Finance and Government Services — Issue No. 17 — Thursday, December 1, 2005 (HTML)

2005 Legislative Session: First Session, 38th Parliament
SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON FINANCE AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES
MINUTES AND HANSARD

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS
(Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON
FINANCE AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES



CONTENTS

		Page

Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner		407
	D. Ryneveld
	L. Hubbard

Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner		419
	D. Loukidelis
	L. Hubbard

Auditor General Financial Statements Auditor		425

Chair:	Blair Lekstrom (Peace River South L)
Deputy Chair:	* Maurine Karagianis (Esquimalt-Metchosin NDP)
Members:	* Harry Bloy (Burquitlam L) * Dave S. Hayer (Surrey-Tynehead L) * Gordon Hogg (Surrey–White Rock L) * Richard T. Lee (Burnaby North L) John Yap (Richmond-Steveston L) * Leonard Krog (Nanaimo NDP) * Jenny Wai Ching Kwan (Vancouver–Mount Pleasant NDP) Nicholas Simons (Powell River–Sunshine Coast NDP) * denotes member present


Witnesses:	Lanny Hubbard (Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner; Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner) David Loukidelis (Information and Privacy Commissioner) Dirk Ryneveld (Police Complaint Commissioner)

M. Karagianis (Deputy Chair): I would hope that everyone has a chance to get a coffee, and we will start almost immediately. I think a couple of our members may be just slightly tardy, but given the fact that we have on previous occasions run for the full length of time, I would like to try and keep us to our agenda this morning.

Welcome, Dirk and Lanny. I'll let you carry on and make the introductions, if you wish.

Well, I see some familiar faces and some new faces. Hopefully, you've had an opportunity to have a look at the budget submission that was sent last week. Just in case, I've provided a little package that's on your desk before you. One is my annual report for 2004, which explains some of the background. Then there's the budget submission that I have for the coming term and a little pamphlet about mediating Police Act complaints. I think that's relevant because it's one of the issues I want to raise with you today, about what we're doing with the mediation since you were kind enough to provide me with a $50,000 seed money package last year, which I'm asking to be continued.

If I may just start with my commissioner's statement on page 3 of the outline. I can tell you that, basically, what I'm asking for is very little new money. I'm asking for a stand-pat budget from what I had last year, with $15,000 additional funds; I will explain in a minute as to why that is new money and why I need to ask you for that.

The other thing you need to know is that I anticipate this year coming in under budget. I will have a surplus — God willing and circumstances permitting, of course. One can never tell in November what things look like at the end of March, but I predict there will be a surplus of funds from this year's budget. That doesn't mean I won't need it next year.

Let me explain to you very briefly what's happened. The savings I've made this year is that Commission Counsel Dana Urban, QC, took a leave of absence to go and prosecute in Kosovo, which meant that a good chunk of his salary we were able to save. I did not replace the commission counsel position.

Mr. Urban left in the middle of the Stanley Park public hearings, having completed phase one, which was the evidentiary portion of it. Phase two was, for lack of a better expression, the sentencing phase, so to speak. It was such a complex file that I put on a commission counsel hat and finished off the case personally. Now, that comes with inherent difficulties. The old adage that a lawyer who acts for himself has a fool for a client is always a concern, but I felt that it was in the best interest of everyone that I not further delay those proceedings and try to hire a new lawyer and bring them up to speed. With consent of all counsel, I was able to do that myself.

So we haven't replaced Mr. Urban. He's on a leave of absence, which means that I anticipate he will be returning next year. This means I have to have the funds in place when he comes back. But I have saved a good chunk of that money for his salary. I've been able to hire an administrative lawyer on an ad hoc basis, as and when required. That has spent some of that money, but there is a savings.

The other thing is that last year I told you I needed a new senior investigative analyst position for the Vancouver office, and I explained to you the reasons for that. As is outlined here in my staffing development note, I delayed in actually hiring that individual because of a number of things. Because of Mr. Urban's departure, I had to determine what the best staffing decision would be — whether I needed somebody in the Victoria office or in the Vancouver office; and whether or not I was going to hire a new deputy, because Mr. Urban was also my deputy. So an assessment of what the office really needed delayed my decision in hiring a new person.

The decision has been made. Mr. Brown, who many of you know, is now my new deputy. I've decided, therefore, that we need a Vancouver position, and we are in the process of interviewing. We have one more interview to go, and then I expect we will be hiring that staff position. So there have been further savings — basically, six months of salary there as well. That meant everybody else had to work very hard. But as I say, I think next year I'm going to need those funds.

I want to turn next, if I may, to the issue of mediation. Mediation, I believe, is the hope for the future. Mediation has been shown to be extremely effective in other jurisdictions. I'm president this year of the Canadian Association of Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement. I have been in touch with many of my colleagues not only nationally but internationally, and we've been studying programs not only in Quebec, which has worked very well, but also one of my colleagues in Washington D.C…. There's a project in Seattle — all of whom are showing very good results with mediation of police act complaints for certain types of cases.

Mr. Brown, who's my new deputy, has been mandated with the responsibility for focusing on mediation programs and on outreach and diversity issues. I've just got this little brochure available to you explaining what mediation is, what it is not, the benefits to both complainants and respondent officers, and basically answering some the questions that people may have about entering into a mediation program.

It will save the police departments considerable funds, in my respectful view, because instead of having to do a full-blown investigation, if parties can sit down

fairly early, mediate and resolve their differences that way, not only is the outcome usually a happier solution for both, but there are considerable cost savings to the police. There are also cost savings to our office, of course.

I am hoping that because this pilot project was for $50,000 for this year…. I need that money to basically hire the initial mediators, because we have to hire professional mediators to make sure it works properly when it first starts out. Although we haven't spent much of my $50,000 this year, I don't think I can finish it by March. I need another year, because part of this year has been trying to sell the idea. It's very difficult to sell the idea to police officers and police unions who often come to the table with the view that…. They're reluctant to apologize. They're reluctant to admit that they've made a mistake. Therefore, it's very important that we have spent the time leading up to this not spending a lot of money but doing a lot of explaining and, basically, informing the police of the benefits of embarking on this process.

I'm happy to report that we are now getting cases identified, that there are officers who are willing. We're about to start to actually do some mediations — hopefully, late this year and into next year. I'm asking for the $50,000 seed money to continue for one more term. I think the benefits far outweigh the costs. I won't belabour that point.

The two other areas where I'm asking for very modest sums are in the promotion of civilian oversight of law enforcement. As I've outlined, first of all, this is now my second year as president of CACOLE, the Canadian Association of Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement. As you know, all of the provinces but Prince Edward Island have some form of civilian oversight. But we all have different systems, and there are different theories as to what the best system would be. The British Columbia system is one that is being looked at by other jurisdictions as perhaps something that they may want to follow. I am being constantly consulted on how our system works and the pros and cons.

As you probably know from having read my annual report, I have gone to great lengths this year in doing a White Paper in terms of where I believe there is a need for amendment. I have also, with my staff, drafted a draft statute for your consideration, hopefully, which incorporates those amendments. We're still in negotiation with stakeholders.

Having said all of that, this year I decided that we should have our conference in Vancouver. There is international attendance. There are people from all over the world who come to this. We would like to host the CACOLE in Vancouver in the first week of October. That's once the rates drop. It's maybe not the best time of year, but it's the best time of year to save costs. Traditionally, the province that has hosted these proceedings has actually funded some of the conference.

I'm asking for $10,000 so that British Columbia can host this conference in Vancouver in the fall. Needless to say, whenever you bring in a conference, there is a return in terms of the economy being boosted, etc. I'm asking for your consideration in allowing me to actually do what I think needs to be done. As the president, I believe I have an obligation to host this. It was in Montreal last year, and the province of Quebec hosted. It was in Toronto the year before that. This year I think it's British Columbia's turn, and I'm asking for your assistance in that regard.

Finally, ISCOLE. Along the same vein, because of the huge international interests in civilian oversight of law enforcement, including from some developing countries and also some Asian–Pacific Rim countries, I have been asked by our executive at CACOLE — including the British, Northern Ireland, Portugal and some of the other countries — to help create an international society for civilian oversight.

We haven't been created yet, but it's going to take a dollar or two to get that started. As you know, there are meetings, bylaws, minutes, planning and things like that which have to be done. I'm asking for $5,000 to enable me, on your behalf and the province, to be one of the leaders in establishing a similar concept of civilian law enforcement and perhaps be a mentor to those developing countries that are simply asking for our help. I think Canada is a leader in many areas. This is one, I think, where we have the resources and the requisite knowledge to be of assistance.

Again, it's very little money, but I thought I should come to you and explain to you my rationale. Unless you have any questions, ladies and gentlemen, that's it. It's not a lot of money.

M. Karagianis (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much, Dirk. I will now open the floor to questions from committee members.

L. Krog: Firstly, a comment. I must say I'm very sympathetic to your request for the $5,000 funding for the international organization. My view is that if this province, being one of the wealthiest parts of the planet, can't take a leadership role in this kind of thing, we shouldn't expect anyone else to.

However, I'll play the fiscal conservative this morning. In your comparison statistics set out at page 28 of your annual report, it would indicate a reduction from fiscal 2003 to fiscal 2004 in the number of complaints. I'm just wondering. You're coming to us and saying: "I need my budget from last year." So I guess I'm saying to you the obvious question, which I'm sure you anticipated: why do you need the same amount of money if, obviously, your caseload has dropped fairly substantially?

D. Ryneveld: Thank you for that question, because it gives me an opportunity to explain something. Although our intake of last year…. There is an organization called Pivot. You may or may not be aware that we had a bump of 50 of those complaints that came all at once. As a matter of fact, on the ninth of November I had finally given my final decision on the second phase of this case. It's a very complex matter. That was a very

complex case for last year. Even though the numbers may appear to be down, the complexity of some of these cases and the amount of work we're doing — when you consider that I have only three staff members and two support staff…. These numbers are…. You can't just say: "Well, you're down by 50 complaints or something, so you can get rid of a staff member." That just is not how that works.

We also anticipate that the numbers…. The numbers don't justify reducing my staff, because the complexity of the work we're doing, the quality of the review, the in-depth process and the accountability that we're holding require a lot more time than just looking at a file and rubber-stamping it.

L. Krog: Is it fair to say…? I mean, you've been at this a little while now, and the complaints commission has been up and running for a while, so is it fair to say that perhaps some of the complaints that would have been accepted in previous years are now dealt with in a more informal matter, I suppose, before they become, how shall I say, more complex complaints? In other words, is there some benefit to the expertise that your staff has now in terms of dealing with things more promptly, getting them off the list?

D. Ryneveld: I think it's very fair to say that I have extremely competent staff who do a very good job at what they do. I think that one of the things we can look at is the first part of the mandate I had. I took over the office when it was, perhaps, in troubled times. The first job that I had to address was: how do we rebuild public confidence in the police complaint process? That was a very difficult job. I must say, from my assessment and from independent reporting, that task has been accomplished. I do believe that the public realizes there's somebody minding the shop, and I believe that public confidence has been restored.

Job two is just as difficult, and that is getting the police to trust that their files and the complaints against them are being dealt with fairly, evenhandedly and appropriately. That is sometimes a harder sell because of police culture — built-in cynicism that police officers often have about outside processes, which they believe may not understand what motivates police or the problems they face.

You can't just demand respect. You can't just demand that because you're in a position, they should trust you. You have to earn it, and that has been a slow process. But I'm happy to report that from the change in attitude I have perceived over the last while, that has come a long way too. I think things are very much improving, and I am cautiously optimistic that things are going very, very well.

That doesn't mean that when you make decisions, people aren't going to take you to task. As of last week the Pivot Legal Society has now taken on judicial review proceedings for my decisions on the complaints of those files, and that is a long and costly process whereby documents go to court and the court reviews, basically, what my decision was — whether or not I was in excess of my jurisdiction in making some decisions I made. These are complex issues.

This is a long answer to a short question. Issues are complex, and they can become complex even with experience. I have had to interpret the spirit of the legislation in many of my decisions as opposed to the letter of the legislation because in some cases it is silent, in some cases it is inferred, and in other cases it's open to question. When legislation is unclear, that is often the reason why matters are sent to court: because both sides have an arguable case that their interpretation is correct.

Hopefully, my draft statute and amendments to the act…. I'm also hopeful that the audit being conducted by Josiah Wood of the police complaint process will result in a focus on amendments to the legislation that will make it much more predictable and will result in a lot less litigation.

L. Krog: Briefly, one more. You're very optimistic about the mediation process, and I'd be very supportive of that for a whole number of reasons. Can you give some kind of a guesstimate as to what percentage of the complaints you receive in a given year you might be able to put into a mediation process, based on your past experience?

D. Ryneveld: Yes. Well, I can't give you any figures from our own experience because we're about to launch it, but I can tell you that some of my colleagues…. Quebec reports about 85-percent success rate of those files that are sent to mediation. Needless to say, not all files are appropriate for mediation. There are some sexual assault matters. There are certain matters that you can't have the police officer and the complainant in a face-to-face situation.

But there are many…. I mean, there's the rudeness issue: somebody unhappy getting a ticket, not understanding why the officers are doing what they're doing, saying, "Why aren't you out chasing real crooks?" — that sort of thing. If you have this opportunity for the officer to explain why he did what he did so that the person receiving the ticket or whatever…. There are times when somebody may just be having a bad day, or it may be attitude — any one of a number of reasons. If they have an opportunity, through informal mediation, to resolve the issue, that's best for everyone.

Quebec was 85 percent. Washington, I believe, is around the 70-percent success rate. Calgary did not have as good a success rate. They could only identify about five or so situations, and to my understanding — some of these figures may be wrong — their sample was not adequate to really give me any pattern. I believe there is a reluctance by some of the participants to actually get involved.

Part of this is ensuring that both sides understand what it is and what it's not, so we intend to try to select

the appropriate files to start a trial period. I'll be in a better position next year, when I come before you, to let you know how we're doing with it and whether my optimism is in fact warranted or not.

R. Lee: Mr. Ryneveld, my question is on how many open files you have now, at this moment.

D. Ryneveld: At any one time we have about 400 to 450 open files. For example, in 2004 — page 29 — if you just have a look, you'll see that we opened about 372 and we closed 393. We closed about 20 more than we opened. But don't forget that some files take a couple of years to resolve, so those figures…. You don't open it in one calendar year and close it in the same calendar year. There are overlaps. Pivot's 50 complaints did throw off the figures a little bit. Again, it's the complexity of the files that really determines how many man-hours or woman-hours or person-hours one has to attach to it.

We ensure that every complaint is thoroughly investigated, and where we are not happy, we send it back for reinvestigation. It takes expertise and thoroughness to do that. Even if there is not a request for a public hearing from a complainant, once the disciplined authority has made the decision, our staff review it in any event. In other words, some complainants may not act upon their right, but we ensure that the decision is correct, regardless of whether or not there is a request.

In other words, it's that kind of thoroughness that holds the police to account as well. On occasion the police will come up with a decision, and there is no request for a review by the complainant. But we look at it, and we say: "No, that's not right," or "It's not enough." We send it back, and then they do it properly. Then we make a decision. So there you go.

R. Lee: Do you see the average time for each case…? Do you see a decrease in the waiting time to complete the file?

D. Ryneveld: For some files, yes; other files, no. I believe that when we have our fourth…. That may be partly my fault, administratively, in that I delayed in hiring the position you approved last year. But I anticipate that with an additional person, we will be able to get to the files.

I mean, it's just a mathematical estimate that we should be able to get to the files and have a quicker turnaround. Depending, of course, on how quickly the police respond to our request, we can look at a file quickly and say, "No, we need more," and then we wait for them.

Sometimes it's the sheer volume of work on our desk, including mine, that things sit in the to-do pile longer than I would like to see them there. I don't want to lead you astray to suggest that we have noticed a dramatic change in turnover time. No, I think the real dramatic change is in the attention to detail and the thoroughness of the work. No file gets sloughed off in the corner without a thorough review, and that does take time.

R. Lee: Okay, thank you. My other question is: how is our Richmond program doing? Do you have a working plan for this coming year?

D. Ryneveld: Our working plan — yes. I don't have anything in writing, but as I say, one of our focuses is going to be on a mediation program — I think that's very important — with the change in duties for Mr. Brown to not only be an investigative analyst but also do some outreach.

Apparently, what we are doing is that in addition to working with former Mr. Justice Wood in this review, we have come to the conclusion that the police complaint process needs to be taught to the recruits. Where to get that is at the Justice Institute, where new police officers are being trained. I have asked Mr. Brown to work with the Justice Institute. We have actually funded one of their training programs, and Mr. Brown and some of the police trainers are doing joint sessions in training so that police officers learn not only the police perspective but also our perspective of how the police complaint act works.

We haven't had the resources or the time to do that. I guess what I'm say is that part of my plan is now to do the training at an early point. Get the recruits coming in. Let them know what the process is about, how to deal with that, how to avoid conflict and, when there is conflict, how to resolve it. We think that training and policy changes are key to avoiding the complaints in the first instance.

The other thing we're doing is that we're going to do some joint sessions in Vancouver with multicultural groups. We have some things planned at the Carnegie Centre and the Vancouver Public Library. We're also, on our program, going to be, hopefully, working with some of the MLAs in getting some material out and asking for your assistance, perhaps, in translating some of these brochures into languages for certain diversity groups. I don't have the budget to send that out for translation, but perhaps some of you will have people on your staff who could translate a brochure into layman's language in the various languages in your particular ridings. These are the kinds of things that we're hoping to accomplish in the next year.

R. Lee: To follow up on that, it's probably easier to have a translation budget in your budget, instead of going to different MLAs to have an unprofessional translation.

R. Lee: I think it's probably worthwhile to include as a budget in the outreach program.

D. Ryneveld: I'm a very fiscally conservative individual, and I thought if there is a way to do it cheaply but effectively, I would avoid coming to you. But if you're offering to give me some money for translation, I would be happy to do that. I have not been so presumptuous as to ask for it, but if this is something that you believe would be money well spent, then I would certainly make an oral request to….

I have no idea how much it would cost to translate into, perhaps, Mandarin and Punjabi and some of the other languages that we would have to identify. I think we can speak to some of the multicultural groups to identify those things.

If you think that is a worthwhile project, then I would ask for some additional funds. I don't know how much to ask for — maybe $10,000 or $5,000. I don't know how much that costs. I've not checked out how much translation services cost.

D. Ryneveld: Well, you'll have to go to their website to find out what they say they are, but it seems to me that they are an advocacy group with a particular focus on the plight of residents of the downtown east side of Vancouver. They are definitely a group that is litigious. They originally were collecting….

Just a very brief history as it relates to my office. When I took office on the 13th of February, 2003, that happened to be the day — while I was being sworn in, in this building — when there was a news story on the Bill Good show on CKNW which perhaps started much of this. The Pivot Legal Society accused the Vancouver police department of kidnap, torture and a number of other things in relation to some of the residents of the downtown east side. The police chief replied that that was preposterous, etc.

Thereafter, they came with a collection of some 50 affidavits purporting to represent various members of the downtown east side who had complaints against the police, alleging that there was systemic abuse — not just an individual complaint, which you look at within the four corners of that file. The systemic nature of the allegations…. My job is not to make a ruling on whether or not the allegation deserves an investigation. My duty is to ensure that every complaint is investigated if it meets the criterion of the act.

There was a suggestion that it should not be done by the Vancouver police department. I thought that the only other police force large enough and capable enough to handle a complex investigation like that would be the RCMP. I ordered the RCMP. That's a phrase out of the act. I requested, they complied, and I sent an order. They spent a lot of time and effort in investigating the matter. They came up with their report, finding that there were some nine of the 50 that could be substantiated. Then it goes to the discipline authority, who is the Vancouver police chief. He looked at those files and had some additional investigation done by his own staff, because there were reports by the RCMP that the Vancouver police hadn't cooperated in their investigation, so they didn't have enough material. With the additional information obtained by the Vancouver police, he found that none of the complaints were substantiated.

I gave a 103-page decision finding that, based on that additional information that I had to take into account — it wasn't the kind of information that was inadmissible; it was just information that I had to review — I disagreed with the chief on five of those files. However, of those five files, two of them I requested be sent to the Vancouver police board for reconsideration of their service and policy — one with respect to the use of force and the use of knee strikes, and the other with respect to their breach-of-the-peace policy, the way in which Vancouver police officers were apparently purporting to arrest people and sort of get them out of Dodge at sundown, which was not in compliance with the Criminal Code. So I asked them to look at those things.

Of the three remaining files, on two of those files I told the police chief in my written decision that I believed he was wrong at law and in that decision invited him to reconsider his decision on those three files in light of the legal arguments I'd put forward. The end result of that was that the chief of police agreed that two of those three files were in fact substantiated and issued appropriate remedy to the officers.

The third one we agreed to disagree on. That one, ultimately, was the search of a backpack, and I had to determine whether or not it was in the public interest — after all this investigation, and we knew all the facts that could be known — to have a public hearing into that file involving the search of a backpack. I concluded, for the reasons of my November 9 decision, that it was not in the public interest to have a public hearing on that one file. I've closed the entire….

Now, all of the benefits of what we wanted had occurred. The Vancouver police board changed the policy. The Vancouver police have changed their policy about cooperating with external agencies. The ones that I thought were substantiated, they did find to be substantiated. So there's just one remaining file about the search of a backpack and questionable evidence — like, who do you believe? It's a he-said, he-said kind of situation. In my view, and that is what the legislation mandates me to do, somebody's got to make that call. I made that call.

Now, the act also permits that if someone is unhappy with my decision, they can take my decisions to judicial review by the courts, and that is the process that the Pivot Legal Society has now embarked upon.

D. Ryneveld: It's hard to say just at the moment. They have listed a number of complainants, including third-party complainants who have no recourse.

H. Bloy: Do they continue to bring complaints to you besides the original 50?

D. Ryneveld: Oh yes. They act for other complainants, and they are in correspondence with us on other matters. There are other lawyers, of course, who act for other complainants.

H. Bloy: Are you required to check every complaint to a certain level to where you're satisfied that it should proceed or not? Is there a cost? If the Pivot Society is there always bringing complaints and you find that 80 percent of them are frivolous, can they be charged your cost of reviewing them?

D. Ryneveld: Our system is not set up so as to, at least the present legislation…. It's not like civil litigation where when you make an allegation as a plaintiff and you lose your case, you may be awarded costs. That is not how our system presently works. If that is a system we want to move to, that is something for the Legislature to decide. But our present system, I believe, has the concept that people who feel aggrieved…. Many of these people are financially not able to be on a level playing field with a large police force, so my recommendation would be that we not penalize people for bringing an allegation that is subsequently not found to be substantiated.

That is different if there is some malice to the process. There are some complainants who, for lack of a better phrase, are frequent flyers. They're not only frequent flyers, but perhaps some of those complaints do not, shall we say, have an air of reality to them. Sometimes it's because of mental health issues; sometimes it's because of any one of a number of things. There ought to be something in place that would allow us to ask court to not allow them to make certain complaints. But just like crying wolf, you can't just say that because they cried wolf, you can't look at the legitimate complaint that that person may also find themself involved with.

Our office looks at every complaint when it comes in. We characterize it. Is it a public trust complaint, is it a service and policy complaint, is it an internal discipline complaint, or is it a compound complaint? The police department categorizes it. We review that categorization. Then the determination is: should it be summarily dismissed? There's your first opportunity, if it has no air of reality.

The categorization is based on: would this allegation, if proved, amount to a disciplinary default against an officer? Well, the next stage then is: should it be summarily dismissed? Is it frivolous or vexatious? Is it longer than a year? There's some discretion for that. Is it the kind of complaint where there is no likelihood that further investigation would ever resolve the issue? If that's the case, they're summarily dismissed.

But others then go to a full investigation. The police do their investigation. The discipline authority makes a decision as to whether or not it is substantiated and, if it's substantiated, what the penalty — for lack of a better phrase, disciplinary consequences — should be, keeping in mind that the legislation is more remediation and corrective in nature than it is punitive. Then we review that to determine whether we agree that it is or is not substantiated and, if the penalty is assessed, whether we agree that the penalty is the appropriate one.

For example, I've got a couple coming up where I anticipate I'm going to have to call public hearings — not because I disagree that it should or should not be substantiated but the penalty phase alone. There will be some coming up involving the penalty that's being assessed, that it's inappropriate. That's a long answer to your question. I don't know whether that's what you wanted to hear.

H. Bloy: That's about it. I've got a couple more questions. A lot of the people who complain — are they first-time offenders, or are they already in the criminal system? Is there a certain mix? That's kind of (a). And (b), if the judges sentenced according to the laws of the country, would you have fewer complaints? When you hear the story that 80 percent of the crimes on the downtown east side are contributed to by 125 people, if you could do something about it…. So if the judges did their job, would we have fewer complaints going towards you?

D. Ryneveld: I have to answer that in this way. The judges, with the greatest respect, are doing their job. They are given parameters. There are sentencing issues. I understand that there are a number of people in society, including police officers, who feel very frustrated by perhaps leniency awarded by the courts, and that is a common criticism. Having been a member of the criminal justice system for 25 years as a major crime prosecutor before going internationally to prosecute war criminals, I have some familiarity with the process.

We must keep in mind that courts are given sentencing ranges by parliament for Criminal Code matters. They have to be able to sentence basically on a scale of worst offender–worst offence versus less
offender–less serious offence. There has to be a sliding scale.

Yes, people can take exception to what they perhaps deem to be too-lenient sentences, but there is a court of appeal, and appellate courts also deal with that. In turn, there are a series of precedents.

H. Bloy: I think you're too close to the issue, in my personal opinion. I'm here to listen to you, but I think you're too close to it. I don't think the sentences are strong enough. And sentencing isn't the only cure to this. Anyway, it's being perpetuated by people within the industry.

D. Ryneveld: Well, with respect, sir, you asked me a question about how that affects. Maybe if I can address that part. It's just that your opening premise was one with which I could not agree. Having said that we

agree to disagree on your opening premise, let me answer the balance of your question. Rather than phrase it that courts did their job, which I maintain they do, if we were to change that preamble to: "If courts sentenced heavier, then would that affect the amount of complaints…?"

Well, a lot of the complaints we get are not necessarily from criminals who are being charged. A lot of the complaints we have are just from citizens who have daily contact with the police. Some of them are downtown east side members — yes, that's a certain portion — but we also have the motorists. We have members who witness the police taking down somebody and object to the way in which that occurs. They may not understand the background for it in all cases.

Yes, there are some complaints that are generated by people who are themselves charged with criminal offences, and some of them may have the hope: "If I withdraw my charge against the police officer, perhaps they'll withdraw a charge against me." We're on the lookout for those and on guard for that.

D. Ryneveld: I cannot in all cases determine, when I receive a complaint, what motivates the complaint. That's why it needs to be investigated, and hopefully motives will become apparent. If those motives are relevant, great. If they are not relevant, then of course we take that into consideration in the disposition of the complaint.

But I don't think it's fair to say that the complainants are all people who are on the wrong side of the law. Many of them are law-abiding citizens who have had a conflict with the police or take issue with the way in which they or their friends, family, etc., have been dealt with.

M. Karagianis (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much. Harry, is that all of your questioning?

D. Ryneveld: Listen, I'm happy, after this — at any time, sir — to engage in some dialogue with you.

G. Hogg: I think some of the specifics that you've referred to reinforced for me the notion, in a free and democratic society, of the delicate balance that can exist between the enforcement arm and the legislative arm and how we look at that balance and the sense of credibility that must be generated within that. I think you've referenced some of that for me — looking at how we as legislators look at your office and determine that it is reflecting that notion of confidence. You've referred to public confidence as an issue. You've talked about complaint disposition as a way of looking at the quality of the type of work that your office does.

Are there trend lines or other quasi-objective criteria that can be looked at, which would suggest a comparator between your office and similar offices? Are there some things that you look at nationally or internationally in your types of organizations in police complaint venues? There are a number of principles that exist in terms of the objectivity — the arm's length, all of those. I think there are probably a number of others, if I thought about them, that exist to say that this is the legislative framework within which it must function.

Once you have what would be generally accepted to be a positive legislative framework, and then the enforcement side of it or the support side that you need to have…. Is there some way of comparing then, after that, qualitatively how the office in British Columbia compares with those in other jurisdictions?

D. Ryneveld: That's a very good question. At the moment I'm really not able to say that much about it because if we were just looking at Canada alone, there are no two systems that are identical. We all have different…. It's comparing apples and oranges. We all do deal with complaints, but we deal with them in totally different ways. I think the measurement processes are different.

Let me give you an example. In Ontario they have…. Well, I have to back up. There is the age-old debate, and it rages. It continues, no matter where you are. The debate is this: can we allow police to investigate the police, or should we have an independent…?

Let's just start from this premise. I am an independent officer of this Legislature. I am independent, but we don't do the actual investigation. What we do is employ people to review and be a watchdog, as it were. We review. We have certain powers to order additional investigations, etc. But our office doesn't take the complaint and then go out and arrest officers or seize weapons or…. I would have to have police officers with sworn peace officer powers if we were to go and investigate. For example, in a police-involved shooting, how do we seize the firearm? I mean, we don't have the authority to do that. There are all kinds of issues involved. However, I'm getting off topic.

The other theory is — and this is often touted — that what you need is an independent office that investigates from scratch so that the police do not investigate themselves. Ontario has that model in their SIU, but they restrict their jurisdiction to only very serious offences — death or serious bodily harm — and they also prosecute those cases. They investigate and prosecute.

The anecdotal stories coming out of that system are that they have even more trouble in getting cooperation. The blue wall comes up pretty solid, and they have difficulty getting cooperation. There has been a history of problems with that type of an operation.

The other thing is that there have been very, very few convictions, if any, under that system. It's very difficult to prosecute a police officer and get a conviction. I'm not going to expound on the reasons why, but I think that's a safe fact. History shows, statistics show, that very few police officers who are charged and go to court and to jury trials actually end up with a conviction. That's that answer.

My personal view is that British Columbia, provided we have an amended legislative framework, has the best system. I inherited this function, as it were, as it already was, but I've become persuaded, by looking at the others, that we have the best system. I think the police should investigate police, provided there is an effective — and that's the key — civilian oversight body that can review and that has sufficient teeth or authority to ensure that whatever needs to be remedied in the investigation is in fact remedied so that it doesn't just amount to a recommendation but to one that has some clout.

The clout that I have now, of course…. If I'm dissatisfied with an investigation, I can ask them to do it again, or I can ask an external agency to do it. But there are some obvious deficits, and I commend you reading the White Paper, where I've outlined them. One of them, for example, is that you have the decision-maker in some of these external cases…. The discipline authority remains the chief of police of the body whose officer may be under investigation. If you've got an external agency doing the investigation, they make a recommendation to that chief.

The allegation is that there may be some bias or perceived bias, and maybe it would be best if I had the authority, in some cases, to order an external discipline authority as well. I don't have that right. Under the present legislation I cannot say, for example, that somebody from the RCMP should make a decision based on that investigation that they have launched as to whether or not a complaint is substantiated. No, it goes back to the police department that's being investigated, as to whether or not the external investigation amounts to a substantiated complaint.

I've identified those in my White Paper — many of them, perhaps not all of them. But we've certainly put a lot of work into it. Hopefully, in the fullness of time, you, as part of a larger body, will have an opportunity to debate those very issues, because I believe that legislative amendment is an absolute must.

We are going to be assisted by the work of former Justice Josiah Wood, a very highly respected lawyer in Vancouver, who is doing an audit of the police complaint process, including the Vancouver police department, and will be meeting with various stakeholders and will be, I suspect, giving his recommendations to the Solicitor General. He's also taking my White Paper into account. Hopefully, the Solicitor General and the Attorney General will see fit to bring that forward for your consideration sooner rather than later.

G. Hogg: At a theoretical or a conceptual level, the goal of government, I guess, is that when we legislate — and the enforcement arm of that piece of legislation — the public generally has confidence that the actions taken by the enforcement arm are fair, consistent and evenly applied. Your role in that bigger conceptual framework is to try and provide access for complaints, but we want to get to a place in utopia where we have people saying: "This is a system in which the state is fairly applying both its application of legislation and the enforcement of it, and here is the method by which I, as an individual member of this society, have an opportunity to test that."

D. Ryneveld: Well, I like to think of it, sir, perhaps in slightly different parameters. Our office ensures that people who feel aggrieved by a powerful force known as the police — who, by the way, we have given special rights to carry weapons and to use force — are held accountable, and if they have a complaint, there is an independent body that would determine whether or not that is a legitimate complaint.

G. Hogg: But they are an extension of the state, though. The police are given that authority by the state.

D. Ryneveld: The police are given that authority by, yes, society. We need police officers, and we need to equip them properly in order to provide us with security. But when they are given special powers, when they are given special rights — and nobody else but a police officer has the right to use force in certain circumstances — the exercise of that discretion, when to use force, etc., has to be accountable. It has to be open and transparent.

G. Hogg: That's the loop I was trying to make with reference to the police having that authority through the state, but the state having responsibility through the rule of law to ensure that it does carry out and have all the responsibilities of an individual within the society.

D. Ryneveld: In a free and democratic society, it is my belief that the role of a civilian oversight agency is extremely important in ensuring that there is this accountability and that the police and other law enforcement agencies — and it's not just police departments — abide by the rule of law.

I was asked to speak not that long ago before the Arar commission. Mr. Justice O'Connor wanted my views on CSIS and oversight agencies involving the RCMP. My comments are on the record there, but I believe this is something far beyond just our province.

There's something else I need to say, since you've got me on a topic I feel very passionate about. That is that when we compare….

G. Hogg: I'm apologizing to the Chair for getting you on something that you're passionate about.

We in British Columbia are very, very fortunate. We as British Columbians are very well policed. When we look at the complaints, etc., and the types of complaints…. When we compare the kinds of issues that we deal with in our society about whether or not the conduct is appropriate, and you look at what is happening in other countries, we're dealing with issues that are…. In comparison and scale, we are striving for perfection, if you know what I'm getting at. We're holding the police to account.

But there are some countries where…. Some of these people have come to me and said: "What do we do about our police forces?" The police force in some of these countries is nothing but a uniformed organized crime agency that does terrible things to its citizens.

So when you compare some of the problems that those countries have with the kinds of problems we deal with on a day-to-day basis, we're really talking apples and oranges. We're very lucky as citizens of this province and this country to be so well policed. That is because there is a rule of law and an adherence to the democratic principles that make this such a great country.

G. Hogg: Just a comment. I would like, at some point, to explore that further and, actually, to look at whether or not there are some qualitative criteria upon which one could evaluate the success in a qualitative sense of an office such as yours — and whether that's something that one of the national or international organizations look at or do in terms of looking at a set of principles or looking at process rates. I'm not even sure what they might be. But it certainly would be helpful from my perspective as a legislator to be able to say qualitatively….

I appreciate what you say within the international context about how fortunate we are, but even within that, I think we should be striving for the best we can be around that. If there are some qualitative measures, I would rely on you and people such as you around the world to look at those and come back and say: "Here are some of the things that we've looked at that may be ways of qualitatively evaluating the success of this within that broad context of the rule of law and the confidence of the public."

D. Ryneveld: You've given me a very excellent suggestion, something I hope to put in my 2005 annual report, because now I'll actually look at means of measuring that I haven't had the time to do so far. Now that you've suggested that, I'll look at that and see. I can't compare apples and oranges, but I'll find enough different apples in different areas to make a valid comparison and perhaps some other means of evaluation.

G. Hogg: There are enough principles in there to reflect those and whether there are some ways to qualitatively look at some of those principles and how they're applied.

D. Ryneveld: Yes. Many of your questions, I suppose, are the kinds of things I should deal with in my annual report. In terms of budget, however, I hope I have given you an idea as to how I spent last year's money and how I propose to spend next year's money. If you have any further questions on that, I'd be very happy.

M. Karagianis (Deputy Chair): I have two questioners left, and those are David and Jenny.

D. Hayer: I'm going to make some comments myself, since we deviated from your budget anyway, because some of these things, what you're doing, are very dear to my heart.

I can tell you this much. I think we will all agree that since the '60s and '70s things have changed, probably since specifically 1985 when we had the Air India bombing. When I talk to the police, I think they're excellent police officers we have in here, and others in RCMP and local police forces. I think everybody will agree that you have some people who are bad apples. They give a bad name to everybody. Every organization has them, regardless of what organization it is.

So it's difficult to do that job without having some of those challenges. At the same time, when you're looking at the types of crimes we have, when we see on TV people going out and shooting people in clubs in front of the camera, they're not afraid of the law. I mean, we have had these gang-related shootings in the Indo-Canadian community, up to 90 or 100, and Ontario had its fair share — just within the one year, over 60.

We had different types of challenges than that. Police are the ones who are going into harm's way when we are trying to get away from there. Those times, I think, are difficult to investigate. Sometimes the challenges you have…. Many of the people they're trying to investigate — and trying to find out what laws they're breaking — are well armed, more armed, and have more legal advisers than the police. I have talked to many lawyers about this.

But that's beside the point. I think you're in a difficult job under difficult circumstances with getting the job in there…. It's never perfect. Nobody's perfect. We all have different challenges.

For your budget, coming back to that, you said that there was surplus for the current year. What happens to the surplus? Does it go back to treasury, or do you keep it for next year in your account there?

D. Ryneveld: Mr. Hubbard tells me that if I don't spend it, it goes back into general revenue, and that's

the plan. That, also, is the $100,000 that I have asked to be maintained for public hearing costs and legal fees. If I don't spend that, same thing. It all goes back. I don't get to keep any. I would like to run under budget, if I can. I have to tell you that if you look at…. I think I've been fiscally very frugal, and I haven't spent money that I didn't need to spend. I've tried to make the appropriate assessment of what I need and when I need it. I'm coming to you only with minuscule amounts, because I think I can do the job that I need to do with the money I've asked for. If I can't, I'll come back to you.

D. Hayer: I just want to clarify for the record, because if somebody was reading it, they were probably wondering what happened to the surplus.

D. Ryneveld: The money comes back into general revenue, so you've got it available.

Another question is…. I think there's a comment regarding translation to different languages.

D. Hayer: I think it's a very good idea. I was surprised you don't have it. I thought that you would have it. MLAs offices, you know — we already work…. We're stretched to the limit.

D. Hayer: So I don't think you're going to find free time or space in there. The best thing to do, probably, is to get some estimates and then try to ask for the budget to do it, so the people can do it.

We don't mind keeping some information at our offices. Sometimes people come in asking for it. We can give it to them in their own language or in English, whichever they like.

J. Kwan: I do have some questions around…. Let me just backtrack a little bit. Do you have any sense, with the people who come forward with complaints, of what nationalities they are? Do you have any sense of what languages they speak?

D. Ryneveld: Generally speaking, it's English. There are some who have some assistance from family or friends in translating their complaint, but the documents that come in are invariably in English.

D. Ryneveld: No, it is not required to be in English from a legislative sense, but from a practical sense, none of my staff read other languages. Now, if I had a complaint that came in, in a language other than English, I would ensure that I found someone to help me find out what that complaint was. We would have to hire somebody to translate. So that is not an impediment to the complaint being accepted.

The truth of the matter is that I think there's a re-cognition upfront by people who don't speak English that they go to a relative or a family member or a friend who can act as their assistant who does speak English so that the form-one document, which creates a complaint, is usually in English. Sometimes it's in very broken English, but nevertheless, we get the gist of what the complaint is.

But you've raised another issue. From a cultural point of view, there are certain societies that have a tendency not to insist upon their rights as frequently as other cultural groups. One of the things that I want to do this year through this outreach is to explain the…. It's not that we're trolling for business, but we want to ensure that those who have a concern realize that we are there to take their concern. It's an education thing rather than drumming up business.

This year with the additional body that I will be getting and Mr. Brown's initiative doing both mediation and outreach, we hope to ensure that those who have a concern recognize that they can make their complaint and not be subject to harassment or some kind of repercussion — try to explain to them that the statute does prohibit police or anyone else from harassing them by virtue of the fact they've made a complaint.

Some cultures take the view that these things are best kept in-house. Some cultures take the view that you don't complain to the authorities, that it's not the thing to do. So we're really embarking on an education program to let people know what our office is there for, and that they can make the complaint without fear of retaliation.

J. Kwan: Thanks. I would venture to say, too, that I would anticipate and fully expect that people will come forward with complaints who may have language difficulties and will fill out the forms in English because that's the expectation of them. The forms are in English; the questions are asked in English.

J. Kwan: Seldom will people write a different language and think that they will actually go somewhere. Perhaps on that question, in terms of the educational process and also the outreach process, let people know that your office is there for them. Even the forms themselves at that stage need to be revisited in terms of language availabilities. I myself, often in my own office, have people come in, and they seldom write to me in Chinese. The expectation is such that they don't, you know.

It doesn't mean, though, that they don't have issues they want to raise. But it's just that much more of a challenge for people who face that. Then you add in the cultural components and so on, and it's just layers in terms of access. I think the understanding of access is then key. So I just want to flag that for you for consideration.

But the other piece that I also want to ask…. When I asked about the ethnicity of the complainants, it goes to the question around systemic issues that may have been raised. I, of course, am the MLA for Vancouver–Mount Pleasant, which incorporates the downtown east side, as you know, where there are a lot of issues around that. I know Pivot and the work that they're doing and why they're doing it, quite frankly. Part of it is that we see a lot of issues in the downtown east side and how people are treated. Some of it may be societal attitudes. I would say a significant amount of that is because of societal attitudes towards the people there — believing that if you have a criminal record, for example, somehow your rights are lessened. If you are a user, for example, somehow your rights are lessened, and if you are a combination of those and add in some mental health challenges, somehow your rights are lessened — wrongly, in my view, but in the minds of others, rightly so.

That adds to the whole layer of, I think, the kinds of complaints that you face and the work that Pivot is trying to do to enable the very marginalized people in our communities to have a bit of a voice. Oftentimes, I think people don't feel that they have a place for them to even make a complaint. I daresay in this committee today we heard, perhaps, a perspective on that from the committee.

On that question, though, there is a real issue in my mind around systemic issues and whether or not they are factors related to how people are treated by our law enforcers who are critical — make no mistake about that — in providing a critical service to all of us, myself included.

Having said that, it is the issue of making sure that nobody is above the law and that especially the law enforcers abide by the law in the exercising of their daily duties. So from that point of view, while your office does not have the opportunity or the occasion — the authority, really — to look into those kinds of systemic issues at the present time, I'd like to actually seek your opinion on: who do you think should be doing that, and should your office be given the authority and the resources to do that?

Again, from the perspective of addressing these issues to create confidence and to also, I think, change societal perspectives on how we deal with marginalized communities and also to educate everyone, including the law enforcers themselves….

D. Ryneveld: Well, you've raised a number of issues, and I'll try and deal with them this way. One way to describe our function, in a colloquial way but I think fairly accurately, is that we police the police. That's really what we're there to do. We're policing the police, but we do so circumscribed by the legislation we have.

I have had to make interpretations of our present statute that are in the spirit of the legislation as opposed to the letter of it. When you do that, you run the risk that people say, "You're acting in excess of your jurisdiction; you can't do that. That's an ultra vires decision" — all kinds of legal terms. You run into problems, but I've had to do that.

One of the arguments, since it was also raised by the hon. member, about what is the Pivot Legal Society…. They came to me with allegations of systemic abuse happening in the downtown east side. Now, as you mentioned, your present legislation may not give you that authority. Well, I interpreted the spirit of that legislation that if I'm really there to police the police and the allegation, if proved, shows there is systemic abuse, then that's something I should do.

I took the collection of the 50, which is a highly unusual step. It's never been done before, that I understand, and it hasn't been done since — that you take the allegations of some 50 and say, "Here's a package," and not only investigate each of them individually to see if there's merit…. But is there a pattern? Is there a systemic problem?

Well, the RCMP, who did investigate and did a superb job, found that although there were nine that they thought were individually substantiated, there was no systemic abuse. So it was investigated, and it was investigated because I asked them to look at it in that way. Whether or not people agree with that conclusion is another issue, but I did ask for this to be reviewed, and that's the opinion I got from an independent police agency that doesn't deal with the downtown east side.

You know, we are trying to accomplish what you have suggested. You asked my opinion on whether or not our office should be authorized. Yes, in order for us to be effective, we should be able to deal with not only an individual complaint, but I should be able to concern myself with service or policy.

Let me give you another example. When I, in my decision on Pivot handed down in June, asked the Vancouver police board to review the policy on how breach-of-the-peace issues were being dealt with, that was in my view a systemic issue. The way in which the Stanley Park individuals…. You remember that case. There were a number of cases that had come to my attention over the last couple of years where I noted that there was a systemic problem, as I saw it — but that's just me — with the way in which the Vancouver police department were interpreting their powers under the statute. In some cases it was an appropriate use of their authority, and in others, in my view, it was not.

I asked the Vancouver police board, which gives direction to the police department, to review that, and they did. They've come up with a very good policy, and the police are now being trained in accordance with that new policy.

Same thing with a couple of the files involving individuals who had their ribs broken during the course of a takedown. Now, I'm not saying the takedown wasn't justified, but the officers were using the current use-of-force policy, which included knee strikes. Knee strikes are an accepted way to use the use-of-force policy, but it's generally intended to be for the large muscle groups. The police board has come up with recommendations to remind officers that perhaps ribcage areas may not be an appropriate location for a knee strike, unless circumstances warrant.

In other words, we're looking at those kinds of issues that go beyond an individual case, on a policy basis. We think we're being effective. I have seen a marked change in attitude since my June report. Like I say, although I said I was cautiously optimistic, I've been given good reason to believe that the police themselves are changing their attitude and listening to the fact that our office has suggestions they ought to follow.

The final thing I want to say to what you're…. Just last week we were talking about getting these forms that I'm talking about — not only our brochures, but the form ones — and putting them in different languages on our website so that people, when they go to our website, their counsel or their friends can download in their own language and can write it. Then I'll just have to make sure that I've got somebody able to interpret it.

But you're right. The expectation of the citizen out there is that to do business in this province, you do it in English. Although that is not an unreasonable expectation, if it becomes an impediment to their exercising the rights and the laws that we provide to them, then I think that in a compassionate way we ought to try to remove that as an impediment. I'm still going to read it in English, but it won't be ignored simply because they didn't give it to me in English.

J. Kwan: Thanks. Just trying to get back at the question around ethnicity, do you track the complainants when the complaints are made to the office — their ethnicity?

D. Ryneveld: Their ethnicity? We haven't done that, but I know that we have complainants from all ethnicities — aboriginal, Chinese, East Indian….

D. Ryneveld: Yeah. But the numbers are lower in certain ethnicities than in others. Yes, but that may be a matter of representation by population. I'm sorry. I haven't done a sort of study on proportions. No, I haven't done that. I've been busy with other issues.

J. Kwan: Fair enough. I guess that's part of the question around the systemic issue. It would be curious for me to see how many complaints are brought forward by, let's just say for example, those of aboriginal descent relative to our overall population in British Columbia and how that breaks down on a regional basis and so on. It may paint a different picture in terms of issues. I think that aside from the Pivot situation…. You mentioned that this is the first time ever where 50 cases were investigated as such. As far as my recollection, it's the first time ever where 50 cases were presented as such. Therefore, it follows that it would be the first time ever that such an investigation would have taken place.

Having said that, there are also a lot of informal things that may not actually make it to a complaint and are attitudinal questions and may not fall within the realm of a formal complaint that would come before your office. But it does raise questions, though, in terms of whether or not there are other issues related to that. To get to the core of it, all of these pieces need to be put together, in my view, to get a really good sense of what is going on and how to actually try and tackle some of the challenges that may be out there — perceptively or otherwise.

Anyway, just food for thought, and I just want to table that for your consideration. Going back to how all this got started, it was based on the language question. On the outreach question, I certainly would encourage your office, even as you have hearings in different communities, to look into how to reach out to different segments of a community and to encourage other folks from different cultures to come forward — whether it be through advertising in the papers, whether it be letting people know that those forums will be translated so that people can come forward and bring their concerns or perspectives, and so on. It could make a significant difference, I think, over time.

You may not even have a lot of participation initially. Then again, you may. I just don't know. But over time it's letting people know and trying to penetrate in the hearts and minds of people that your office exists; here's your role and here's how you could provide an avenue into accessing and addressing issues of fairness and application through the law enforcers, if you will, in that instance.

It does make a difference. I certainly appreciate budget constraints and your attempts to save money. I fully appreciate that. God knows, everybody's trying to do that, and they're stuck in all sorts of places, including MLAs. I would say that it would be critical for your office to continue that independent role and do the work from your office separate and apart, in my view, from political offices — even though MLA offices are not political by nature, but even then it's the perception of it, which would be critical as well.

J. Kwan: Hopefully, aside from this set of resources, I have no doubt that after this conversation you'll be coming back asking for more money.

D. Ryneveld: Well, I'm just thinking of advertising. I haven't got a budget in there for advertising, but

you're right. In order to do this…. I don't have an outreach budget. I guess I'm trying to do it on the cheap. That may, in fact, be an impediment.

I am fiscally responsible, and I guess I have to decide whether it can be done in an informal, inexpensive way or whether I need to actually launch a bit of a campaign. Frankly, until recently — until Mr. Brown's appointment and our new focus for the coming term on mediation and outreach — translation and advertising…. May I make an oral request now for an additional $15,000 for a combination of advertising and outreach functions — if you would contemplate that?

L. Hubbard: At risk of interrupting Mr. Ryneveld on this, we happen to have some experience in the Ombudsman's office side in terms of advertising, brochure translation. Just on that experience I would say that's a bit of a modest request.

L. Hubbard: The cost of advertising is quite substantial in terms of the presentation yesterday about the mobile intake that we talked about for the Ombudsman's office. I would suggest that to do some advertising, to do some translation into multiple languages, you should be thinking more in the order of $50,000 for a year, if the committee's going to consider that. Obviously, with $15,000 you can do something, but it won't go very far, based on our experience.

J. Kwan: Let me just conclude my last comment around this issue. I think that where MLAs could be of service with your office is to make some suggestions on the outreach program in terms of where and what organizations you might want to contact and on some approaches which you can then consider incorporating into your overall outreach plan. As one MLA, I certainly — and I'm sure others in this room and around the Legislature — would be more than prepared to provide any assistance that I could.

D. Ryneveld: Thank you very much. That's the kind of cooperation and help we're going to need.

M. Karagianis (Deputy Chair): Mindful of the time, thank you very much, Dirk.

I would ask at this time…. It's very apparent from the committee that we're encouraging you very strongly to look at some multilingual translations of your information. I would at this point think it appropriate…. Perhaps you would like to submit a new budget to the committee in view of that consideration.

M. Karagianis (Deputy Chair): Then we'll have a chance to deliberate on that as we move into our discussions.

I know there are some people that wish to speak a second time, but we have actually run out of our time allotted here and have our next presenters waiting. I thank you very much for your presentation, and I look forward to further information from you.

D. Ryneveld: I thank you all for your helpful comments and your interest in the work of the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner. I'm very grateful because this is my only time, really, for feedback — isn't it? I mean, I present to you an annual report, but I really don't get a chance to indulge in dialogue except at this meeting, so thank you again. It's been very helpful to me.

M. Karagianis (Deputy Chair): Committee, we will take a five-minute recess while we set up the room for our next presenters.

M. Karagianis (Deputy Chair): Committee, if we may call the meeting back to order.

Our next presenters are from the Information and Privacy Commissioner. We have David Loukidelis and, again, Lanny Hubbard. David, I will let you make introductions of those other staff you've brought with you, so you may proceed.

With me is Lanny Hubbard, as you've already noted, who provides services with his colleagues to our office, the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner — corporate services. The Office of the Ombudsman also provides information technology services to us under a shared-services arrangement. I just wanted to take the opportunity to thank Lanny personally again today but through him his staff, as well, for the excellent work they do on our behalf in the areas of finance, administration and IT support.

I brought with me today, somewhat unusually for me, some of my colleagues. We have in the audience Darrel Woods and Patrick Egan, both of whom are portfolio officers with our office and recently arrived in our office. In the case of Darrel, he has joined us as a permanent position portfolio officer in the ordinary course of staff turnover. Patrick is with us on a temporary assignment, filling in for one of our colleagues who is on a maternity leave. I thought it would be a good opportunity for them to see how this process works and how our funding proposals are received today. Last but not least, Mary Carlson, who is the director of my office and a longstanding employee in the office, is here to help me answer those questions that

Thank you for being here today to hear from us about the proposal that we've put before you in written form, copies of which, for your ease of reference, have been distributed. They're in the black-covered Cerlox-bound package of materials that you have in front of you. As you'll know from reviewing those materials, I'm here today to seek what I've characterized in the budget proposal as a modest increase in the financial resources available to our office for our responsibilities under three pieces of legislation.

There's the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, in respect of which our office has had an independent oversight and enforcement mandate since 1993. The second statute is the Personal Information Protection Act, which came into force on January 1, 2004. It covers the broad private sector in British Columbia, under which we've had an enforcement and oversight mandate for the last, roughly, two years. And there's the Lobbyists Registration Act, which provides for registration of lobbyists and their activities in British Columbia.

Before I continue and outline the arguments that I want to advance to you in support of the requested increase in funding, I would like just to take a very brief moment to underscore what I would contend is the importance of the office's mandates under the three statutes that I've mentioned.

Under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, of course, the accountability of government — when I say "government," I mean government writ large, because over 2,000 public bodies at all levels in British Columbia are subject to the access-to-information and privacy protection provisions of that statute — is the core direction, if you will, of that legislation.

It, on the one hand, gives the public a right of access to information in the hands of public bodies with a view to ensuring their accountability and their transparency to the citizens that they serve. On the other hand, that legislation also imposes appropriate restraints on the ability of public bodies to collect, use and disclose personal information of citizens through the imposition of the so-called fair information practices, which are internationally recognized — the idea being, of course, to preserve a core of privacy for individuals in relation to the activities of government and the government's use of their personal information.

The role of our office under that legislation is central to its success, I would argue. We provide, at arm's length from government, independent oversight and enforcement of both the access-to-information provisions and the privacy-protection provisions, in the first case by hearing access-to-information appeals from citizens who are unhappy with decisions made by public bodies in response to access-to-information requests and, on the other hand, through investigation and resolution of complaints made by citizens about the privacy practices of public bodies at all levels.

The second piece of legislation I mentioned, the Personal Information Protection Act, is a piece of legislation that can be viewed in the context of international trends towards protection-of-privacy interests in the private sector. That legislation, as I mentioned a moment ago, covers the broad private sector in British Columbia. Some 380,000 for-profit and not-for-profit organizations are covered by the legislation, which in its way requires private sector organizations to comply with internationally accepted norms and rules around the collection, use and disclosure of personal information for commercial or other private sector purposes.

In that respect, our office also plays a key role to ensuring the success of the legislative objective set out in the act. We provide, again, independent enforcement and oversight of compliance by the private sector with the privacy requirements of the Personal Information Protection Act.

In both the public and private sector laws I would argue that our role is becoming even more central to the success of those legislative objectives. In the public sector, for example, we have trends towards more information-sharing for the purpose of integrated service delivery.

We have issues arising around the protection of privacy and access to information in light of new information technologies and the increased move on the part of public sector organizations to electronic forms of records, and to new information systems that collect, use, disclose, share, manipulate, analyze and otherwise deal with personal information. One example is electronic health records and provincial and national initiatives in that respect.

We have new initiatives post-9/11 in the areas of national security and law enforcement respecting information technologies and personal information as it is used by the state. All of these raise ever greater challenges on the policy level. One of the important roles that our office has long fulfilled — and, I think, can offer a much greater value, if you will — to public organizations is to consult with them on their proposed programs, policies or legislation. This is an explicit mandate that we have in the legislation. I think it should be an increasing focus of the office to more proactively try to add value at the policy level in order to ensure that appropriate policy choices are made, which are obviously ultimately up to government, but also thereby to try and be less reactive and to deal with issues before they turn into complaints and come through our door.

Turning to the specifics of the budget proposal before you, I would like to note, as I have done in the introductory portion of the submission, that in its report of December 2003 this committee recommended that for the next fiscal year — that is, fiscal 2006-2007 — the committee should consider reviewing the funding for the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner in light of new statutory responsibilities and what were evident at that time as substantial increases in our workload.

That's essentially what I'm asking you to do today: to review our funding for 2006-2007 and to recommend an increase of $266,000 to enable us to meet the in-

creased demands for our services. This request comes in the context of a more or less steady and certainly significant set of increases in the demands for our services in recent years at a time when we have had to deal with what has to be described as considerable fiscal restraint.

Figure one on page 1 of the written submission before you illustrates in graphic form the trend on the one hand — with our budget for freedom-of-information and protection-of-privacy matters as compared to the case trend there — which shows the budget declining considerably for public sector work in FOI and privacy, while at the same time, especially in this most recent year, caseloads have risen. It similarly illustrates how our personal-information-protection budget — that is, for our work in the private sector under the Personal Information Protection Act — has increased from the initial one-quarter funding in the first part — sorry, I should say the final quarter of 2003-2004 — to where it stands in 2005, as you can see on page 1 in figure one.

Turning to the more recent experience in terms of the demands for our services, on a calendar-year basis, for the first ten months of this year — calendar 2005 — we saw a 24-percent increase in new files for both the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act and Personal Information Protection Act activities. This includes a 20-percent increase for freedom-of-information and protection-of-privacy matters alone, and with formal appeals and complaint investigation files, we saw a roughly 8-percent increase over the first ten months of 2004.

Similarly, in the first ten months of 2005 as compared to the same period last year, for private sector–privacy matters, we saw a 38-percent increase in all files, with a 29-percent increase in formal complaint files. This is, perhaps, as you might expect, because the legislation, as I mentioned a few moments ago — the private sector privacy legislation — came into force just under two years ago on January 1, 2004. As the public has become more aware of the legislation and their rights under it — publicity around concerns, for example, involving identity theft and other forms of personal-information-protection challenges has increased in terms of the media attention in the last couple of years — we are seeing a fairly substantial increase in the number of formal complaint files, as well as other types of cases that come to us.

The backdrop of what I described a moment ago of considerable fiscal restraint flowed, of course, from the December 2001 recommendation of this committee, which came at a time, I should underscore here, when our office had only responsibilities under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. That was really the only work that we did at that time, and I'm setting aside the advent of lobbyist registration as well.

Beginning with fiscal 2002-2003 we had a series of 10-percent, 10-percent and 15-percent cuts, totalling a 35-percent cut in the budget available to us to do our work under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. Even the present funding level for the fiscal year that we are now in, which includes $512,000 that the committee recommended for our significant new duties under the private sector privacy legislation, leaves our budget roughly 5.7 percent lower than it was back in 2001-2002 when, again, we had only freedom-of-information and protection-of-privacy responsibilities in the public sector.

So we have had a substantial new set of responsibilities handed to us in the private sector. We have had funding from the committee, which the committee commendably recommended, starting in fiscal 2004-2005. But we are in a situation where we are still experiencing restraint as compared to the narrower set of duties that we had in 2001-2002.

Because, again, of the substantial — and, I would anticipate with considerable confidence, ongoing — increases in demands for our services, particularly in the private sector area, I am again asking for an increase of $266,000 to enable us to meet our responsibilities under that legislation. This funding would enable us to do two important things. One, it would allow me to hire two more portfolio officers, two of whom are here today, whose responsibilities are primarily focused on the investigation and, wherever possible, mediation of access to information appeals from decisions of public bodies, and to investigate and, where possible, by mediation, resolve complaints made in respect of public sector privacy practices.

They also have responsibility for investigating and resolving — wherever possible, by mediation — privacy complaints relating to private sector organizations. In light of the increased demand for those kinds of services, two portfolio officers would enable us to keep even with the increases that we've seen in those case numbers and to ensure that we don't fall short in fulfilling our statutory responsibilities.

On that score, I should mention here, and this is in the brief for your further reference, that in the last year, as I've noted in my last annual report of August 2005 for the 2004-2005 fiscal year, we had for the first time a significant backlog of cases at year-end. We had 189 cases left open at the end of the fiscal year. We had had a modest number — I think it was 63 cases — at the end of the fiscal year before, but this is the first time in the life of the office that we have really been leaving cases on the table at the end of the fiscal year. My concern there, of course, is that it means that we're not dealing with things in as timely a fashion as, I would argue, the public has a right to expect under the legislation.

The second related point I'll make about the need for two further portfolio officers is that we have, under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, statutory responsibilities — duties, in fact — to resolve access-to-information disputes within 90 days after the filing of the appeal with us. So I have a statutory duty to meet there, and the funding is needed to ensure that wherever possible, we are able to comply with the direction given to us by the Legislature — the

direction that we resolve these matters within 90 days. I should say business days, by the way.

The second objective of the requested funding increase is to enable us to address some of the issues that were being discussed towards the close of the presentation by my colleague the Police Complaint Commissioner around research, education, outreach and support for organizations, both public and private sector. I would like to use the funding requested to create a new position, one FTE, to retain the services of a qualified individual to provide us with research and analysis around access and privacy policy issues, to help us do a better job, quite frankly, of education, outreach and support for public sector organizations and private sector organizations.

I won't take you through it, but if you would like to refer to it later, there is some discussion in the submission around the kinds of support tools that we've worked on over the last year for private sector organizations, for example, and some of the activities that we've undertaken in the public sector.

I can tell you that we do all of these things off the sides of our desks. Quite frankly, more often than I would like, we find those things falling off the sides of our desks. They just simply aren't something that we can get to. The bulk of our work is reactive. We react to access appeals and privacy complaints as they come in, and it inevitably means, because of the time pressures associated with those, that we aren't able to be as proactive as we might like.

To be able to reach out more and support good compliance in both the public and private sector would, I think, go a long way to promoting compliance with the legislation, promoting best practice and, I would argue, even yielding a dividend in reducing the demand for our services through formal appeals that would come through the door. In other words, if we can try and help organizations do a better job of complying through the kinds of support activities that are mentioned in the brief, we will cut our case numbers, or we will at least go some way towards ensuring that the increases in those numbers of formal cases aren't as great as they might otherwise be.

Now, if I could ask you to turn to the key features of the specific budget proposal before you — they're found on page 9 of the written submission — I will just spend a few moments, before concluding, describing for you what exactly we're asking for in terms of the increase in funding. I'll just note, as I move towards this, that figure three on page 9 — I should have mentioned this a moment ago — illustrates the situation on a fiscal-year basis for the office's budgets, beginning with 2001 through to the present fiscal year. I'll refer to that for your later examination, if you think it's useful.

First, a key feature of what we're proposing is the assumption that the present arrangement for shared office space with the Office of the Ombudsman and the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner will continue for the next fiscal year and the two fiscal years following that and that the arrangement for shared services, which I described at the outset, continues for each of those three fiscal years.

Two other points should be made, and they're included in the written material before you. First, a component of the requested funding increase has to do with the fact that, as with most of the other officers of the Legislature, the salaries of the officers are tied by statute to the salary set for the Chief Judge of the Provincial Court. As a result of implementation of the most recent report of the British Columbia Judges Compensation Commission, there will be an impact beginning in the next fiscal year on our budget situation. The $266,000 that I've mentioned a couple of times includes funding to accommodate that statutorily driven increase in salary.

The request for the next year is broken down for you, beginning on page 12. You'll be able to see from the table on page 12, the so-called resource summary, that the present FTE complement in the office is 17 and that the new figures there will take you to 19 for the next fiscal year and, for planning purposes, for the year after. You might be wondering how 17 plus three totals 19. It's not because the math is so bad. It's because the restated estimates for 2005-2006 accurately reflect what had been stated as the estimates. I think what had happened last year was that my position was counted as one of our FTEs, which is not what should be done. Really, we have an FTE complement, for budget purposes, of 16 in the present fiscal year. So 16 plus three does, indeed, equal 19. I just want to assure you that we weren't somehow engaging in a new, new math.

The next table you have in front of you, on page 13, provides a breakdown of the requested funding for the next fiscal year and, for planning purposes, for the two fiscal years following that. Again, the requested amount is $2.477 million. It breaks it down, as we have done for you every year, according to standard objects of budgeting. I don't propose to take you through that but would be happy, in consultation with Lanny Hubbard, to answer any questions you might have about either of those tables.

To conclude, before inviting questions from members of the committee, I would simply like to underscore that bearing in mind what I would readily describe as significant increases in the demand for our services, I would ask the committee to bear in mind its own recommendation from December of 2003 that future committees be open to reviewing the funding for the office in light of increases in demand. I would ask the committee to accept the recommendation we've brought to you today and to recommend the funding increase of $266,000 so that we can ensure that we do the best possible job to serve the citizens of British Columbia. Thank you very much.

I will now open the floor to questions from our committee members. Are there any questions?

R. Lee: Thank you, David, for the presentation. I have a question on the Personal Information Protection Act. We know that Quebec and Alberta have similar

laws. What are the cases of complaints per capita in our province compared to theirs?

D. Loukidelis: I don't have figures that I could cite for you offhand, but I would be happy to actually go out and do my best and respond in writing to what the per-capita figures are. I can tell you — and it's somewhat impressionistic — that we have a considerably greater number of complaints than Alberta does, certainly in the public sector as well as the private sector, even when one compares the populations. I don't think you would find that we're lower than they are, although I would say anecdotally that in Alberta they have had more interesting complaints and many more complaints early on under the personal information protection legislation in the private sector.

We are coming on stream. We have seen, as I mentioned earlier, a pretty sizeable increase in the number of complaints. On the public sector side we get more access-to-information appeals a year in absolute numbers than Ontario does, and we have a third of the population.

R. Lee: Do you have statistics on the sectors? Which sector has more complaints?

D. Loukidelis: Yes, we do have statistics. Again, I can actually provide you that in graphic form. We have pie charts that we can provide to you. I didn't bring them with me today. They would break that down for you by retail sector, landlord-tenant, health sector and so on. I'd be happy to have those to the committee by tomorrow.

D. Hayer: Just looking at your 2006-2007 budget and then also at the changes there, it shows employee benefits of $56,000. That shows about 30 percent of the total. Is that the salaries in item 50? On page 13 — right?

L. Hubbard: The benefits are based on the current chargeback rate. For benefits it's 24 percent of salaries. The increase of $56,000 is 24 percent of the change in STOB 50 and STOB 54. If you add STOB 50 to STOB 54 and then take 24 percent of that, you'd get the number in STOB 52.

D. Hayer: The second part is, looking at the budget of '05-06 to '06-07 and the change of $266,000…. That's about a 12-percent increase. Do you have any idea of looking at any projections for '08-09? Will you be looking at maybe staying within the budget, or will you expect, probably, another 12-percent increase per year or something? Will that sort of backfill because you've got extra work? Should we stabilize it?

D. Loukidelis: Well, consistent with the direction of the committee from some years back, we're quite happy to continue to work on a sort of three-year rolling planning and proposal horizon. Similar to some of the comments that the Police Complaint Commissioner made towards the end of his presentation, my preference is to ask the committee at this time to keep the status quo for 2008-2009 but to be open to hearing from us at this time next year if the ongoing increase in demand for services that I anticipate does, in fact, turn out to be so much or high enough that we come back to you and say: "Look. We need more money."

I'm not saying that we will do that. I'd rather just wait and see rather than predicting now that yes, I'll be back asking for money, because I may not be. Experience, I think, will really drive that. I don't want to come unnecessarily and ask for funding that I don't really need.

L. Hubbard: There is one aspect of the budget projections that, even for '06-07, does not include any impact of a general salary increase to the public service.

L. Hubbard: We don't know what that might be, and rather than try and guess at it, what we've proposed to the committee, at least in respect of the offices of the Information and Privacy Commissioner, Police Complaint Commissioner and the Ombudsman, is that the committee simply recognize that that's an impact that will become known. Whether it's known by the time the budget estimates are actually put to bed…. If the committee can simply recognize that impact, we would just have to adjust the salary numbers based on the FTEs that are approved. Obviously, whatever impact that has would carry forward into future years.

M. Karagianis (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much. We actually have recognized that and discussed it in previous presentations, so we'll keep that in mind as well.

J. Kwan: With the budget proposal that you've brought before us, part of the issue centres around the lengthy delay, if you will, which you recognize in your proposal, as well, for people to access the information in a timely fashion. Will this budget proposal address that concern effectively?

D. Loukidelis: I hope and trust that it will. Certainly, the way we've organized our operations to date in meeting the demands under the public sector and the private sector legislation is to have everybody doing everything, if you will, by contrast to the situation

in my Alberta colleague's office, for example, where they have a Personal Information Protection Act team for the private sector, and they have a public sector team. Our staff, largely because of the size of the complement…. It made more sense to me to have them bringing their privacy experience from the public sector to bear on the private sector issues that have arisen. I just hope and believe that with the addition of these further two FTEs, we will be that much more able to meet the demand.

At present, for example, on a per–portfolio officer basis, there's a caseload of 54 cases of all kinds, on average, which is an all-time high for the office. It stands to reason that if we're able to add to the complement of portfolio officers, they'll be better placed to deal with those things in a timely manner, including access to information.

J. Kwan: Based on your experience to date, are you finding that requests for information may have been impacted because of the fee issue? Do you have any sense around that?

D. Loukidelis: If I could just add a gloss before I proceed with that. When I say 54 cases per portfolio officer, that's not on an annual basis; at any given time they have a caseload of 54 files, including those with the time constraints under the access-to-information provisions.

I don't have any figures — because we don't get central figures or figures from the provincial government or other public bodies that really would illuminate this — that the imposition of fees is any different now than it was two years ago, for example, or that it's having any impact on the right of access. There is no fee at present — and I think that's appropriate — for anyone to make an actual request to a public body for access to records. There is no fee to make an appeal to our office.

The question is whether fees for photocopying of records and so on are having an impact. I wouldn't want to say even on an impressionistic basis that they are. I certainly have heard the allegations that they are. I would hope this is something that, if we continue to hear these allegations, we would be in a position to undertake a systemic audit and review of.

That is one of the other things that I should mention we have not done. We have an audit function under both pieces of legislation. We simply…. Well, we've never really done an audit. In 1997 the previous commissioner undertook an audit of the B.C. Cancer Agency, but it was not the kind of full-blown, rigorous audit that is available to us.

I think we could use those powers to audit the information practices of public bodies in, for example, a remedial, not punitive, way to help them understand better that as they adopt new information technologies, there are ways of doing this. We would try to add value through that. That's another aspect of our statutory authority that I think we could use to great effect that we just simply haven't been able to take up, to date.

D. Loukidelis: Yes, it is, and specifically because we don't have the expertise in-house to do it. I would have to build that expertise and perhaps seek it from outside, as well, on a contract basis. So that's another thing that…. You know, the FTE for research and outreach wouldn't directly relate to the audit function, but it's just another example of how, if we had resources, they would be able to be exercised.

J. Kwan: Perhaps it would be useful for the committee if some information could be brought forward for the committee's consideration on such an audit, some estimation of what the cost would be and the cost benefits of such an audit in terms of how to improve access to information for the public. That would be very useful.

J. Kwan: Thank you. And if you could then send that information to the Clerk's office, that could be distributed to all members through the committee as well.

On a separate question, although related: of course there are areas which now are exempt from freedom of information, on which I think it would be critical for British Columbians to have access to information in various areas. One such area comes to mind; it's a huge project that the government is undertaking. That, of course, is the Olympics. I wonder whether or not you have any views around that in terms of access to information or the inability to access information around the Olympics.

D. Loukidelis: I think there are two ways of looking at that question. Certainly, as a backdrop to those two perspectives, I think one has to remember that the legislative purpose of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, as I indicated earlier, is to make public bodies more accountable to the public. That is explicitly a legislative goal set out in section 2 of the legislation: to make public bodies more accountable to the public. Of course, it all turns on whether or not an organization that is the steward of and has the authority to expend taxpayer dollars has been designated as a public body under the legislation.

There have been discussions around whether or not the Vancouver Olympics organizing committee for 2010 should be designated as a public body. The argument in response has been that it is an intergovernmental body and that it simply doesn't meet the criteria set out in the legislation, the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, for designation as a public body.

That doesn't mean that it wouldn't be possible to legislatively provide for application of the legislation to

the organizing committee, so that's one perspective. If you have large amounts of public funds that are being spent on behalf of the public, the question of transparency and accountability for the expenditure of those funds can be addressed — absolutely. Certainly, that has been the approach taken in other respects.

To give another example of a large project involving significant capital sums, the rapid transit line to the Vancouver Airport, RAV — I don't know the specific corporate name — has been designated as a public body under the legislation. So certainly it's possible, and if you bear in mind the legislative objective of the act, one can see a strong argument in favour of that.

The second perspective is that any records in the custody or control of any government ministry, including the Ministry of Finance, relating to any underwriting of risk or guaranteeing of costs on behalf of the taxpayers are subject to the access-to-information provisions of the legislation. There is coverage. Not directly, but as it stands, there is coverage for those records that are in the custody or control of the Ministry of Finance or any other ministry — for example, the Ministry of Transportation in respect of Sea to Sky Highway upgrades related to transportation needs in the lower mainland.

M. Karagianis (Deputy Chair): David, just taking that question one step further, what is your position around freedom of information on private contracts like the Maximus or EDS contracts? Do you see the definition being extended to those contracts in the same way as you were discussing on the Olympics, the RAV or the Sea to Sky projects?

D. Loukidelis: Any service arrangement that results in records being in the custody or control of a public body, including a ministry, in relation to one of the outsourcing arrangements you've mentioned, would be subject to the access-to-information provisions of the legislation. They would be caught already.

M. Karagianis (Deputy Chair): In the case of some of the fines that have been levied against Maximus, which are still being held in confidence, what role can you see there for your office?

D. Loukidelis: Well, as I say, the contracts would be caught in the sense that someone could make an access-to-information request for a copy of any given contract. That would include a contract that provided for fines for a service provider. Then the public body in question would consider whether or not any of the exceptions to the right of access applied and would issue that decision. If the access requester wasn't happy with the outcome, they would then have the liberty to appeal to our office for a review of that decision. We would go through the ordinary process and come to a resolution and decision around whether or not the decision to withhold certain parts or not was appropriate.

Seeing none, David, may we offer you congratulations on your reappointment. Thank you very much for appearing with us today and answering our questions.

D. Loukidelis: Thank you. I will provide written answers to the questions committee members have asked. I certainly appreciate the trust and confidence that members of the selection committee — and, as well, all members — have shown me. I'll do my best in the coming years to live up to that trust and confidence. Thank you.

M. Karagianis (Deputy Chair): We do have one further piece of business before we adjourn the meeting. This comes from our rise-and-report motion of yesterday.

M. Karagianis (Deputy Chair): No, it's not required for us to go in camera. In fact, I am simply going to report out on the RFP that this committee undertook to provide an auditor to audit the Auditor General. That's not a sentence I'd want to say really fast too many times.

We did have a number of extraordinarily excellent applications, but I am about to announce that the contract has been awarded to Grant Thornton. They were the successful applicant. I thank the committee for their work. Those submissions that came to us were excellent, and I thank those companies for their interest.

That does actually conclude the business for today. I would look for a motion to adjourn.

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Committee Staff:	Josie Schofield (Committee Research Analyst)

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