental estimates were used in place of warrants for the first time in British Columbia this past fall.
Disclosure of assumptions is occurring. In all the documents -- well, in the budget documents and the quarterlies -- there's a detailed disclosure of assumptions and changes in those assumptions as the year progresses. Ministry and Crown corporation performance plans were tabled last year. We'll see the reports on those plans by June 30 of this year.
We've got some training underway for both performance plans and performance reports in the system, for both the Crown corporations and the ministries, to ensure that the reports meet certain minimum standards. Although, I guess, the training that's being provided centrally is not to take over responsibility to approve those, because those plans are owned by ministries and ministers and Crown corporations, not by the central agency that I represent.
Government strategic plan is under development, to be tabled no later than budget day, as required in the legislation. We are busy working towards a budget that's going to be delivered consistent with the timing requirements in the BTAA.
So how's it going? This legislation, from our perspective, represents a fundamental change in bureaucratic behaviour, because it's trying to shift the focus to results-based management and away from culture of control, where the focus is on inputs. And that is a big change for bureaucrats. It's going to take some time; it's going to take quite a bit of time. But there's quite a high degree of commitment to the change, and having the legislation in place helps that commitment.
The performance plan quality needs improvement. For those of you who have spent some time looking at them, there is a wide range of quality. I don't think any of them would pass muster on sort of a real objective test on all elements of a performance plan. Some of them do some parts of performance planning quite well, but none of them is where they need to get to. Part of that challenge is going to be that it's quite difficult to identify appropriate performance measures for many programs. The example I always use is the tax policy branch in Treasury Board staff. How do you measure the performance of somebody who's providing advice? It's a challenge.
We also have got some challenges in terms of developing appropriate management information systems to try to track and measure the performance. That's going to take some time to put some of those in place for some of the more complex government programs.
We didn't do a great job this year tying the performance plans and performance targets into the budget process. That continues to need some work, and we're going to continue to work on that.
[1015]
Also, I think that the management implications of moving to a bigger entity aren't fully understood yet. We now have the results of the Crown corporations included in the government's bottom line. It starts to beg some interesting questions about the roles of the boards versus the roles of ministers and the government from both a management perspective and a government's perspective. That's going to take some time to sort out.
Needless to say, this has created a fairly big increase in workload both in Finance and in other ministries. Some of this stuff perhaps we didn't think through as carefully as we could have when we were providing advice to the ministers on legislation. Things like a quarterly report that's due out at the end of February and a budget that has to come out, generally speaking, two weeks before the end of the fiscal year -- and the same people are preparing both documents -- create some stress in the system. But we'll work through that.
Sectoral committees, recommended in Enns. They haven't been established. When they do get established, I think that's going to add another layer of complexity that we
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haven't begun to really think through. Clearly that's up to the Legislative Assembly to determine what those look like, how they work and how they intersect with the current processes.
Generally speaking, I think there's
With that, Chair, I'll close my comments.
R. Thorpe (Chair): Thank you, Chris, and thanks to the auditor general's
D. Miller (Deputy Chair): Chris, maybe just a comment with respect to the issue of commercial Crowns and confidentiality and any problems that might present with respect to the requirement for plans. It seems to me that that's an important issue, and one that may not be well understood.
C. Trumpy: Well, I think that yes, it's an issue, and yes, we've had some fairly healthy conversations with some of the commercial Crowns affected. From my perspective
Some of the commercial Crowns have been reluctant to even disclose the level of information that they would have to disclose if they were publicly owned or widely held. I think that when you
R. Thorpe (Chair): Is that it, Dan?
D. Miller (Deputy Chair): Yep.
G. Farrell-Collins: I think the ministry and the ministries have come quite a distance in moving towards performance plans. I know it's probably challenging to change behaviour and have people do that. I know that the staff in the ministries have put a lot of work into that, and I think that's been really beneficial. I think we have come some distance along the way. Nobody's expecting, I guess, that we're going to get all the way there the first round. That certainly hasn't been the experience elsewhere, where they've moved to this sort of accountability. But I do want to congratulate the people in the ministry. I know it's been a big task to quarterback and encourage everybody to comply with it, so I certainly appreciate that.
[1020]
I wanted to ask a couple of questions regarding the performance plans, though. In the last session the ministries were pretty good at getting at performance planning on time. There was, as you said, a wide divergence in the thoroughness and quality, I guess you could say, of those performance plans. But hopefully, that will improve over time as well. Some of the Crowns were less prompt. I'm wondering what the status is on those performance plans in this cycle, as we're expecting them to come out of the Crowns shortly.
C. Trumpy: I'll not answer that question directly, but hopefully I'll answer it. The legislation puts the onus on ministers to table plans. The approach that we in Finance took at the bureaucratic level was to basically make sure the ministers responsible knew they had this obligation. Then if the minister didn't comply, from our perspective it was up to commentators or observers to ask and seek and require those reports, because there's nothing in the legislation that says that if you don't table a document, there are implications. All the Crown entities are aware of this. As I indicated, we've held sessions in terms of training them in terms of what the expectations are for a performance plan. It's consistent with all their cycles. Will they all be tabled? The expectation is that yes, they will be. Everybody knows this is a requirement; everybody knows this is the law. If they don't table it, I think the shareholder needs to ask some questions of the board, the president, the CEO.
There's also an issue of capacity, depending on how you define what a Crown corporation is. There are large numbers of very small agencies with limited capacity to develop meaningful performance plans. Some of those agencies are struggling, but those aren't the large ones. The large ones are clearly aware of and clearly capable of and are developing plans.
G. Farrell-Collins: As one of four million shareholders, that's sort of why I asked the question -- if I could get a sense of how far along they are. I am mindful that some of the agencies are quite small and probably don't have the expertise internally to put something together easily. But some of the big Crowns, the commercial Crowns, certainly are in that position, so I was trying to get a sense of how far along they are. I guess what you're telling me is that they know it's their responsibility, and you either don't know what their status is or are uncomfortable telling us what their status is at this point. That's fine. I guess we'll know if and when there's a budget and if and when those plans come in.
You mentioned an issue of disclosure with Crown corporations. My experience over time has been that prior to the government's legislation -- I think it was in '93; I can't remember which session it was -- on freedom of information, it was difficult to get information out of them, but not impossible. There was sort of an informal way of getting it: you asked for it. Sometimes you got it; sometimes you didn't.
With the legislation, which was heralded as the most open freedom-of-information legislation anywhere, there was a period of time where information actually was accessible. There was fairly good disclosure through that. One can argue whether or not some of that information needed to be disclosed, and I guess that was what the commissioner's role was. We've reached a point now where it's virtually impossible to get any information, certainly out of any Crown corporation -- virtually impossible. The delays and appeals around very innocuous information are exhaustive, expensive and time-consuming.
[ Page 1723 ]
You talked about the disclosure that's required of a publicly traded corporation to its shareholders on an annual basis. One of the things that's been done in Alberta is that their commercial Crowns actually are required to hold shareholder meetings, public meetings, on an annual basis in various locations around the province, where any of their three million shareholders can come in and ask questions and demand answers. My understanding is that that's been fairly successful. Is that a model that you think might help in sort of freeing up some of that information and making it available to the public?
C. Trumpy: When I read public reports of public meetings of widely held corporations, at some times it sounds like there's a fairly high level of disclosure, and at other times it sounds like there's very little or no disclosure. So I'm not sure that the public meeting necessarily drives more disclosure -- not by definition. It could, but it's
I don't know that I can actually answer the question that you've asked. Yes, it's an option. Something that a government could consider implementing is public meetings for Crown corporations. But if the purpose is more disclosure of information, I don't think the public meeting itself will necessarily get you more disclosure of information. I think there have to be things other than just public meetings.
[1025]
G. Farrell-Collins: How would you compare the legislative requirements for a Crown corporation to disclose to its shareholder beyond the cabinet? I understand there are problems there, too, with cabinet ministers getting information. At least, that's what a number of reports have told us. But as far as the four million people here in British Columbia who really, at the end of the day, are the shareholders
C. Trumpy: I haven't done that comparison. I think that if you look through the annual reports of the Crown corporations, some of them produce very comprehensive annual reports measured by any standard annual report measure. I think B.C. Hydro has got a very comprehensive annual report. Some of them aren't as comprehensive, but I've never done a comparison of Crown corporation annual reports compared to publicly traded corporations, and I'm not aware of anybody that has done such a comparison.
G. Farrell-Collins: Okay. Thanks.
R. Thorpe (Chair): I have a couple of questions. You mentioned that some agencies were struggling. Could you give us an example of what type of agency would be struggling with performance plans?
C. Trumpy: I don't want to
R. Thorpe (Chair): Could you group them?
C. Trumpy: I would group them as the smaller agencies whose focus is primarily just on delivery, so they don't have a lot of staff that support the organization. They have a fairly well-defined or a specific mandate to perform some function. Their focus is strictly on delivery, so the traditional sort of staff people that would do the strategic planning and all that sort of stuff, that would typically end up doing the performance plans, don't exist in some of those smaller organizations.
R. Thorpe (Chair): Would that strategic planning thrust be somewhere else and then the deliveries handed off to these agencies? Is that the problem?
C. Trumpy: That can be the case in some instances, so the performance goals of the organization are established by a minister or cabinet. The organization is instructed or directed to deliver, and their focus is on delivery. If the goals are not defined in performance measures but are sort of broadly defined goals, the expectation under this legislation is that there are specific performance measures, and I think that's been the experience in other jurisdictions as well. Often the bridge between the broad goals and the day-to-day activities is a difficult one to build, so some of the smaller organizations are going to
I don't want to give the sense that they're not committed to it or they don't think it's a good idea, because they do. They're just sort of struggling a bit with how they're going to get there.
R. Thorpe (Chair): Thanks, Chris. My point is that if people are struggling with it -- and I'm not questioning their commitment to the process -- it begs the next question, then. What resources are we preparing or is your office giving these groups to help them make the struggle a little less, so they can be focused on their service delivery as opposed to an issue where they're having some difficulties?
[1030]
C. Trumpy: As I indicated earlier, we have held some training sessions to walk them through what the requirements are, walk them through what the elements of a performance plan are. We're also building off that exercise to share best practices or develop a network, essentially, to share what the larger organizations are doing with the smaller organizations, because some of this stuff you can kind of steal from other people -- lots of it you can and should. So we're building -- I hate using language like this -- networks, essentially, so that as many people as possible can borrow the good ideas and learn from the mistakes of the people that are kind of leading.
In some of the Crown corporations, this work is quite well developed, and the people in those larger Crown corporations are quite willing to share with the smaller Crowns what they've done, what they've learned and what mistakes they've made and how to avoid them. So we're facilitating that. But what we are trying to avoid is getting in a situation of the central agency becoming the owner of somebody's performance plan, because the central agency isn't, at the end of the day, accountable. It's a ministry; it's a Crown corporation; it's not the central agency. I guess I've been around long enough that I've seen the model that the central agency starts to own things or starts to be perceived as owning things. The ministry or the Crown entity says, "That's not mine; that's Treasury Board staff," or whoever it is. Treasury Board staff says, "No,
[ Page 1724 ]
it's theirs," and then nobody ends up being accountable. So we're kind of walking a bit of a narrow line here to ensure that the accountability rests with the organization as opposed to with the central agencies.
R. Thorpe (Chair): I would agree with that. Ownership and accountability has to be moved down as close to the front as it possibly can with any organization, quite frankly.
You talked about training, which is obviously very, very important when you're going through these processes of, some would argue, dramatic change. Is that internal training? Is it external training? Could you just give us an overview of the training? Do we have the resources? What resources have been allocated to provide this training? And the last little caveat of that question: is the auditor general's office playing any role in this training as we develop this new process in British Columbia?
[1035]
C. Trumpy: What we are working on -- the Ministry of Finance, Treasury Board staff in conjunction with the executive financial officers of all the ministries and Crown corporations secretariat in conjunction with
In terms of the training, on the Crown side the role that CCS has is one of facilitation, bringing together the people with the best practices in the Crowns so that they can educate and train the people who are just starting down this road. On the ministries, the EFOs' council is actually in the process of going through what the appropriate training mechanism is. The former auditor general is now up at UVic focused on this accountability area and is interested in providing some training.
We've got Three-E, which is an organization that the government uses for training and that's developed some coursework as well. Needless to say, the consulting community is quite eagerly looking for opportunities that this kind of an exercise generates.
What we're trying to do
Now, in terms of the auditor general's office I'm actually not sure about the answer to that question, so rather than attempt it, I'm going to
W. Strelioff: Members, I have been invited by Chris to attend meetings of ministry people where they have had sessions on the implications of the Budget Transparency and Accountability Act and performance planning and reports. That's been useful, I think, in terms of encouraging support and movement. I also have been invited to meetings of Crown corporation people by Chris, as well, to join him in supporting the move to better performance plans and reports.
We have been working with the public trustee on a particular issue that, by legislation, the public trustee is required to publish performance plans and have them audited. That's beginning a couple of years from now. We've been working with that organization.
We have also worked across Canada with our colleagues on developing what's called general reporting principles for performance reporting and have handed off our thinking to what's called the Canadian Comprehensive Auditing Foundation, CCAF, which is also bringing the community together on trying to establish best practices as well as consensus on what the principles of good performance reports and plans should be. As well, as we mentioned earlier, we will be examining the performance plans and reports of government and trying to identify best practices and move things along. As Chris said -- and I agree with almost all of what he said -- this is a major change and is going to require a lot of work and diligence and support by all legislators.
In terms of thinking about your organization, many organizations run -- at least in the past -- by providing the services that they've done in the past. And that's hard, and that's where their thinking is. To step back and try to ask the question, "Why? What are we trying to achieve?" and then try to align resources and activities, according to a more thoughtful approach, to: "What are we trying to do with the public's money
R. Thorpe (Chair): Chris, are you the senior government staff person quarterbacking this initiative within government?
C. Trumpy: Yep. I guess so.
R. Thorpe (Chair): Is there an actual
C. Trumpy: No. There is no business plan. When will it be fully operational? On the issue of when it will be fully operational, I don't know that you'll ever get to the point where you're happy. This is going to continue to evolve for a long, long time. My target would be that maybe two years out we'll have a performance plan in every ministry that I could go home happy with. Maybe we won't make it in two years; maybe it's three years.
Would that meet legislators' tests of a performance plan? Maybe it would, but it may be that it won't, because I think there are a lot of areas that are going to prove very, very difficult to measure performance on. It's going to be a big
[ Page 1725 ]
challenge for the bureaucracy to produce things, and then the bureaucracy may produce things that just aren't very intelligible. They may work for bureaucrats or PhDs in something or other, but for the public and the Legislative Assembly they may not work. So there may still be a lot more work to be done.
[1040]
One of the key things that is going to drive this thing is going to be
R. Thorpe (Chair): There's no question it's going to take some time.
C. Trumpy: Back to your quarterback question: I didn't mean to hesitate like that. The problem I have is with the analogy. My view is that we are the lead organization, to the extent that we establish the framework.
R. Thorpe (Chair): Are you the champion within government?
C. Trumpy: I think there are a bunch of champions in government. And I think it's important -- from my perspective -- that it's every minister, every ministry, every Crown corporation board chair. They're the ones who have to make this happen. The Ministry of Finance can make all the orders it wants and jump up and down and scream, but it has to happen in each organization.
R. Thorpe (Chair): Thank you. You raised a point. Let me just go into this question, and then I've got you, Rick. What is the status on recommendation 10, the strategic plan of government? Where is the development of that?
C. Trumpy: The requirement in legislation is that it gets tabled on or before budget day. Budget day is coming.
R. Kasper: On the same subject, what is the status? Is it being worked on right now?
C. Trumpy: Yes.
R. Kasper: In the document -- it's a report on implementation of the recommendations of the budget process review panel -- on page 27 it says: "Legislation require that the government publish a long-term strategic plan
C. Trumpy: Nothing specific was included in estimates. I mean, the document -- I'll make a presumption -- will be available on the Web. So it'll be available in electronic form, and it will be available in printed form. But I don't have an estimate for the costs of that. It would be the cost of
R. Kasper: So you don't envision every household in British Columbia getting a copy of the long-term strategic plan.
C. Trumpy: That will depend on how widely the government chooses to distribute it.
[1045]
R. Kasper: But there must be some budget allocation within your ministry which would actually have factored in how wide-ranging this document will be circulated in British Columbia.
C. Trumpy: At the time of the preparation of the Ministry of Finance budget, which was a year ago or about 14 months ago, no. There wasn't an allocation made specifically for that purpose. We have got an allocation within the Ministry of Finance to deal with budget communications, like every other ministry has got money available for communications. But there wasn't specifically earmarked money for this strategic plan.
R. Kasper: Is it possible for you to get back to me with an answer as to what is expected, as far as expenditure, on publishing -- I'm using the words here -- a long-term strategic plan?
C. Trumpy: I think the government would probably be disclosing that information when it releases the plan, in response to questions it gets on that topic.
R. Kasper: Also in the plan, it says that the plan would include a three-year financial plan as the basis for ministry and public body business plans. In the financial plan, is it anticipated that it would show things like the annual natural debt retirement that this committee was advised a few months ago
C. Trumpy: I think that the requirement is for a multi-year fiscal plan. The fiscal plan would include spending. It will include revenues, and it will include debt.
R. Kasper: And debt retirement?
C. Trumpy: Changes in debt.
R. Kasper: Right. Okay.
C. Trumpy: There's a distinction to be made between debt retirement, which occurs every year whether or not the debt rises or falls, and reductions in debt. But I think a document at this level would typically disclose the changes in the
[ Page 1726 ]
level of debt, as opposed to going into all the details on retirements, which I think people would find confusing. I think the issue is the total level of debt and how much that changes.
R. Kasper: I don't think that the public would find it confusing if there were no additional debt incurred. But if there was a zero status on additional debt being incurred, then I think the public would perhaps see some light at the end of the tunnel, if what Ministry of Finance officials said to this committee a few months ago -- that over the next four years it's projected that the natural retirement of long-term debt is pegged at between $2 billion and $2.5 billion annually for the next four years
C. Trumpy: I'd have to go back and look at the transcript, but I think every year the government's got about $36 billion or $37 billion in debt outstanding. Every year some of it matures, so that debt gets retired. But it may get replaced with new debt if there isn't sufficient money to repay it. The annual maturity level ranges, but on average it's around $2.5 billion to $2.7 billion a year. That's the annual maturities. The government, depending on its operating results, may retire debt or not. What would be disclosed in this document would be the change in total debt -- so whether the total debt is going up or down, which I think is the information that you're seeking.
R. Kasper: Right. Just getting back to the cost of publishing the document or whatever is presented. You're the quarterback of this organization. I don't know who termed you with that phrase, that term. You're telling me that you don't know how much money is going to be spent, as this document is being prepared, first on how wide the distribution of the document will be and, secondly, what the cost of publishing, printing, distributing the document is going to be.
[1050]
C. Trumpy: There's been no decision made on how widely distributed the document is going to be, so therefore I can't offer any information on that topic.
R. Kasper: Okay. Thank you.
D. Miller (Deputy Chair): I'm going to wade into a little bit of an area that
I'm a politician. I ran and got elected, and most often it wasn't difficult. For some, it can be very intense and combative and, really, sometimes a clash of individuals. But most often, in the best sense, it's a clash of ideas about what you would bring, let's say under the label of the political party, to any particular public policy question. Wayne and I had a conversation yesterday or the day before about that. In other words, politics isn't practised in a vacuum; it's the real issues and the clashes that occur. We've seen, I think, in B.C. that we're pretty good at clashing over these kinds of things. We've seen, for example, major public issues, like the environment, that have had a significant impact on environmental questions, economic questions. This is the lifeblood of politics, if you like -- ideas and how they're distilled and practised through our parliamentary system.
As I was saying to Wayne, there used to be a political party in B.C. called Technocracy. I don't know if anybody remembers it. Their logo was somewhat the same as Safeway. Their theory of their political party was to simply strip politics out of it. If we could simply assemble the best engineers, accountants, etc., then every decision would be an informed and rational decision, and we'd make progress in this life. They no longer exist.
G. Farrell-Collins: It wasn't any fun.
D. Miller (Deputy Chair): Perhaps. So I think there's a question of realism. Again, I don't think it's fair to sort of impose this on bureaucrats. But there's a bit of a risk, I think, with the thinking that suggests that if we only plan, if there are only multi-year plans, we'll be able to measure performance, and the public will understand and know. But the reality is that you can have a long-term plan, for example, in health care. Indeed, you can have a collective agreement with the doctors, and they can decide that they don't like it and withdraw their services. All of a sudden you've got a huge, huge public issue, and your plan doesn't mean a damn thing.
Ought there not to be some recognition of that? Do you not, in a sense, to some degree mislead the public by suggesting that you'll just nail it down nicely and neatly -- and my God, there's the plan? And reality suggests that you've got to do, maybe, the opposite. Maybe you'll have to increase your spending massively in some areas. In my long experience in politics, regardless of party, I've never seen any politician who will, for a prolonged period of time, resist public opinion -- even when that public opinion is wrong.
So I think there is a bit of a risk. Don't answer if you don't want to, Chris or Wayne, but I think we ought to recognize the reality of what we do here, at least in the political context.
C. Trumpy: I'll feel free to enter into this. I think, from my perspective, the fact that you have a plan doesn't mean that the plan doesn't change. If you look at Alberta, which has been down this road for a few years, they disclose where there are differences from plan, where they have felt, for whatever reason, the need to increase resources. But I think that the purpose of it is, from my perspective -- and it's a bureaucrat's perspective -- that you're telling people what your intentions are, and then you're going to say: "Did we deliver on our intentions or not?" That doesn't mean that at a subsequent date, in response to whatever kinds of pressures there are -- whether they're fiscal pressures, whether they are public policy pressures or political pressures -- you're not changing your plan. That's fine.
[1055]
I guess the question is: where were you going to go originally? And then: why have you changed, if you have? Did you get there, and if you didn't, why not? If you've changed what your goal was, why? From my perspective, it's a bit more transparent about what's happening.
Now, that's at a political level. At a bureaucratic level I think what you end up with is that in a lot of instances -- I shouldn't say there are a lot -- there are examples of people doing jobs without really understanding what the objective is, in a measurable sense.
Sometimes you can use it from a management perspective. If I've got more information, that doesn't necessarily
[ Page 1727 ]
this goal. Why aren't I getting to this goal? Is it that the person in there needs more training? Is it that the client group has changed?" In our ministry, for example, we've got a loans collection branch. Is the loan portfolio getting to a point where it's much more difficult to collect? Do I need to reorganize from a management perspective to achieve the results I set out to do?
From a management perspective the purpose of this performance measurement information is to manage better and manage smarter. As you sort of go up the food chain in terms of information, I think the purpose is that people better understand what it is you're doing and trying to do and that there's a place they can start from when a government chooses to change things. They can go back and I guess have a view on whether or not that was an appropriate response to whatever drove the government of the day to respond. I mean, it's a serious debate.
D. Miller (Deputy Chair): Again, fair enough, Chris. Health care is an interesting field, because it is arguably one of the most debated public policy questions in Canada, not just British Columbia, with a variety of opinions about what's an appropriate approach to the efficient delivery of a good health care system. I think it's important that you do try to plan, for example, for your human capital -- to the degree that you can.
It's very difficult in a small-population economy like ours, I think, to simply think that you could be ahead of the game in every respect. For example, there'd always be sufficient nurses or doctors or whatever technicians. It's an ideal goal, but practicality intrudes. All of those plans can be sent into a tailspin. I'll go back to the argument I used. The doctors have sufficient clout, they withdraw their labour, there's general unrest amongst the public, and all of a sudden government pulls an extra few bucks out of their pocket -- which completely, really, sends that plan in a different direction.
Anyway, it's just really a comment. I personally don't think we ought to lose the notion of political debate and political clashes of ideas. Yet when I look at George's last report, I strongly suspect he must have been a technocrat when he was young. Wayne, any thoughts on that?
W. Strelioff: Just to support what Chris said in the response and to emphasize that the key reason for good credible performance information is to facilitate a more meaningful debate. Participation in government decision-making is where this is trying to move to.
D. Miller (Deputy Chair): Yet it's remarkable
W. Strelioff: What you're hearing today is pretty solid agreement on this issue between the auditor and the deputy.
D. Miller (Deputy Chair): No, I think there is an item in here where there's disagreement, Wayne.
R. Thorpe (Chair): No other questions? Does anybody have any closing comments?
Thank you very much, Chris, and thank you
S. Orcherton: Can we take five minutes? Is that possible?
R. Thorpe (Chair): Please just make it five minutes, because we're trying to get everything done by 12:30.
The committee recessed from 11 a.m. to 11:08 a.m.
[R. Thorpe in the chair.]
R. Thorpe (Chair): We'll get back on track. We're going to consider a couple of draft reports. The first one is "Fostering a Safe Learning Environment," and I'll turn that over to the researcher, Richard.
R. Morrow: The committee considered the auditor general report on fostering a safe learning environment in October 2000, and this draft report reflects the committee's discussions at that time. The committee heard testimony in October from representatives of the auditor general's office and also the Ministry of Education.
Auditor general's staff were asked in October to submit a ranking of their recommendations as well as information regarding the cost of implementing recommendations and a cost-benefit analysis. The ministry agreed in October to provide the committee with a workplan for addressing the recommendations. Both of these submissions have been received and forwarded to the committee.
Before going into more detail about those, I'm just going to make a few more general comments about the structure and content of the draft report. The introduction on page 1 describes the work of the auditor general and the committee, and notes the issues that were canvassed by the committee in October. The body of the report, starting on page 2, is structured around the issues that were discussed by the committee. The first section deals with the role of schools, the education system's expectations of teachers, and the influence and involvement of families and communities. Further sections, from pages 4 though 7, deal with the influence of violence in the media and video games, interministerial cooperation, the effective behaviour support program, the relation of physical activity to youth behaviour and youth aggression, the physical design of schools, data collection and tracking aggression, and the cost-benefit analysis and ranking of recommendations that I just mentioned. Some of these topics, such as the physical design of schools on page 5, are somewhat beyond the scope of the original audit, but they've been included because they were part of the committee discussion in October.
Returning to the submissions received since the committee's previous meeting on this audit, I'll start with the auditor general office's submission on the cost-benefits and priorities for implementing the recommendations in the office's report. Some of the information was incorporated into the draft report, on pages 6 and 7. As described on page 7, to rank the recommendations auditor general's staff have grouped them into five categories and then ranked the categories from 1 to 5. In a memo to committee members I suggested that the recommendations within each of these categories have equal ranking. Auditor general's staff have clarified that it's more accurate to say that the recommendations have not been ranked within their respective categories, rather than to say that they have equal ranking. That correction has been incorporated into the report.
[ Page 1728 ]
[1110]
Regarding costs, representatives of the auditor general's office advised in October 2000 that while some of the recommendations could be implemented with existing resources or modest increases in funding, three of the recommendations would require a larger investment from government: recommendations 3, 10 and 13. As discussed at that time, together these were estimated to cost $14 million to implement. This information has been included at the bottom of page 6 and at the top of page 7 in the report.
The submission from the office of the auditor general also contains information on estimated costs of implementing other recommendations. The office has cautioned that these figures are rough estimates developed with minimal consultation with the school system, and for that reason, other than the figures that were already part of the committee's previous discussion -- and already recorded in Hansard -- these estimates have not been included in the report. However, analysis of the ranking, the costs and benefits are included in the report.
Moving on to the recent submission from the Ministry of Education, I'll just make a few points about the submission. As noted in October 2000, ministry representatives offered to provide a workplan to the committee regarding the ministry's response to the "Fostering a Safe Learning Environment" report. What has been provided and circulated to members is an initial progress report and workplan. The document responds in some detail to each recommendation, including actions the ministry is taking and other relevant information. For instance, with respect to recommendation 1, the submission reports a more up-to-date figure for the number of educators that have attended intensive regional school team-training sessions as part of promoting the effective behaviour support program. The information in this submission, which was very recently received, has not been incorporated into the draft report. I would propose adding a comment in the conclusion of the report, such as: "The committee was pleased to receive an initial progress report and workplan from the ministry in February 2001 identifying actions undertaken or planned to address the recommendations."
Finally, the last paragraph of the conclusion, on page 8, notes that the auditor general plans to complete a follow-up review of the status of recommendations in the summer and fall of 2001. And no recommendations have been included as yet in this draft.
R. Thorpe (Chair): Thank you. Does anyone have any questions of Richard? Seeing none
A. van Iersel: No, I'm comfortable with the report. It was shared with the ministry, and I would support the recommendation that the latest report of the ministry be somehow reflected in this document, such that they can get credit for what they have done.
W. Strelioff: We've looked at the report and have been consulted in preparing it, and we're okay with the contents as well.
R. Thorpe (Chair): Okay. Committee members, with respect to recommendations, what recommendations would the committee like to have attached to this report? Would you like to endorse the 19 recommendations of the auditor general's report?
G. Farrell-Collins: So moved.
Motion approved unanimously.
R. Thorpe (Chair): I guess we need a motion here to accept the report as amended.
G. Farrell-Collins: So moved.
Motion approved unanimously.
R. Thorpe (Chair): The next report we're going to cover is "Protecting Drinking-Water Sources: A Follow-up Report." I guess this is another one of those reports where we're just a little bit out of sync, having a follow-up yesterday. Perhaps, Richard, you could walk us through this one.
[1115]
R. Morrow: Sure. I'll just start by acknowledging that Kelly Dunsdon completed most of the drafting of this report. So thanks to Kelly, one last time.
This draft report reflects the work of the committee in early November, when the committee met to review the auditor general's October follow-up review regarding the implementation of recommendations contained in his March 1999 report on protecting drinking water sources and the two recommendations contained in the committee's April 2000 report on the same topic. At that time, the committee heard from the auditor general's staff, witnesses representing the interagency directors' committee on drinking water, the deputy provincial health officer and a representative of the North Okanagan water authority.
The introduction on page 1 of the report makes note of previous work done by the auditor general's office and the committee, as well as the number of recommendations found by auditor general staff to be implemented, partially implemented or addressed by alternative action. Throughout the draft report, previous recommendations are presented with information from the October follow-up review by the auditor general and information provided at the committee's November 7 meeting by representatives of the directors' committee on drinking water, with respect to actions completed or in progress, in response to the recommendations.
Additionally, as described on pages 2 and 3, in a section entitled "Accountability for the Protection of British Columbia's Drinking-Water Quality," the deputy provincial health officer provided the committee with information related to the management of drinking water source protection, water treatment and water-borne disease. As members know, the provincial health officer is currently in the process of drafting a special report on the quality of B.C.'s drinking water, expected to be available for circulation and comment in late February.
On page 9 of the draft report there's a section entitled "A Water Purveyor's Perspective," and this reflects the testimony of a representative of the North Okanagan water authority. I will also note that a letter from the chair of the North Okanagan water authority to the Premier was cc'd to the
[ Page 1729 ]
committee, and this has been distributed to members. The letter encourages the Premier to take action to ensure implementation of the auditor general's recommendations.
Various responses to committee requests for information have been received since the committee's consideration of the auditor general's follow-up report, and this information has been included in the draft report as appropriate.
I'll just draw the committee's attention to two instances that I have yet to mention. First, as noted at the top of page 6, in November the committee discussed the impact of disposable diapers on drinking water sources. In December the Ministry of Environment advised that while the ministry has adopted a cradle-to-grave industry stewardship approach for some products such as pesticides and beverage containers, there is no similar initiative for disposable diapers. However, to discourage their use, in 1990 the province did remove disposable diapers from the social service tax exemption for children's clothing.
Second, turning to page 8, under "Small Water Systems" bullet 2 makes reference to the course being developed for small waterworks operators by the B.C. Water and Waste Association with financial assistance from the Ministry of Health. As the committee heard again at yesterday's meeting, the course is to be piloted on March 1 and 2 in the lower mainland and on March 13 and 14 in the Creston area.
Ministry of Environment staff have reviewed this draft of the report through the comptroller general, and they advised of a few minor errors. These have been corrected.
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Lastly, I'll just make a few comments about the conclusion of the report on page 10. The conclusion outlines some significant events that have occurred since the committee's consideration of the auditor general follow-up report in November. A report released in mid-January by the Sierra Legal Defence Fund, which awarded grades to provinces based on various criteria around drinking water protection, is given mention here in paragraph 3. This was a relatively high-profile report, responded to in the media by the Minister of Environment and the Premier, so it was included in the mini-chronology bringing the report up to date. I realize the information has not been discussed by the committee and that that's a bit of a grey area, so I bring that to the committee's attention.
D. Miller (Deputy Chair): Is there a copy of this in here?
R. Morrow: Yeah, right there.
R. Thorpe (Chair): Richard, can you just go over that again, please?
R. Morrow: Okay, the last point. I think it's in the second paragraph, in the conclusion. It just makes note that a report was released in mid-January by the Sierra Legal Defence Fund. That report awarded grades to provinces, based on various criteria around drinking water protection. Given the fact that that was a relatively high-profile report in the media it was included here, but members may want to consider whether they would like that included.
The next paragraph contains some basic information about the government's discussion paper on drinking water protection and the recent public information sessions on this issue. The Chair suggested inserting a reference to the testimony received at yesterday's meeting on the drinking water protection plan. I would therefore propose adding a sentence at this point which says: "Committee members were pleased to receive a progress report at the committee's meeting on February 20, 2001, from representatives of the Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks and the Ministry of Health regarding government efforts to develop a provincial drinking water protection plan." That would be inserted just before the final paragraph.
The last sentence of the conclusion just notes that the committee plans to conduct ongoing follow-up reviews of the implementation status of recommendations and looks forward to another progress report from the directors' committee on drinking water in about six months' time.
The draft recommendation included below reflects a motion that was adopted by the committee at the November 7 meeting.
R. Thorpe (Chair): Does anyone have any questions of Richard? Arn, do you have any comments?
A. van Iersel: No. With the changes from the ministry and an acknowledgment of yesterday, I think it's fine.
R. Thorpe (Chair): Auditor general's department.
W. Strelioff: We're okay with the draft as well.
R. Thorpe (Chair): Anyone else want to make any comments?
D. Miller (Deputy Chair): I generally, through years of experience, ignore most of what I read from the Sierra Legal Defence Fund. That's just a personal opinion. I just wonder what value there is in having this reference.
R. Thorpe (Chair): Anyone else?
G. Farrell-Collins: I just think that whether or not we agree with the value of the report or who's there, given that it wasn't part of the discussion of the committee -- other than right now -- it probably doesn't need to be in the report. I don't feel strongly either way, but I think Dan makes a point.
R. Thorpe (Chair): Do you want to make a motion on that, Dan?
D. Miller (Deputy Chair): Well, I haven't talked to my colleagues. I suppose I'm relatively indifferent, but
R. Kasper: My comment on the report deals with the discussion we had yesterday around my view that based on evidence that we heard yesterday on the role of the Ministry of Health, where practicable, the Ministry of Health should be the lead agency. I make that recommendation -- you know, to be included in the report -- on the basis that the original report from the auditor general's office is dealing with the whole question of safe drinking water. And the reason I'm advocating the committee to support that position is that we're talking from source to tap.
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I don't think that it's important to delve into the other aspects of source, where you have other land use or management issues that Ministry of Environment is deeply involved with. For example, Ministry of Environment, before they issue water licences to purveyors, want to make sure that there are adequate flows of water, that the volumes of water on a per-acre-foot drawn is not going to have an impact on the overall environment of that body of water and its surrounds. I really would urge the committee to consider that, where practicable, the Ministry of Health be the lead agency.
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R. Thorpe (Chair): So would you like to make a motion on that, Rick?
R. Kasper: That is my motion -- to be included in the report.
R. Thorpe (Chair): All those in favour of that motion.
D. Miller (Deputy Chair): No, I don't think it's practical. I attempted to explore that a little bit in discussion yesterday between the representatives of the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Environment.
If you look at the separation of function between the two ministries -- and other ministries and agencies, as well -- and if you look at the issues that exist in various parts of the province, I think it's fair to say that in most instances drinking water for most British Columbians is safe and there are good systems in place, albeit not without ongoing issues, whether that be the volume of water available or those kinds of things. And there are some issues that arise in some parts of the province where we see
Mr. Stamhuis was speaking particularly of the clash between various historic users of land and the impact
Now, there have been historic debates in British Columbia about government structures around various issues. A lot of those debates actually continue, although they're not always that public. For example, there have been -- in my time, at least, and probably prior to that -- discussions as to whether or not, let's say, in the resource field there ought to be a ministry of natural resources as opposed to separate ministries of forests, lands, energy and mines -- those kinds of questions.
I don't mind; those debates are useful. But this issue has not been given, I don't think, that kind of discussion over a fairly long period of time. I think we'd end up, Rick
S. Orcherton: I'll make a couple of comments. The first one is that I think that for the public, the matters surrounding the quality of water are notionally ones of health. People feel that if there's a problem with the water, it's going to have a direct impact on their own health circumstances -- individuals and their families. I think the member's motion has good intentions behind it. But I think the larger argument is around "where practicable." I just want to express some concern about that.
I think we need a number of organizations inside of government ensuring that the public trust around water quality is held in a responsible way. It's not just a matter of the Ministry of Health. There's Environment; there's Mines; there's Forests; there's a whole variety of agencies. Municipal governments are involved in these kinds of issues. There's rural development. There are all kinds of different factors that come into ensuring water quality. I am one that supports the responsibilities, at the end of the day, being held by government -- not pushed away from government in any sense but being held by a government in the public trust.
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I'm not sure that having one lead agency -- as the member suggested being Ministry of Health -- at any point would become practicable. I think it would be a better system to have a number of agencies involved with some kind of central reporting mechanism. Otherwise, we have one agency, and if there is a problem, maybe there's a propensity in that agency to cover their own issues and own circumstances.
So notionally I think you've hit on something. It's an important issue, and it's one that affects people's health. I'm uncomfortable with letting it go forward without making those kinds of arguments. I don't think, at the end of the day, that the Ministry of Health will be practicable, from a variety of perspectives.
I wanted to make that comment because I don't want to just let go and say: "Well, the Ministry of Health can manage all the water resources in the province, and it's the appropriate lead agency in government to do that." I think it's a critical agency. It's one that needs to be part of the decision-making. But in terms of lead agency, I'm not sure that it's going to be able to meet the public expectations at the end of the day, because the arguments around practicable flow from a variety of different perspectives. It's a very complex issue.
So I wanted to make those comments. I don't disagree with what the member's notion is around health and in trying to ensure health in terms of water quality. But I don't see his suggestion as being one that would be practicable at the end of the day.
G. Farrell-Collins: I think Dan and Steve make some valid points. I think, though, that the recommendations the auditor general's office came to us with were not without merit as well. Clearly there is going to be a whole range of agencies that are involved in determining or being a factor in the water that comes out the end of the tap. There's no doubt about that, and it will always be that way.
I didn't understand the auditor general's recommendation to mean that Health should be the only agency that's
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accountable and responsible for this. I do think the point the auditor general was trying to make was that at the of the day, when all those agencies are sitting around in a room talking about this, there needs to be somebody who feels empowered somewhat to speak very vocally in favour of safe drinking water. They need to be the lead agency. Somebody has to ensure that the commitments that are entered into by the other agencies of government are followed up on. Somebody needs to be the one chairing that meeting or overseeing it, doing the checking to make sure that things are moving along.
We've all seen this happen in other organizations we've been involved in. If nobody's leading, then nobody gets anywhere. It doesn't mean that the Ministry of Health is going to come in and dictate land use policies or that they're going to dictate mining policy or that they would dictate forestry or ranching policy -- I mean, any of that sort of stuff. But what it does say is that at the end of the day, there's somebody around that table who's been empowered by the Legislature to say: "Hey, guys, we're not getting where we need to go. People aren't engaging in the commitments that they've made, and somebody here needs to step up to the plate and say: 'I have a responsibility to move this thing along.' "
I think that the recommendation Rick makes gives enough leeway to make it clear there are going to be cases
I do think it's important to send a message, as the auditor general has done, that somebody at the end of the day in that room is leading it and is trying to make sure everybody gets to a goal. I think that's a very reasoned recommendation. I think it's something that we can support without the threat of the scenarios that Steve and Dan have put forward.
M. Coell: Through this process I've spoken a number of times in favour of a lead agency of some sort, along the lines of the recommendation made by the auditor general. That obviously isn't going to be one of our recommendations. I'm comfortable with a partial victory, I would think, in the motion that's before us. I really think that if we don't put some sort of recommendation that continues on the road to a lead agency, then progress may stop. The government may say: "Okay, we've got the status quo where a number of ministries have some responsibility." But I think you need a champion. You need a lead agency.
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This, as I say, I view as sort of a partial victory. If it's a recommendation to government, government may discard it, but it's something that I don't think we can discard as a committee as being front and centre through a lot of our discussions.
E. Walsh: I think I'm a little bit confused right now as far as the discussion of whether it should be a lead agency or whether you're talking about an individual. Gary had mentioned that it may possibly be a person acting as a chair or as somebody there that is able to ensure that whatever steps need to be taken are being met. There's a difference between whether you're having a chair from wherever and a ministry that's in place.
I do have a concern when we are talking about a lead agency taking the lead in any of these initiatives. Each one of them does have its own mandate. Some of them are much different -- well, they're all different from one or the other -- as Health does from Forestry or Forestry does from Mining.
My concern here would be that should there eventually be a problem, whoever people think should be the accountable agency
So I am concerned that when you do that, you are putting people into -- especially if it is a ministry -- like I say, a CYA position.
R. Thorpe (Chair): Steve, did you have your hand back up?
S. Orcherton: Just a quick point. I don't want to belabour this for too long; however, water quality is an important question. It's an important question for government to wrestle with on how to manage that from the various and diverse perspectives that can occur around water quality. I wanted to just clarify that I was expressing a concern of looking at having a lead agency -- in this instance, the Ministry of Health -- being somehow the salvation in terms of government responsibility on water quality. I don't think that's going to be the case. It's a very complicated issue.
I think at some point -- and I think this is really what the member is talking about -- there has to be a minister of the Crown, of the government in British Columbia, that has overall coordination and responsibility around the question of water quality. We've had discussions around the provincial emergency program, for instance, and where best the authority would lie in terms of provincial emergency preparedness. This is not a different kind of a question.
If that's where the member is, I'm happy with moving along and dealing with some other items on the agenda. I'd like to hear if that's what his sense is -- just making sure there's someone in government at the end of the day that can provide the coordinating aspect -- not necessarily what my definition would be around lead agency but somebody that could take overall responsibility for coordinating what is a very complex and complicated issue.
R. Kasper: To give members comfort, I did not make the motion or the recommendation to infringe upon the role that the Ministry of Environment or any other ministry plays based on the legislation they have empowered within their ministries to deal with water quality issues. Statutory obligations those ministries have would also come into play. The purpose is that when there is a problem, all too often it is the Ministry of Health that is called upon to be the lead agency to determine the extent of the problem, to make orders to correct the problem and to ensure that the purveyors of water -- be they a small private utility or a public utility -- are following the recommendations of the Ministry of Health or their designate, the chief medical health officer.
I just want to read something here. It's on page 2 of the report. It says: "The directors' committee on drinking water
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advised that a single agency addressing all aspects of drinking water, including source water protection, regulation of water systems and public health protection, is not considered practical." But when there are problems identified in each of those categories, it is the Ministry of Health or their designate who actually has the clout to step in correct the problem.
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I'll give you one example, and it'll be my closing remark. We all heard of issues relating to geese in the body of water that is the supply to the capital region area. The Ministry of Environment deferred a decision to the chief medical health officer to go out and either remove or kill the geese in the body of water where people draw upon the water, even though the geese fall under the mandate of Fish and Wildlife of the Ministry of Environment. So just in that instance alone, the Ministry of Environment deferred any decision-making powers they have to the chief designate for the capital region, the chief medical health officer, to determine that in order to protect drinking water quality, the water district had the power to go out and shoot those geese. You know, that's where cooperation is, but it took a lead agency. In that case it was the chief medical health officer, who is designated by the Minister of Health.
So that is the purpose of the exercise, and I think it's important to reflect that in this report. They all talk about; let's stop skirting around the issue. And let's be very clear that when there are problems, we have one person in charge, whoever it may be, and that they're the one making the decisions to ensure what the auditor general had outlined in his report some two years ago.
I don't have any more to say.
D. Miller (Deputy Chair): You know, if the committee favours doing this, fair enough. I don't feel that strongly, I suppose, to continue to argue vigorously. But I do note that in addition to the comments I've previously made and the testimony to the committee from both the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Environment, who prefer the approach that's being taken now
It's interesting to note that most issues in the province really do have an overlap between ministries. It's interesting to note that the Education report, for example, draws the very obvious conclusion that in regions of the province -- and quite frankly, it singles out areas with large aboriginal populations, where social issues exist -- the children in the schools suffer more greatly from some kinds of activities -- for example, aggressive behaviour. And there are reasons behind it. We all know that. The Ministry of Education can't deal fundamentally with those reasons behind it. There's always an overlap to almost any issue ever dealt with in government. And often it's not just one ministry; it's two or three.
We have to accept the fact that the ability to collaborate and work in an integrated way between various ministries of government is key to having an efficient administration. I think this is one of those areas. I think it would be misleading to do the lead agency, because I think lots of people will draw inferences and conclusions, and no doubt that will increase
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So from a structural point of view, I think it's a mistake to go down this road. Not that any of the recommendations
Having said that, Mr. Chairman, if the majority of the committee feels passionate about this, then they're welcome to it.
V. Roddick: The word "passion
R. Thorpe (Chair): Is that it, Val?
V. Roddick: That's it. That's my passion for today.
S. Orcherton: We're discussing; we're not arguing.
R. Thorpe (Chair): Do you want to speak again, Dan?
D. Miller (Deputy Chair): Just a brief rebuttal. With all due respect, Mr. Chairman, we're simply having a discussion about what the best structure is to deal with what is a very important issue in the province. It's not being bureaucratic. And that people hold different points of view on the issue means nothing.
V. Roddick: That's what I'm saying. I'm using this as an example.
D. Miller (Deputy Chair): Fine. You're arguing for the Ministry of Health. But don't characterize the committee's deliberations as somehow being a problem.
M. Coell: Mr. Chairman, maybe the motion could be read out so we could all hear it again.
R. Thorpe (Chair): Rick, could you read your motion out again, please?
R. Kasper: Did the Clerk write it down for your benefit?
G. Farrell-Collins: We know the gist of the motion.
R. Kasper: Well, I said that where practicable, the Ministry of Health should be the lead agency in dealing with
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R. Thorpe (Chair): Thank you, Rick. All those in favour? Anyone opposed?
D. Miller (Deputy Chair): Yeah, I'll oppose it.
R. Thorpe (Chair): Dan, you're opposed? Okay.
D. Miller (Deputy Chair): Just to be consistent. [Laughter.]
R. Thorpe (Chair): Consistency is important, Dan.
Motion approved.
R. Thorpe (Chair): One other thing
S. Orcherton: But you're going to anyway. Is that what you're saying?
R. Thorpe (Chair): No, I just want to throw something out for some consultation.
D. Miller (Deputy Chair): You tried that yesterday.
R. Thorpe (Chair): Thank you, Dan. Having heard the discussion, and taking into account people's comments about follow-up and follow-up and follow-up, I believe this to be an issue where follow-up by the ministries involved and the auditor general's office on a very timely basis would be extremely important, and we would be serving the public. So if anyone would think it would be possible to put a motion forward that the ministries responsible for the government's 28-point workplan report every six months and that the auditor general's office aggressively monitor the work on these plans and report to Public Accounts
M. Coell: So moved.
Motion approved.
R. Thorpe (Chair): Adoption of the report as amended.
G. Farrell-Collins: There was the issue of whether or not we were going to comment upon the one environmental report that we hadn't had the discussion on.
R. Thorpe (Chair): Oh, yes. Excuse me.
G. Farrell-Collins: I didn't sense big opposition, but I don't know that we need to comment on a report that we haven't discussed as a committee. I mean, we haven't gone through it. We haven't looked at it any detail, and I don't think we need to have it in there.
R. Thorpe (Chair): Yeah, I think the
G. Farrell-Collins: I don't think we need a motion to that. We just take it out of the report.
R. Thorpe (Chair): No, we don't. The researcher had put it in. Is everybody in agreement with that, then?
Okay, Richard -- you've taken note of that.
Can I have motion, then, to adopt the report as amended?
R. Kasper: So moved.
Motion approved.
R. Thorpe (Chair): Next item on the agenda is the auditor general's report, "Strategic Direction and Funding Proposal," from February 2001.
D. Miller (Deputy Chair): Do you want to run through lunch?
R. Thorpe (Chair): Yes, we're not having
D. Miller (Deputy Chair): Oh, that's right. You've got meetings.
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R. Thorpe (Chair): Wayne, over to you.
Wayne, one of the questions that I've been asked by a variety of members of the committee -- and maybe you could open with this -- is: what is the purpose of this report? Maybe that's what you're going lead us through here.
W. Strelioff: Turning to page 1, the purpose of the report is to set out to you and all legislators my strategic direction for the office of the auditor general, including key priorities. Also, I'm requesting increased funding for our work, and I ask all members of the assembly to support my priorities and request.
In this report I go over what I think are the growing and changing public expectations that all legislators face that have increased emphasis on accountability and transparency and how government conducts business. Certainly we all know public expectations are high, that government management and accountability systems will strengthen and that our system of government will provide a more meaningful opportunity for legislators and B.C. citizens to participate in government decision-making.
From what I've seen, you have shown that you're aware of the increased demands placed on you by citizens and have indicated a desire and need to make changes. Enacting the Budget Transparency and Accountability Act, I think, is one important step that you've taken to address demands and to address responsibilities. Of course, as an experienced auditor general I know that much work is required by many to deliver on the promises set out in that act and to ensure expectations can turn into reality. This morning we heard from the deputy minister of Finance, who certainly confirmed that much work needs to be done. And, of course, I'm also recognizing in this report that my office, also, must rise to the challenge and that from my perspective, you need even more of the independent information assurances and advice my office provides to you on the performance of government.
I provide in this report a review of steps that I've taken since I started on May 2 to realize my priorities and to make sure that we continue the solid and important work already undertaken by my office. One of the steps that I've mentioned
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in previous meetings with you is that I have reorganized my office to focus more directly on key sectors of government. In the past we've organized according to the type of audit that we do. Now we're moving to organizing by the key sectors. We have five sectors within the group, within the office: health, education, protection of persons, natural resources and finance. We are now developing our more specific work programs for the next three years based on this specific sector focus. I certainly look forward to the opportunity in the future to provide you with reports on our sector work. I know that such reports will be particularly useful when or if you move to a more sectoral standing committee approach.
We've also initiated work on our first report on a new initiative, the role and mandate of a commissioner for environment and sustainability. This report should be ready this April.
We've also discussed with you, and I've confirmed my support for, a renewed mandate for my office through revisions to the Auditor General Act. In November we met with you to discuss those changes, and you advised me to continue discussions with elected and appointed officials on keeping this initiative on the table. We've been doing that. So far my discussions continue to reinforce my view that there is a need for renewal of the act and to strengthen the link between my office and the Legislative Assembly. This report is one way that I am moving forward on that initiative in terms of strengthening the link between my office and the assembly.
Also, over the past few months we've renewed our overall strategic thinking within the office. There's a brief summary of it in the appendix, where we set out our strategic direction in terms of our goals, objectives and key strategies, as well as mission vision risks, values and the performance indicators that we're using.
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So we have taken some steps during the first
The four priorities that I've identified for the next three years and how we're reshaping our work
There is also much ongoing and important work on the reliability of financial statements and on many other issues that relate to well-managed public money across government that we are making sure gets done. On page 5, I go into more detail in terms of what I mean by focusing on a complete financial plan and report by government. I think it's a very important step to have a complete financial plan, and as the Deputy Minister of Finance said today, that overall strategic plan really is a key for setting the direction for the more specific business plans of government. The whole-of-government approach is a significant step forward that was envisioned in the Budget Transparency and Accountability Act, and it is certainly an important step forward for the future. We're going to monitor that practice and report back to you on whether that's actually happening.
I've also asked my staff to explore two initiatives with government officials. One is the idea of whether ministries or sectors should prepare their own financial statements. The trend across Canada is to make that happen. What it does is make sure that the ministries or sectors are more responsible and accountable for what they manage. It's a very important step. One of the key steps is to demonstrate that accountability by preparing and publishing financial statements.
The second initiative that I've asked my staff to explore with government officials is to provide assurances on the quarterly reports provided to you -- another important step. We're having discussions on that with government officials, and in my view, the ministry statements and assurances on quarterly reports will lead to stronger financial management and accountability practices.
The second is on page 6. I go over the initiatives within the health and education sectors. As you know, a substantial portion of the public money entrusted to government goes to health and education. At the same time, there is continuing concern as to whether those resources are used in the best manner possible. The demand for better performance information and audit assurances has become a national issue. So the second priority relates to the health and education programs and services. During the next three years we're going to focus, for both health and education, on making sure that financial statements accurately depict revenues and expenses in an understandable manner. I know that in the school board sector that's a key issue and requires a lot of change. We will also be focusing on the basic financial management and control practices and on whether the governing bodies -- ministries and legislators -- receive meaningful performance information within those sectors.
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Then I go to set out some more specific issues that we're looking at or are planning to look at within the health sector and within the education sector. I also point out that this second priority involves examining what's going on in the sectors themselves -- so actually moving into the health authorities and councils and societies and carrying out examinations within those important parts of the public sector as well as within the education sector. From what I've seen, legislators face particularly difficult governance challenges in assessing the performance of government when programs and services are delivered through such institutions. So we're going to try to do what we can to bring you better performance information and audit assurances from these institutions.
The third priority over the next three years relates to the accountability and risk management practices for large capital
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projects and complex information systems. On pages 7 and 8, I explain that priority. One of the key challenges will be to try to take a more proactive approach in terms of our responsibilities, to try to be there when the control framework is being established for large infrastructure projects and information systems projects. That's going to be a difficult challenge but I think very useful for legislators.
The fourth priority relates to supporting the initiative of moving to a results-focused reporting by government. In there I set out four steps that we're going to take over the next three years and begin to provide assurances and information about best practices as they pertain to performance plans and reports. Page 9 reviews our initial work on the commissioner for environment and sustainability. The initial impression that I have is that this initiative is welcomed and is supported, and I particularly look forward to when legislation pertaining to this initiative is brought forward.
On pages 9, 10 and 11, I recognize that my request for additional funding isn't something new; my predecessor has been advising legislators that my office requires increased funding. He has stated that legislators are at significant risk because they are not being provided with the information assurances required to discharge their government's responsibilities. In previous reports by my predecessor he's spelled that out in some detail. I share his concerns. There are more government organizations delivering a wider array of programs and services costing increasingly more public money. In addition, there's more government debt, which increases the pressure on revenue raising and spending decisions.
Significant changes have taken place within our system of government. Complexity is increased. New ways of delivering programs and services are used, and the pressure on government finances has intensified. These trends have increased public demands on legislators. Enacting the Budget Transparency and Accountability Act has been one step legislators have taken to move forward on the increased expectations and demands. Also, my office is one key mechanism legislators have put in place to help you carry out your government's responsibilities. So in reshaping the priorities of my office to help better assist you, I do recognize that increased funding support will be required in each of the next three years, and on pages 10 and 11, I set that out.
So in summary, I use this report to set out my strategic direction for my office. As the new auditor general, I think it's important that you hear from me on my direction, including the priorities -- that you know that I'm asking for increased funding and that I ask you for your support. I know that you face growing and changing public expectations for increased emphasis on accountability and transparency. The public expectations are high that government management practices will strengthen and that our system of government will provide a more meaningful opportunity for legislators and citizens to participate in government decision-making. You have shown leadership in terms of enacting the Budget Transparency and Accountability Act as an important step. Now I ask you to support my office so that we can also rise to the challenge, and I ask you to support my plan to reshape the priorities of my office.
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G. Farrell-Collins: For some time I and others of my colleagues, as well, have felt that it's important for officers of the Legislature to have somewhere to go, some people to talk to. They report to the Legislature nominally, but there's no opportunity for you and other officers of the Legislature to come before the Legislature to talk about their budget and talk about their business plans, etc. I think you've used an interesting way of doing that, because statutorily we have to consider your reports. If you put it in a report, then we deal with it. It's creative. I'm glad it's here, and it's interesting to read. And I think it's probably the first time, at least to my knowledge, that an officer of the Legislature has had this opportunity to come before a committee of the Legislature, where there is some relationship, and sort of talk about where they'd like to go with their role and, obviously, the financial demands that result from that.
There is a lot of, I guess, grey area around what our role is as the committee. We're certainly appointed by the Legislature. We represent them in dealing with the public accounts and the way the statute works. As well, as I said earlier, statutorily we deal with your reports. So we sort of have to deal with this report. I'm not sure, though, whether or not we can really make firm recommendations, particularly on the financial side. As much as I would like to, I'm not sure, without a little more clear mandate from the Legislature, whether or not we can dive in and make those kinds of fiscal recommendations. Maybe we can; I don't know. I'd like to hear what other members of the committee have to say. But that may be a little beyond what we're able to do.
I was intrigued by your desire on point No. 2 on page 6, to get into health care and education sectors, because I really don't think that there's been a lot of what I would call auditor general-type auditing of those provisions -- if any at all, really. There's been a little -- certain projects. We talked about safe learning environment, those sorts of things. I think that for a long time health care has sort of been the sacred cow of governments right across Canada. And everybody's been afraid to go into them and try and find ways to do what we do there better or more efficiently or ask if we are doing it the best way and pursue best practices. I think the people working in the fields have certainly tried to do that, but I don't believe there's been a real overriding attempt by government and legislators to get into the Ministry of Health and the hospitals and find out if there are things that we can do better and that will deliver better service to the public at perhaps less cost, or whether we can reallocate resources within the health care budget to get better patient care -- all of those sorts of things. And I would be really encouraged to see how that project goes over the next number of years, because I think it is a long-term project. I'm encouraged to see that you're interested in doing that.
I wanted to ask you if you
W. Strelioff: Members, yes I did. It's just an interesting story, how our work involved there
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That affects my thinking here -- that legislators are really interested in assurances on the management and accountability practices of those agencies that are delivering services. And that's where the money is. I mean, that's where the public money goes: to the many agencies within the health and education sectors. So within Saskatchewan we were there in a very direct way.
G. Farrell-Collins: How much auditing is done in the health care sector right now? I know there are financial audits, but how much value and performance auditing is done in health care in British Columbia right now? Are you aware if much, or any, is done?
W. Strelioff: There are audits of financial statements being done at the
[1210]
G. Farrell-Collins: How much are the
W. Strelioff: Not much is being done in the health sector.
G. Farrell-Collins: Okay. I was just curious. I think it's a rich ore body, where we can get in and find that there may well be best practices that are being engaged in one hospital or one program that could be imitated elsewhere. I just think there's probably some real capacity there to find efficiencies and deliver better patient care. So I'm encouraged by that. I think that's a really interesting proposal, and I hope it moves forward.
I wanted to go then, if I can, to point 3. You talk about management of government accountability and risk for large capital projects, and I'm wondering what sort of a role your office has now. We're aware of the fast ferry audit which was completed -- it was a special project that was done -- and the report that came out of that. Is there much being done overall on capital projects by the auditor general, that you're aware of?
W. Strelioff: That I'm aware of? Hopefully I'm aware of what our office is doing.
The thrust of No. 3 is to try to get to the development stage, where the project management approach is being put in place for a large capital structure or a complex information system. I mean, there are good project management principles and governance practices that apply to such projects. The thrust of this is to try to get there early, and that's going to be difficult. In terms of the work that's being carried out by our office, currently and in the past, we've tended to come in after the fact. Right now we're monitoring a few capital projects that are pretty significant ones.
G. Farrell-Collins: Mr. Chairman, we're fine if the auditor general wants to bring some of his staff up. It's his call, but I'm glad to have them up.
R. Thorpe (Chair): Yeah, if you'd like to bring some staff up beside you so they can actually
W. Strelioff: Peter, can you come up and see me, please -- or be with me? We're looking at
P. Gregory: I believe we're doing this at the Keenleyside Dam project. We're doing work on that at the moment. We're keeping a watching brief but not actually undertaking a project on SkyTrain, which we've been doing for some period of time. And we're doing IT projects sort of cross-government, with focus on one ministry in particular. Those are the main thrusts at the moment.
G. Farrell-Collins: When you say a watching brief, what does that entail? Just watching?
P. Gregory: To a certain extent we have been keeping up to date on what's reported in the media, but we're not media-driven. We also have talked to people at Treasury Board. We meet regularly with the people over at SkyTrain about the project and how it's going and the information that is coming from that project. I think, most recently, we were over there last week, or this week.
G. Farrell-Collins: I'd love to pick your brain on what you're finding out, but I won't do that here.
R. Thorpe (Chair): That's correct.
G. Farrell-Collins: I do want to ask a little bit about the commissioner for environment and sustainability. It's interesting, and I'm intrigued by the structure of it. I'm interested to hear your response as to how you think it's going to work. Certainly the ministry has done audits in the environmental sector. The drinking water one is a good example: it's Health; it's Environment; it's lots of things.
How differently do you think this will work if there's a new commissioner there within your office? Will it have more priority? Will there be a larger allocation of your budget going to environmental reviews? Will staff within your office be seconded to this commissioner? Have you thought much about how it might work?
W. Strelioff: Yes, we have. When this was discussed about a year ago, my predecessor wrote a number of people, a number of elected officials, saying that if you're serious about establishing a commissioner for the environment, why not consider the federal approach, which was to house the commissioner within the office of the auditor general. And as discussions have taken place, we've used the model of the federal office of the auditor general as one that is shaping our thinking.
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In fact, yesterday I was talking to the auditor general on this issue, and what's contemplated is that the commissioner would have a direct reporting responsibility to the Legislative Assembly. The commissioner would issue reports on his or her own merit and would be
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the commissioner plus six people. We advocated that if you're going to establish a commissioner, it makes sense to have it in our office because of our track record. We have had experience in carrying out environmental types of audits. We have the audit discipline and the independence necessary to bring to life credible reports on performance, and we are a cost-effective alternative.
We are now
One of the features of the initiatives that is unique is that the proposals that I understand are going to come to you as legislative proposals and that are set out in a memorandum of understanding that I agreed to about a couple weeks ago
G. Farrell-Collins: I've got a couple of questions. I hope they won't be too long. I'll try and keep the questions short.
You said you wrote some time ago to a number of elected officials. Was that cabinet ministers, or was that members of the Legislature or
W. Strelioff: It was a broader range of individuals that the then auditor general thought would have an interest. I think it was both government members and opposition members. Certainly the leaders of both the government and the opposition received the correspondence, and I think a couple of the independent members did as well.
G. Farrell-Collins: I'll look at it.
Why not a health auditor or a health commissioner or an education commissioner? Why an environmental commissioner? Or if an environmental commissioner, why not a health commissioner or an education commissioner?
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W. Strelioff: The initiative to create a commissioner for the environment and sustainability
G. Farrell-Collins: Great. What would stop a government or a legislature from coming to the auditor general and saying: "We think that the environment is an area that requires some attention. We, as legislators, think that we would like to see more environmental-type audits. Here is more money. We would encourage you, as an independent officer but one who does report to the Legislature, to try and accomplish that"?
W. Strelioff: That model would work as well.
G. Farrell-Collins: Okay. You've said that there was a memorandum of understanding that you entered into. Who was that with?
W. Strelioff: The memorandum of understanding was signed by me and the Premier. If there was an order-in-council which was made sometime in January, where attached to the order-in-council there's this memorandum of understanding saying: "Auditor general, we're going to provide you with additional funding. What we would like you to do is establish a commissioner for the environment and sustainability and take on the following responsibilities
G. Farrell-Collins: I'll go back and look at the act. I wonder if that was what was envisioned, rather than in a sort of special audit or a special project as opposed to a special structure. I'll go back and look at that.
Now, you report to the Legislature. Was there any consultation with other members of the Legislature around that memorandum of understanding, or was that just something that you and the Premier agreed to?
W. Strelioff: The discussions on that were taking place between government officials and my office for about four months. It wasn't until January that we knew, or we found out, that they were actually going to ask us to do this. All along in the discussions an important part of the memorandum, as well as discussions, was that it would be accompanied by legislative proposals -- that legislation would go to the House. That's built into the memorandum of understanding, so the role, mandate and future direction of our office would be debated by legislators. So that's part of the memorandum, and that was an important part all the way along in our discussions with the government on if they want to create a commissioner for environment and sustainability -- how it could be brought to life within our office
G. Farrell-Collins: How much time elapsed between when you found out that the Premier was going to create this environmental commissioner and the memorandum of understanding was signed? You said that you heard in January. And it was signed in January, was it?
W. Strelioff: The question being that how long was it from when I found out that it was actually going to happen to when it actually happened was within a week
G. Farrell-Collins: In that period of time was there any consultation with members of the Legislature other than the Premier -- discussion, information, sort of: hey, this is coming down the pipe at you; what do you think?
W. Strelioff: Let's see. The day it was announced I did contact the Environment critic to say, "Heads up. Here's something that's happening," and to get a reading of
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G. Farrell-Collins: The day it was signed, did you say? I'm sorry; I didn't hear that.
W. Strelioff: Yes. The day it was signed and announced, I think. That's the same day it happened.
G. Farrell-Collins: You also mentioned that there were ads in the paper to hire this commissioner. Who's hiring the commissioner?
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W. Strelioff: I am. The selection process that I agreed to is that there would be a selection committee created, and the selection committee would include an MLA from the government side and an MLA from the opposition, as well as a number of representatives from industry, business, environmental groups and others. In the last week or two we wrote each caucus chair to ask for a nominee and are beginning to ask for other nominees for the selection committee. Once the selection committee is created, their responsibility would be to nominate three or four people that would be brought to me to consider as commissioner for environment and sustainability.
G. Farrell-Collins: How do you foresee this person being appointed before the legislation is passed?
W. Strelioff: So if the legislation is not passed
G. Farrell-Collins: No, my question was: how do you see the person being appointed before the legislation is passed?
W. Strelioff: In general, I could appoint someone even within my office to take on this role or also take the advice of a selection committee that recommends people. The legislation is important to establish support and a clear mandate for a commissioner, but even without the legislation the Auditor General Act does provide the capacity to appoint a person or assign responsibilities of a similar nature within my office.
G. Farrell-Collins: Sure, of course you do. But if the position is going to be restructured, then clearly that would require the legislation which you talked about. I'm wondering if perhaps you're not getting the cart ahead of the horse, but that's your prerogative. That was my point earlier on: there's nothing stopping the auditor general from hiring somebody to do special audits or take on a project within your office. You could find them from without the office. You could take it on yourself. All of those are possibilities. I guess if we're going to bring in new legislation surrounding it, I'm curious how you do the hire before you do the legislation. I know that if I were applying for the job, I'd be curious to know what my job was. But I'll leave that to you.
There has been a practice in the Legislature over a long period of time that if somebody reports to the Legislature directly, which this commissioner will, that person is hired by the Legislature. That's what happened in your case; that's what happened with the conflict-of-interest commissioner; that's what happened with the children's commissioner; that's what happens with all the people who report direct directly to the Legislature. On an accountability structure, which is something that I know your office has played a big role in over the years, how do you foresee squaring that circle -- that you've got somebody who isn't hired by the Legislature and who isn't accountable to the Legislature but just reports to the Legislature? They don't report to you.
W. Strelioff: We follow the federal model, and that is that a commissioner would, on a professional basis, be accountable to a standing committee of the Legislature for the contents of reports and the conclusions. But administratively the commissioner does report to me. And the mandate of the commissioner would be under the auspices of the Auditor General Act. It's not that clean a relationship, but it seemed to be that when we heard that a commissioner for the environment was being contemplated, consulting with
G. Farrell-Collins: It just seems to me, as an individual member of the Legislature, that this was done in a way that was designed to
[1230]
I'm not saying we shouldn't have somebody who's doing good environmental audits. I think there's certainly reason to do that. Maybe this is the best way to do it; I don't know. But it seems to me that this person reports to the Legislature but isn't really accountable to the Legislature. They are in fact accountable to you, I think, in your office. As a Legislature, I don't know what I'd do if, you know, the Legislature doesn't like the work that person does -- if they're not doing their job properly, if
And I know there's been great debate over the years, certainly in the time I've been here, about that appointment process. How is that appointment process done? There's been great debate around how the reappointment process is done and for how long somebody is reappointed. And those aren't things that have had small debate; they're things that have had big debate. In fact, your predecessor spoke quite a bit about that and wanted new legislation brought in to sort of ensure his integrity and his independence. And I know that you've got before you an act that you're working on to try and bring that even further.
So I wonder how
All of those things are significant public policy debates that take place around appointment of officers of the Legislature and commissioners. I just find this a really unusual way of achieving it, and I'm wondering what's been driving it. I find it interesting that an auditor general and an auditor
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general's office that was so aggressively pursuing that independence for himself -- you and your predecessor -- wouldn't twig that there's a bit of confusion around this new commissioner and who he works for and who he or she reports to and how that system works. I'm just curious how you square that.
W. Strelioff: Well, the commissioner is independent of the government of the day, and that person would work under the auspices of my office -- the Auditor General Act. And at the end of the day, if the performance of the commissioner is not considered satisfactory, I'm accountable for that.
G. Farrell-Collins: I guess that puts you in an interesting position. You have a commissioner working under you, who will report to the Legislature directly. You can't determine what the report is. You have no control over the end product that comes out of that commissioner's office -- none. You may have control over how they run their office or the finances, and whether or not
Yet at the end of the day, if the Legislature feels that that person is not doing their job very well, we don't get to fire him or her. We get to fire you or reappoint you or not reappoint you. I think that puts you in a difficult spot.
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W. Strelioff: Well, ultimately, I would be accountable. And to manage the initiative is going to be more complex than my existing management responsibilities.
R. Thorpe (Chair): I have a question. Is this individual, whoever he or she may be
W. Strelioff: No, they are not.
R. Thorpe (Chair): They are not being offered employment as an officer of the Legislature of British Columbia.
W. Strelioff: That's correct; they are not. I'm the officer of the Legislature.
R. Thorpe (Chair): I thought you said they were going to report to the Legislature.
W. Strelioff: They do have a unique reporting relationship, yes. But they are not an officer of the Legislature -- or the person would not be an officer.
R. Thorpe (Chair): Well, I guess where I'm having trouble
I'm personally having a huge problem with this independence. Quite frankly, I'm actually shocked that we're learning about this now. And I would like to ask you, with respect to your funding proposals here
W. Strelioff: Yes, it is. Near the bottom of page 11 -- the chart on the bottom.
R. Thorpe (Chair): Were those funding commitments part of the memorandum that was signed with the Premier's Office?
W. Strelioff: I think so.
R. Thorpe (Chair): Would it be possible for you to give this committee, through the Clerk's office, a copy of the memorandum that's been signed with the Premier's Office?
W. Strelioff: The memorandum is public; it's part of the order-in-council that was issued in January. But we can get you a copy of the order-in-council as well as the memorandum.
R. Thorpe (Chair): I'd like the detail behind the order-in-council. Could we get that today, please, if at all possible?
W. Strelioff: Yes.
R. Thorpe (Chair): Dan, you have a question?
D. Miller (Deputy Chair): Yeah, I had some. I've been trying to follow this last conversation; I'm a bit puzzled. I didn't pay much attention to the announcement or anything about the sustainability commissioner, but perhaps you might describe what your view of their role is.
W. Strelioff: The role of the commissioner would be to examine environmental issues -- environmental audit issues would be one part of it -- to examine whether the government ministries and Crown corporations are performing against publicly stated sustainability commitments. That would be part of their performance plans and reports. And every two years a report would be issued on the state of, in a broad sense, the province's ecological health -- those three dimensions.
D. Miller (Deputy Chair): Now, we do have a number of officers of the Legislature that have been implemented for various reasons. Yours is an obvious one, but there are others: the children's commissioner, I think
R. Thorpe (Chair): I think there are seven.
D. Miller (Deputy Chair): Would it be fair to say, Wayne, that the issues around the environment can be fairly subjective?
W. Strelioff: You have to ask questions a little bit more specifically. What are you
D. Miller (Deputy Chair): Well, I've always been struck by
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which one, come up with a fairly rigid definition or description of what sustainability might be under any given set of circumstances. But from a broad point of view, you can appreciate that it's often a subjective issue, in that one person's view of sustainability -- particularly in British Columbia, by the way -- is diametrically opposed to another person's view of sustainability.
[1240]
So really, I'm just trying to deal with the broad topic of sustainability, which is a very loose term. It's a nice word, because it sounds good. But unless it's applied to a particular set of circumstances, what does it mean? I was really trying to kind of probe that a little bit in terms of: what is sustainability here? How do you define and compare and do all these other things with respect to this broad -- some would argue fairly fuzzy -- term?
W. Strelioff: Part of this initiative contemplates that government corporations and ministries would put in their performance plans and reports -- their plans or goals and targets related to sustainability -- and that the commissioner would encourage, support, identify best practices. So the complexity of integrating social, environmental and economic factors into decision-making
D. Miller (Deputy Chair): Right. So it's somewhat different, if you like, than the other officers of the Legislature, I would think. The children's commissioner is probably one where it's almost a watchdog, independent of government, etc. I don't see this in the same light, personally, but
In view of the fact that the auditor general has existed in the province for quite some time, I think it's fair to say
W. Strelioff: Recognize that people think every word is 100 percent factual?
D. Miller (Deputy Chair): Recognize that they're used politically.
W. Strelioff: I recognize that they are debated by legislators and the public.
D. Miller (Deputy Chair): Motivation in the political context is something that one always has to look at.
W. Strelioff: Well, one of the issues that we bring to the table is a lot of due diligence before we come out and conclude.
D. Miller (Deputy Chair): Do you think, given the political milieu that your reports are delivered into and particularly given what I would argue has been the increased importance of auditor generals -- particularly the progress that we've made in British Columbia, for example -- the issues we've discussed earlier in terms of budget presentation and those kinds of questions
My question is sort of broad-based, but in politics there are various ways of arriving at conclusions on various subjects. Most subjects are open to fairly intensive debate -- some less than others -- and generally, decisions are made, ultimately, based on the level of debate. And as I mentioned earlier, I think, if there's an intense public pressure on a particular area, generally governments fold -- not always, but generally. They fold. And that doesn't mean that they've made the best decision, but they've made the one that the public says: "You better make it or we'll get rid of you."
Do you think there's perhaps some caution required with respect to the role of the auditor general, in that, I think, you are seen and used? In other words, your reports are generally considered to be the definitive work on any particular topic that you examine. Yet we see, with the interaction between the comptroller general and your office on the issue of the SUCH, the reporting requirements, that there's a genuine difference which is not political between people who are in the business of managing the accounts who historically have been in the business and yourself. Yet we have this difference.
Are there areas where the auditor general, perhaps -- even in hindsight -- has been wrong? It's a serious question because of the importance that your office has both publicly, I think, and the way it's viewed publicly. My own experience here -- I'll just carry on a little bit -- is that most complex issues generally defy an easy solution. That's been my experience as a minister of quite a number of ministries, in dealing with public policy questions with the public as well. Yet your reports, as I said, are generally kind of taken as gospel and as the definitive word on any particular topic. Is there a risk that we could make decisions that might not be subject to the rigour that they ought to be?
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W. Strelioff: Well, I think that the risk is mitigated by having our reports refer to this committee and that you bring in what are called witnesses, whom you have the opportunity to ask questions of and to ask whether they agree or disagree with the conclusions, recommendations and findings of our office. That provides a lot of discipline to our work, because we know, coming into this meeting when one of our reports are being discussed, that we can be subject to a very significant and credible challenge by Crown corporation officials and ministry officials.
I think that public debate process helps safeguard the work of an auditor general that might end up becoming impractical or something else. That's a hard safeguard, I know. In my thinking, when we come in here and our report is being discussed for the first time
D. Miller (Deputy Chair): There's a heavy reliance
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last report, which is more a narrative, more his opinions about certain things. There's a heavy reliance, for example, on the expanded committee system, etc., etc. Yet we see at the federal level, where they've had a long history of committees doing far more work than they do normally at the provincial level, that legislation is always referred to committees, those kinds of things.
Yet what's emerging now, or appears to be emerging, is a bit of a pattern -- I'll try to clear away the politics -- that appears to be coming from both major parties that committees aren't that great. Some people have gone really quite far and said: "Parliament's not democratic." So you're kind of recommending that we go down a road that's been followed by others, and yet the process that has been in existence for quite some time is itself open to question right now. Have you considered that in terms of this whole approach on the committee side?
W. Strelioff: From my understanding of the debate that has taken place across the country on the value of committee structures, I haven't heard a discussion where people wanted to move back to no committee structures. It's usually -- at least, from my understanding -- that discussions take place on how to strengthen it. I take some comfort with the nature of that kind of discussion.
D. Miller (Deputy Chair): Finally, I did ask earlier: has there ever been an evaluation or a re-evaluation within your office with respect to reports that you've done? I can't remember some specifics, but I know some reports you've done in the past that I certainly disagreed with. I'm wondering if there have been any reviews to ascertain whether history has proven you right or wrong on some issues. I think that is important: who checks if
There's an increasing tendency in our political democracy to have watchdogs to look over us. Now, implicit in that is that somehow there's a lack of trust. You know, maybe that's overstating it, but we do have a propensity, I think, to say: "Somebody has to be put in place to watch us, because, by God, you can't trust us." There's a debate raging about ethics at the federal level right now. Who watches the watchers? You know what I mean?
W. Strelioff: A lot of our work relates to providing you assurances about government's performance. I mean, it's you as legislators wanting to know what the government of the day is doing with the public resources. It's you saying you want us to watch how government is managing. I mean, we're not watching the legislators.
[1250]
In terms of that -- are we right or wrong, and what's the track record? -- one of the initiatives that we're moving forward and have done in the past is to monitor the extent to which our recommendations are implemented. That usually ends up being
D. Miller (Deputy Chair): I'll use a real example. In probably '89 or '90 -- I can't remember when, exactly -- you had a report on
W. Strelioff: Yes.
D. Miller (Deputy Chair): It might be a useful exercise.
M. Coell: In the last three years that I've sat on this committee, I've spoken in favour of the need for environmental audits. I think one of the problems in listening to the speakers we're having is that the deal is already done. This was a political motivation from the Premier's Office. Obviously the moneys asked for are part of the auditor's report before us. I don't have a problem with that. That's the reality as I see it. I think that's why we're having a problem dealing with it: it's already been dealt with.
Whether the commissioner reports to the Legislature or reports to the auditor general, I think, is confusing. I agree with the speakers that have spoken before. It is similar to how the federal government works, but that doesn't give me much comfort, in that the federal government doesn't always do things that are
D. Miller (Deputy Chair): No government does.
M. Coell: Yeah, I agree.
So as I say, I'm a little uneasy about dealing with making a recommendation on the strategic direction, because I don't feel that we actually have an ability to change that. There is already a memorandum of understanding between the Premier's Office and the auditor general that sort of takes us out of the loop as a committee.
R. Thorpe (Chair): And we don't have a quorum.
M. Coell: And also, as pointed out, we don't have a quorum.
R. Thorpe (Chair): Gary.
G. Farrell-Collins: Dan wanted to comment on this. I had something else.
D. Miller (Deputy Chair): Really, I just wanted to say that notwithstanding any -- and I take absolutely no interest in how you recruit or hire or anything else
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are
So these are all political decisions. I think the issue is really one of reporting and accountability. But my own view, given the nature of the office, is that it's fine. I don't think it has the same import or impact, given the subjectivity of this broad issue about environment. I mean -- God! -- talk to any British Columbian, and you get a different perspective on what's environmentally acceptable.
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I'm not overly concerned about the
So I don't think there's anything politically amiss. I'm just saying that.
M. Coell: No. It's just that we're out of the loop; that's all.
D. Miller (Deputy Chair): That's right.
G. Farrell-Collins: Having watched Dan over nine years and his position on resource and environment and trying to get that balance, I wish I could be in the room when he's reading his morning paper two years from now and see what he thinks about it. Maybe we can talk at some time in the future about that.
I think Dan's right. I think there is nothing wrong with the Premier making a decision to have an environmental commissioner -- no problem at all. There may be some merit in having it within the auditor general's office. There may be some merit in having it independent and a separate commissioner that will just do that sort of work. It depends on what you're trying to get out of that person, what you see their mandate as being, what you want them to achieve, what role they're going to play in the public policy debate.
As I said earlier, I think that having somebody focus on environmental audits could easily be done within the auditor general's office as part of what you do on an ongoing basis. As well, you could just as easily argue that it would make sense to have an independent commissioner. I don't know what's the best route. I just think it's something that needs to be explored, and I'm trying here today to explore the hybrid that's been created. I'm trying to determine how that's going to work.
As you'll know, one of the roles of the Legislature is the hiring and reappointment -- or not reappointment or whatever -- of commissioners and officers of the Legislature. That process, as you'll know, sometimes is pretty tame, other times is pretty intense.
I've sat on committees that hire people, and there's great scrutiny given to where the person comes from as a point of view, what type of
Members take that role very seriously; they really do. They understand that when they appoint the commissioner, they're giving up a great deal of their political clout, because that commissioner then gets set over here, as Dan said, and their word becomes gospel. Whether they're the conflict-of-interest commissioner or the children's commissioner or the auditor general, when they say something, it affects legislators and how they relate to the public, who at the end of the day, hold them to account. So it's sort of like appointing another person, giving them some of your power and the information and then saying: "Okay, beat me with it." So legislators are always very careful in trying to find somebody that they think is going to move the public debate forward, give them good information and help them do their job, but members want to have some sense of the job that person is going to do.
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I guess one of the biggest problems I have with the way the structure works is that that individual isn't going to come to a committee of the Legislature and say: "Here's who I am. Here's what I want to do. Here's where I think I see this office going. Here are the types of projects I'd like to undertake. Here's why I think that will contribute to the public debate. Here are the environmental challenges I think British Columbians face, here are the economic challenges I think British Columbia faces, and here's how I intend to balance those. This is my viewpoint."
Are we hiring somebody who has spent all of their life promoting environmental causes? That's a noble thing for someone to do. I may not agree with the way they do it or the methods they use or the types of causes that they promote, or I may. But is it going to be somebody who's going to have the balance, who is also going to go out and listen to people in forest-dependent communities and talk about what the environment means to them? Is it going to be somebody who goes out to people working in the mining sector who have built their lives and supported their families on it and talks to them about how they view protecting the environment, so that people will support their industry and so that they'll have work as the years go by?
I think Dan made a really good point. Of all the issues that we face, the environment is probably the one that gets people going the most. It's very passionately held in different positions of various people and groups. It's a well-funded debate from all sides. And more importantly, it's a debate that doesn't just rage within British Columbia; it rages around the world and has big effects on how our environmental and economic policies are perceived.
So I see this role as a hugely significant role for someone who's going to have a lot of clout and who will be quoted internationally over and over and over again as to how they view what's going on here in British Columbia. As well, it will
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have a significant economic impact on communities right across this province, on millions of people. Quite frankly, I would spend more time, energy and effort as a legislator trying to get the right person for that job than I would getting the right person for your job, because I think it's way more important in the long term as to what this province will look like ten, 15, 20 years from now.
I have a real problem with the way this person is going to be selected. I worry about that. Getting a couple of names from people and then
At the end of the day, I know that Erda can sit here and talk to that commissioner about mining for hours. I know. Dan, I know, could talk to that person for hours and question them rigorously on forest policy. I know that Val here could talk to them forever about agriculture policy and water and drinking water and groundwater. And I know that Murray, having been Environment critic for probably longer than he knows, would have a huge set of questions that he'd like to put to that person. Rick is from the Okanagan, where they have big land use problems: you know, do they have orchards or do they have grapes or do they have condominiums? And what are they going to do about their water quality, when every summer people get sick with Cryptosporidium because of their water?
R. Thorpe (Chair): It doesn't happen anymore. No.
G. Farrell-Collins: It doesn't happen anymore. Good. Glad to hear that. I'll now go there in the summer.
You know, I think there's a reason why those positions are appointed and are accountable to the Legislature. And I think that it's important that that input be given. I guess the deal is done; the thing is signed. I hope you take those issues into consideration. There's a reason why people elect us and send us here. We have a broad cross-section of people with great experience on all sides of the House, from all political parties, and that's part of what goes into selecting those commissioners. So I just encourage you to keep that in mind as you make that selection and just encourage you not to hesitate to take some input from members from all parties.
[1305]
W. Strelioff: Thank you very much for the advice. The selection committee does
R. Thorpe (Chair): Thank you. I think that brings an end to the discussion.
We have one housekeeping item. Richard is going to read a statement with respect to the Insurance Bureau from yesterday that we have to get in Hansard, according to the Clerk's office.
R. Morrow: Yesterday the committee, of course, heard testimony from representatives of the Ministry of Finance regarding the implementation of a recommendation on insurance issues in the committee's report on "Earthquake Preparedness in British Columbia." As noted at the time, the Insurance Bureau of Canada also wished to make a submission to the committee regarding earthquake preparedness and insurance issues. As the bureau was unable to attend February 20, the bureau has forwarded a written submission to the committee.
I was going to go into a little more detail about the content of that, but I've been asked to make this very brief. Essentially what I need to say is that this submission will not be appended to the February 20 minutes, as suggested at yesterday's meeting; however, copies are available through the office of the Clerk of Committees.
R. Thorpe (Chair): Thank you, Richard. I also need a motion that the reports that were adopted today be deposited with the Clerk of the House pursuant to the committee's terms of reference. So if we could get that motion
Motion approved.
G. Farrell-Collins: Can I ask a question, Mr. Chairman? I'm not familiar
C. James: No, not at all. The next step, of course, is for the Chair to present the reports to the House, which could either just be tabled or
G. Farrell-Collins: So if the House -- and I don't know what the government's plans are -- does not sit before the next election, a new Public Accounts Committee after an election would have these reports fall on their lap and would have to decide what they wanted to do with them. Is that correct?
C. James: No. These reports would have to be re-referred to the new Public Accounts Committee. But the committee could use its discretion and say: "Well, these are all done. We'll just move a motion to the effect that the Chair present these reports to the House."
G. Farrell-Collins: So the reports would be referred, or would the auditor general's reports be re-referred?
C. James: No. Well, it would be sufficient for the committee's reports to be referred, unless the committee or the House
[ Page 1744 ]
thought that the auditor general's reports should be re-referred themselves. Then the committee would revisit those issues and the report that it has
G. Farrell-Collins: Just so I'm clear, what happens then is: after an election, these would be in some limbo somewhere, because they wouldn't have been dealt with. Is the new House somehow aware of them? And would it require a motion of the House, then, to refer them back to the Public Accounts Committee?
C. James: Yes.
G. Farrell-Collins: Okay, good. Thanks. I'd just hate all this work we've done to go off into the ether somewhere.
R. Thorpe (Chair): Okay, the next item: we need a motion for adjournment subject to the next meeting, which the Deputy Chair and I will tentatively arrange for mid-March, if that's okay. So we need a motion for that.
G. Farrell-Collins: I hate to keep us here any longer, but I have a quick question. What is left on the agenda, as far as reports for us to deal with? Are there five, ten, 50? I'm trying to get a sense of it.
R. Thorpe (Chair): We've got maybe two. Two or three reports -- that's it.
G. Farrell-Collins: Everything else is complete?
R. Thorpe (Chair): Everything else is cleaned up.
G. Farrell-Collins: Great, thanks.
R. Thorpe (Chair): So, Val, did you make that motion on adjournment subject to the next meeting in mid-March, set by the Deputy Chair and myself?
V. Roddick: Absolutely.
The committee adjourned at 1:10 p.m.
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