2008 Legislative Session: Fourth Session, 38th Parliament

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON FINANCE AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES

MINUTES AND HANSARD

MINUTES SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON FINANCE AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

3 p.m.

Douglas Fir Committee Room

Parliament Buildings, Victoria, B.C.

Present: Randy Hawes, MLA (Chair); Bruce Ralston, MLA (Deputy Chair); Robin Austin, MLA; Harry Bloy, MLA; Dave S. Hayer, MLA; John Horgan, MLA; Richard T. Lee, MLA; John Rustad, MLA; Diane Thorne, MLA; John Yap, MLA

1. The Chair called the Committee to order at 3:05 p.m.

2.The following witness appeared before the Committee and answered questions:

3. Resolved, that the Committee meet in-camera to discuss its draft report to the House. (John Horgan, MLA)

4. The Committee met in-camera from 3:58 p.m. to 4:11 p.m.

5. The Committee adjourned to the call of the Chair at 4:11 p.m.

The following electronic version is for informational purposes only.

The printed version remains the official version.

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS
(Hansard)

select standing committee on
Finance and Government Services

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Issue No. 94

ISSN 1499-4178

[ Page 2231 ]

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2008

The committee met at 3:05 p.m.

[R. Hawes in the chair.]

R. Hawes (Chair): This afternoon we're going to hear from the conflict commissioner as to his budget request for next year. With that short introduction, I'll turn it over to Mr. Fraser.

We're awaiting your pearls of wisdom.

Office of the
Conflict-of-Interest Commissioner

P. Fraser: Thank you, Mr. Hawes.

I appreciate the opportunity to meet with the members of the committee. Fortunately, I'm not meeting you for the first time — but for the first time as a group like this, in any event. I'm obviously pleased to be here and report to you, to some extent, on the activities of my office in the 11 months that I have been privileged to be there.

I've included in the material that was circulated through Craig James both the proposal and some backup information, which I hope you've had an opportunity to read. For many of you, the information will be old, but for some of you, the information may be valuable in terms of understanding what our actual resources are and, from that, what our commitments are or have to be going forward.

The basic organization of the office is that we sit there as a group of three people in the red-brick building — two executive assistants who together share a full-time position and a researcher who is in the office three days a week. My job, as I think you all know, is done on a part-time basis. It's been ramped up from the days of my predecessor, who was working at a 50 percent FTE quotient.

Last year this committee took the decision that the position would be increased to a 0.75 position. The result of all of that, of course, has had an impact on our budget. The salaries and benefit portion of our budget make up 78 percent of the total. The staff support salaries have been maintained at a consistent level over many years. The commissioner salary is now, because of the 75 percent commitment, larger than it has previously been. As you will all know, the current fiscal year's budget was presented by my predecessor, so I am really the adoptive parent of that document but the steward, nevertheless, of what's contained in it.

I've met — as you will know, because of the obligation I have to supervise the public disclosure of all members of the House — with all members in the course of the last several weeks. The public disclosure documents, which are now completed, will be filed with the Clerk of the House on Friday of this week.

As you will also know, my other responsibilities involve meeting confidentially with members, who seek my advice from time to time. My responsibilities to the public include providing opinions and dealing with inquiries, which are received from time to time.

So there is a bifurcation, as I see it, of the responsibility of the office I hold. First, it's the guardian of the public interest, which is the first imperative, and the ancillary imperative, as I see it, is that I am a resource and a counsellor for those members of the assembly who wish to access my services.

The legislation, as you know, was conceived and set up to give meaning to the public's right to know that members of the Legislature conduct their business only in the public interest, free from a conflict of interest, privately.

Based on my experience so far, I'm satisfied that the public can have confidence that the system is working. I appreciate that we're involved here in a budget exercise, but I think it's important, when I have the rare opportunities that are given to me, to express views that I think the public might be interested in knowing, when it comes to the members who sit in this House and do their business.

[1510]

I noted in the annual report that was filed by my predecessor, tabled in the House in May of this year, that he said, at page 16, that it had been his experience over the past ten and a half years that Members of the Legislative Assembly are honourable, honest and well-intentioned people who have entered public life with the objective of being of service to their fellow citizens, and who would not knowingly conduct themselves in a manner that contravened the act.

I imagine that if we have unanimity on anything today, we can have unanimity on that issue, but I want to say that I agree with that expression, which isn't simply a glimpse of the obvious. In terms of my working knowledge and what I've learned about the members in the House in the last 11 months, it seems to me that that comment is quite valid.

The operational aspects of the office have changed somewhat in the last 11 months. We are still in the process of some change. We are in the process of tooling up to cope with the information flow. Information is the currency of the work that we do. We have seen the introduction over the last 11 months — and the numbers reflect this — of such new inventions as the Internet, laptop computers, the scanner, BlackBerrys and cell phones.

So while my predecessor, who was a great fan of Charles Dickens, wouldn't mind me saying this…. I think that we're now closing on the late '70s or the early '80s in terms of coming to grips with the technological age.

All of that has been exciting for all of us. We previously enjoyed a situation, I think, where the institutional
[ Page 2232 ]
memory was reposed in an individual who had done a great deal of work, as I think we all know, counselling members of the House, writing confidential opinions.

Now what has happened in the aftermath of that is that we have been able to get our hands around some of this information, put it in a situation where we have been able to gather it, where we can now refer to it and retrieve it and then, obviously, use it. So those efforts are continuing.

We've also in the current fiscal year — and this wasn't contemplated at the time that the budget was approved — established an office in the Lower Mainland to provide some easier access to members who are on the mainland in British Columbia and also to relieve some of the travel and expense costs related to it in terms of my commuting back and forth from the Lower Mainland.

We have done a review of all of the processes within the office, and where there have been economies that could be achieved, of course, you would want to know that we've done that. We have looked at the experience of other jurisdictions where experience is relevant to our own situation, and our proposed budget contemplates that our staffing resources and information technology will continue to be enhanced so that we can build on what we've started in the last 11 months, and our ability to respond to both confidential and public requests in a timely way will be increased.

So we're talking about the addition, really, of permanent resources that will better enable us to do our work and provide us with the necessary information resources. The resource summary that I've given you recites the history of the current budget. You will see at page 4 there, and among your papers otherwise, that last year the committee originally was asked for a total budget of $322,000. The amounts were broken down on page 4 and were in three categories: salaries and benefits, operating costs, and other expenses.

[1515]

The committee considered that budget and the presentation that had been made by Mr. Oliver and in its deliberations dealt with the events that had occurred post-budget submission.

In the budget submission the salary and benefits portion — not to become mired in detail, but just to give you an indication of how events have altered the situation…. The commissioner's salary was tendered at $108,000. Staff salary is at $99,000 and benefits at $30,000 for a total of $237,000.

It was acknowledged in the course of Mr. Oliver's presentation and the colloquy that occurred among members that the budget assumed that the commissioner would continue to be at a 0.5 FTE rate, or half-time. Mr. Oliver alerted the committee to the fact that if that were to change, then obviously the numbers would increase. When it did change, the committee responded and in December of last year recommended an increase of $62,000 to the budget to account for what had occurred and to effectively accommodate my salary.

The office's budget, on a practical ongoing basis, accepted the $62,000, which was ultimately approved, and added that entirely to the salaries and benefits budgetary category, which as I said earlier now makes up 78 percent of our total budget. So the total amount that had been approved by the committee was $384,000.

As it has turned out, because of the terms and conditions of my appointment and the fact that the salary was and is tied to that of the Chief Judge of the Provincial Court and includes benefits that are otherwise available to officers of the Legislative Assembly, there has been a gap between what was awarded by the committee and what the actual hard cost has been for salary and benefits in our office. That funding gap for salaries and benefits in the current year is $21,000. That, in my terms, is a non-discretionary amount in the sense that the salaries are what they are in terms of the agreements that have been put in place and the entitlement of staff members under their terms of employment.

On the operating side, the annual cost of the Lower Mainland office — which, incidentally, is unstaffed and is simply connected electronically to the Victoria office, effectively as a kind of home office for me, but not in my home — is approximately $15,000. I expect that the spending in the category of other expenditure, which was the tertiary category that was presented in the budget, will be within budget. That amount was designated at $12,000.

My best expectation — and I'm sorry that I can't be any more clear than that — is that in this current fiscal year we may exceed our budget by approximately $36,000, or a total of 9.1 percent, with the total funds that we would spend likely to be as much as $420,000. If you back out of that 9.1 percent experience, the salary gap that I've referred to, then the overspending that potentially could occur would be roughly 3.6 percent over what has been given to us as a budget.

I'm at the point where I, of course, have made economies and moved things around. What we've taken out of one category and invested in new equipment and new supplies and new services, we've taken from some other areas, and at the end of the fiscal year, it may be that our performance will be better than what I've just said.

[1520]

Although I'm a novice at this kind of process, I assume that it's important to the committee to know what, potentially, is the result in this current year. So as a result of the $21,000 salary gap and as a result of the additional operating expense, which may be softened by savings and economies that we're able to make in other areas, it seems to me that a worst-case scenario is $36,000. Frankly, a more likely scenario is that it will be less than that.

Moving forward, then, into the forthcoming fiscal year and the two years beyond, what I have set out on
[ Page 2233 ]
page 7 of the material that you have is a series of categories, the same as before — apples to apples in the sense that it's salaries and benefits, operating costs and other expenditures — which I would propose this year would be $440,000, having just told you that I expect that we will this year spend as much as $420,000.

So what we're asking for is an increase of about 4.7 percent over what the expected results for this year may be. These numbers take into account what we have gathered as experience in this fiscal year. They also take into account the fact that we have known hard costs for salaries and benefits. They assume that the present staffing levels will continue. We know what the committed increases are for members of the staff and for the commissioner relative to the rights and entitlements of the Chief Judge of the Provincial Court.

The salaries and benefits portion of the proposed budget, which come to $325,000, are in fact exactly what we will have spent this year at the end of the fiscal year, with the increases that I've just mentioned built in. The operating costs are $95,000, and that represents an increase of about $22,000 from the budget that you approved last year in that category. That $22,000 is made up of $15,000 for the expenses connected with the Lower Mainland office and about $7,000 which I expect we'll probably have to spend to finish the technological enhancement that we have undertaken.

The other $20,000 expenditure, which is up $8,000 from the budget that you approved last year in that category, is essentially for us to retain counsel from time to time as may be necessary in order to get our work done and to deal with complaints and opinions that we have underway in the office. Some of them are intensive in the sense that they require interviewing. They require work on the ground in order to make sure that everything is investigated in the sense that the allegations can be understood to either have been proven or not.

That extra amount represents, I suppose, for me, the buffer between having adequate resources in terms of folks that are legal-trained and able to perform in terms of doing that sort of work and what we, till now, have had. In a sense, what we're doing is…. We're outsourcing that kind of work where we can, in circumstances where we're trying very hard to be cost-effective.

This office now has, I think, a well-deserved reputation over a couple of decades of being nimble and being lean in financial terms and being careful about money.

Mr. Chair, that's the best I can do in terms of telling you what has happened, what may happen to the end of this year and what, in my respectful view, should happen in the three years that we have under consideration.

[1525]

R. Hawes (Chair): Thank you.

Questions.

H. Bloy: Thanks for your presentation. Do you have a capital allowance in your budget? I don't see any mention of it.

P. Fraser: I don't know the answer to that, and I'm embarrassed to tell you I don't. But I'm not embarrassed to say that I'm a rookie when it comes to an understanding of those kinds of entitlements. I've never seen an entry in my budget which has been called capital entitlement.

D. Thorne: Thank you, Paul. I see that you have a Vancouver office now. You've referred to it as a way to save on travel costs or for convenience.

P. Fraser: Yes.

D. Thorne: Has anybody looked at whether you've actually saved $15,000 since you've had the Vancouver office?

P. Fraser: Well, I can tell you that what we have done is…. Comparing this year to last, we have saved on the travel component. The arrangement that past commissioners — or at least the past commissioner — and myself have had is that we are able to live in Vancouver and commute. I have found that my time in Victoria has been…. There have been more days spent here than there were last year. But there have been fewer costs in the sense that the travel has been by ferry and not by other, more expensive means.

The responsive answer to your question is that I expect that by the end of the year we will be able to demonstrate that on the margin the office has been successful on a pure cost basis, without attributing anything for convenience, availability and the chance to be able to respond in a timely way to the large number of members who are over on the mainland.

I can't put a value on that. I don't think, in raw terms, we're certainly going to recover the $15,000 savings from travel, but I think we're going to make enough of a recovery that, added with those other more or less intangibles, the decision was a good one.

D. Thorne: Okay. I am unaware myself how many of the independent officers have some kind of facility on the other side for convenience or for whatever. But it's an interesting concept that if this was something that could be shared or something we might save some money…. I realize that there are a lot of intangibles, but today we are just looking at the monetary, really.

P. Fraser: Well, I appreciate your question because, frankly, it was the source of a certain amount of frustration for me. I am aware that at least three of the other officers have offices in Vancouver. We all know that their
[ Page 2234 ]
operations are considerably larger than mine, but they have offices there for good and valid reasons.

The frustration arose because I hoped that I might be able to piggyback onto that. Then there were reasons having to do with security of information, security of files, access to files and that sort of thing that started to loom up. But I thought those could be solved if we made arrangements for me to have a room, which is really all I now have, in a facility — not a minister's office, not anything that would be inappropriate, but even a government agent's office over there.

I attempted to get a place that would be sort of ten by 12 with a lock on the door. After about four months we gave up. Just finding that kind of facility — it was in the haystack — became impossible. So I'm in one of those executive office arrangements, you know, where 20 of your neighbours won't be there next month, but you are.

D. Thorne: Perhaps 40 by next month.

P. Fraser: It could be. What time is it now?

[1530]

R. Austin: I just had a question following up on Harry's question. When you come to Victoria, you stay in a hotel here, and you have to, obviously, feed yourself. Does that come out of your operating budget, then, if you don't have a capital allowance for when you come over here?

P. Fraser: Yes, it comes out of the budget.

R. Austin: Okay, so by having the office of $15,000 in Vancouver and not having to come here, you will save not just the travel expenses but you will save all of the daily costs of hotels and food as well?

P. Fraser: Yes.

R. Austin: That should be quite a saving. I notice when we met in Penticton, you temporarily used an office in a law firm.

P. Fraser: Yes.

R. Austin: Chances are there are going to be a lot more empty offices in law firms, and you have a lot of contacts as a former judge.

P. Fraser: No, not a former judge.

R. Austin: Sorry. I don't suppose any of the legal firms are willing to rent you space on the days when you do need to meet with a member on the Lower Mainland.

P. Fraser: No, because of…. It sounds fussy, but it really isn't. Because there are security concerns, and the Law Society insists that…. Given the confidentiality that all of us have to live with, trying to do something like that and maintain even a separate, locked premise, frankly, just wouldn't work.

I take your point with respect to housing one's self. Fortunately, at this point in time, I've been able to negotiate an advantageous rate over here, and things have not reached a point where I think it would be in the public's fiscal interest for me to take an apartment. If we do reach that point, then of course that decision will be taken, but for now…. I inherited an arrangement that my predecessor had, and it's quite affordable. I won't tell you the name of the hotel for obvious reasons. But that does come out of the budget and is not separate.

J. Horgan: Just before I direct some questions at the commissioner, I'm wondering…. My memory of the previous commissioner's presentation last year was that the committee was anticipating changes, particularly in the FTE component and salary, but I'm curious how we address a budget overrun which the office will be facing. Is there a technical answer to that one from the Clerk?

C. James (Clerk Assistant and Clerk of Committees): If I might clarify, if there is a cost overrun anticipated or unforeseen — a cost overrun on the part of any of the statutory officers that appear before the committee — and they describe the overrun, the committee then would either recommend, or not, to the House that that cost overrun be approved by way of a report to the House. Then that amount of money would turn into a supplementary estimate in the spring when the Committee of Supply is dealing with these matters.

J. Horgan: So in this instance, the expected, anticipated overrun will be part of the supplementary estimates and will be dealt with separately from the application for next year's budget? Okay. And I'm assuming the commissioner was aware of that?

P. Fraser: Sort of.

J. Horgan: He certainly is now.

P. Fraser: From my point of view, what I simply wanted to do was to tell you what's happened so that you could fairly be in possession of all of the facts when you came to understand whether what I'm asking for, for next year makes any sense or not.

J. Horgan: I'm just curious because in my three years on the committee, this is the first time that this has come up. It's a modest amount. When the previous commissioner made his presentation anticipating your arrival,
[ Page 2235 ]
we did have an expectation that there would be some movement in the numbers. That's happened, and that's fine, but I just didn't know how we administered that. So that's clear for me.

I understand, Commissioner, that your mandate is by statute, and the Legislature would be the place where any changes to that mandate would come. As you're new to the job and you've been doing your own research to compare our legislation and your activities in British Columbia with other jurisdictions, I'm wondering if this budget would allow you to do any extraordinary investigation to determine whether or not B.C. is still a leader in conflict-of-interest legislation or whether there is an opportunity for improvements in certain areas or an expansion of the mandate.

Again, I realize, Members, that that would be our job and responsibility ultimately, but we would certainly benefit from direction or advice through your annual reports, and I'm wondering if this budget would allow for that.

[1535]

P. Fraser: Yes, it does. It assumes, actually, an ongoing group of things that we're doing that includes the point that you've just made in terms of people's time assignments and what they're being asked to do and produce. The numbers are already in here.

J. Horgan: And would that be under "Other expenditures, retaining counsel," or would you consider that to be part of your salary and your responsibilities as commissioner?

P. Fraser: Both, but largely within my mandate. We've looked at the 18 annual reports that have been submitted over the years. All of them have contained recommendations for change. We've looked at the landscape across the country. We're aware and now have been able to accumulate the information that tells us what is happening in other places.

We're part of two organizations, one Canadian and the other North America–wide, that give us that kind of information as well. I see that as — if you like, without being pretentious — my CEO kind of responsibility in terms of where we might think about trying to go in this province — in terms of new legislation, in terms of incorporating new ideas. We've even referred to private members' bills from distinguished private members of the House who have had things to say about the way in which the system is now run.

To be very practical about it, what I have attempted to do is gather together a list of areas where I think, based on what the members tell me and what I can see, we need some kind of reform. I think it's very difficult in this area to ask or to want to ask a government of the day to sponsor that kind of legislation. I think it's much better conceptually if we can develop the kind of rapport on both sides of the House that would be necessary to do so.

If we can take a group of interested members and discuss carefully and reflectively what might happen in certain areas and then, hopefully, bring everybody within the committee to a single conclusion about what areas require reform and what conceivably we might do. That kind of initiative is one that I'm hoping to take. The soundings that I've had with members on both sides of the House have all been positive.

I think that in terms of the calendar and where we are now and where all or some of us may be in June of next year, we might be wiser to wait and have the first meeting then. But we're thinking about it and getting ready for that first meeting, which I'm looking forward to.

D. Hayer: Where is the office in the Lower Mainland?

P. Fraser: It's in the city of Surrey. I know that'll disappoint you, Dave.

D. Hayer: That's good. City of Surrey residents always tell me they'd like to have more government offices, so this is a start — a small office. I would like to see some other government offices moving there.

My question is: when you are looking at this $15,000 savings, are you looking at the MLAs from the Lower Mainland area not having to travel to Victoria to meet with you, so they can meet from there? Does that conserve $15,000 in savings, or is it purely just your own travel savings you're looking at?

P. Fraser: It's both. Obviously, only my own savings would be reflected in the budget. And I should say that the $15,000 is probably, thinking about it, an overstatement. We spent, I think, $3,000 on furniture which we had to acquire, and the rent is $12,000.

[1540]

Essentially, I have found that if I'm in the Lower Mainland office, then I'm able to service personally. I find that meeting with members personally is infinitely better than speaking on the phone if the issue is quite important. I have found that being there is of assistance in getting to see people quickly and easily and not trying to make arrangements here in Victoria, which are sometimes not easily made.

The jury is out. At the moment it seems that the system is working, and it's good value. Providing that we can continue to justify that year over year, then I would think that the office should continue. Along the way, I have tried to make some economies in other areas. Whether we will be altogether successful in doing that, I won't know until the end of this current fiscal year.

I'm sorry to carry on, but the other sort of contingency aspect of what we do is that all of this, as I think
[ Page 2236 ]
we know, could become almost a dead letter if there was suddenly some very significant complaint that arose or some very significant investigation that had to be conducted. While we don't have a rainy-day fund for that sort of thing, it's always something that's in the back of our minds in terms of trying to protect our limited ability to be able to respond.

D. Hayer: If some issue does come up, you can always come back to the committee at that time to say, "Look, this is what the budget is," and the committee will take a look at it and probably approve it anyway because of the type of need.

My other question is…. You said you'd look at the other jurisdictions — at their conflict-of-interest officers, their commissioners. In your opinion, up to now how are we? Are we at about the same level or a much lower level or a higher level?

P. Fraser: Well, many of the jurisdictions have legislation that's essentially modelled after ours. In some jurisdictions the legislation was simply copied, literally word for word.

I think that by the beginning of this century the legislation across the country would have been almost uniform as each jurisdiction decided to come on. I think we understand that Ontario was the first jurisdiction, not by much but by a little bit, to set up an office like ours. We were second, and along the way, many people observed, in the House and outside the House, that our provisions and our legislation basically set the standard for the country. I think that's not an overstatement.

What has happened, though, since the year 2000 is that there has been, not to be misunderstood, less purity in the role of a pure Conflict-of-Interest Commissioner. Many of the commissioners are doing a number of things. Many of their offices are doing a number of things that include all kinds of regulatory work. Some of them are also dealing with lobbyists. They're dealing in many cases with conflict of interest as it relates to public servants, beyond members of the Legislature.

I think it's a fair response to your very worthwhile question to say that in British Columbia the attention of this office is stabled to the Legislature and to the members of the Legislature and to the work that they do. People will have to judge for themselves whether it has been effective or not in that limited role. I make no comment about that.

J. Yap: Thank you, Commissioner, for your presentation. A couple of questions. The $15,000 budgeted for the Metro Vancouver office. I wasn't here last year with the committee. Was that part of the budget submission last year?

P. Fraser: No, it was not.

J. Yap: This was something added during the past year, when you arrived and you took a look at this and decided it was probably important to have a local office.

P. Fraser: It was, yes.

[1545]

J. Yap: Was the intent to handle that within your existing budget and then come to this committee at this time, once you've had a bit of experience with it?

P. Fraser: That certainly was the intent and, indeed, the hope. Quite frankly, I think that if we had not had what I call the budget gap on the salary, we might have been able to accomplish that. We may still be able to do that. But the salary gap is not something that I expect that we can overcome.

J. Yap: So if I understand the request here, your present budget is $384,000 for the current fiscal year, but you're estimating that you will come in around $420,000 — a large part of that because of the non-discretionary salary change. Your request before us for the next fiscal year, '09-10, is $440,000. Is that correct?

P. Fraser: Yes, $20,000, or 4.7 percent.

J. Yap: A $20,000 increase from your actual estimated for this year.

P. Fraser: Yes.

R. Lee: Thank you, Commissioner. My question is on the capital expenditure on the equipment and services to store this information. Is that a one-time cost expenditure, or does it spread out over a few years? How much do you spend this year and next year?

P. Fraser: How much do we spend initially?

R. Lee: Yeah, this year.

P. Fraser: I'm trying to separate in my mind lease costs from acquisition costs. My sense would be that the total amount that we have spent on capital acquisition would be somewhere in the area of $7,500. The remaining funds that we have spent would be based on lease. Some of the stuff that we've got you could only lease, so I found out; you can't buy. That would be, more or less, the breakdown.

R. Lee: Do you spend more this year than in the coming year?

P. Fraser: My anticipation is that we will probably spend no more on the capital side in the forthcoming year than we have in this year.
[ Page 2237 ]

R. Lee: Okay. So it's covered by the operating cost of $95,000?

P. Fraser: Yes. That is a lift of roughly $22,000 from what it was in the past budget. So $7,000 of that $22,000 is what I've attributed to equipment and services on the IT side for this year.

B. Ralston (Deputy Chair): My question is a little bit different one. I'm wondering if the outgoing commissioner retains any work that he has yet to complete. Or are all of his files closed off and transferred to you?

P. Fraser: No. There is one file which was ongoing that he didn't complete, which is underway in terms of the work that we're doing and the information that we're gathering, but there is only that one file that he had any involvement with. Yes, I'm certain of that.

B. Ralston (Deputy Chair): So are there any financial implications with that? I mean, he's obviously not on the payroll anymore, but if he's still working on a file, how does that work? Is he billing out at an hourly rate? Or is he…?

P. Fraser: No. I'm sorry. I haven't responded appropriately to your question. I'm really just saying that the file that we continue to work on was one that was opened whilst he was the commissioner.

B. Ralston (Deputy Chair): Oh, I see.

P. Fraser: When he left office, any active involvement by him in that file ceased.

B. Ralston (Deputy Chair): Oh, I see. Okay. So that's the only file that has transitioned from him to you.

P. Fraser: Yes.

B. Ralston (Deputy Chair): Okay, thank you. That clears it up.

R. Hawes (Chair): Commissioner, for a point of clarification for myself…. Last year's budget when, exclusive of the change in your salary, the operating component was $73,000…. You spent $15,000 opening the new office, but other than that, you would've lived within the $73,000, I'm assuming?

P. Fraser: Yes.

R. Hawes (Chair): And that $73,000 includes your travel here, your meal allowance or hotels or your incremental costs of your being in Victoria?

P. Fraser: Yes.

R. Hawes (Chair): The $15,000 in the Surrey office will create savings off of the $73,000 for this year, hopefully, so I'm still confused, then, about why the lift to $95,000 is required on the operating side.

[1550]

P. Fraser: Well, the $22,000 lift puts in $15,000 for the Surrey office.

R. Hawes (Chair): But it doesn't seem to acknowledge any savings that accrue back on the other side for having that office. I'm just wondering where those savings are. They don't seem to be reflected in the budget.

P. Fraser: I take your…. What I've given you is sort of macro numbers. In fact, in the minutiae that gets developed within our office as to how we actually spend the money within these categories, we've turned the dials, such that the savings that are the result of having the Surrey office are reflected in a diminution of what we would otherwise have spent on certain other things. We're not talking about, really, very much….

R. Hawes (Chair): We're not talking about much money, but I guess…. I don't know how much, in this committee, we should be talking about materiality. There is, I guess, also how we deal with other independent officers. So do we talk about the materiality of the change to your overall budget, or do we talk about it in terms outside of your budget and we don't relate it back to your budget?

A $15,000 change in your budget actually is very, very material — right? So do we consider it that way or not? I guess the committee will decide. I'm just asking for my own edification, because I know there are supposed to be savings. And if the savings are there but being expended on something that is outside of what you've discussed here in your budget…. Even though it's minutiae, I'd sort of have liked to have known what that was.

Then the other expenditures category is jumping, too, I see. Can I ask this question? The $36,000 that you're projecting for this year that's an overage…. You're not sure whether you're going to get there or not, I take it.

P. Fraser: Well, I know that we've got a $21,000 nut.

R. Hawes (Chair): Definitely. We know that. We can see that one, yeah.

P. Fraser: So we've got that one on that side of the ledger. We've got, frankly, some savings that we're going to be achieving in other areas within the budget. But we have a commitment that we have made and expended, which is hard, for the equipment for the Surrey office and its rent for that year.
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We're not going to come in on a balanced basis; I'm certain of that. The question is going to be whether we're able to, within the fiscal year, essentially absorb the additional operating costs, leaving us only with this gap, which there's nothing we can do about. So it's a question of whether you call it apples and apples or oranges and apples. But that's our dilemma.

R. Hawes (Chair): Okay. I don't mean to be picky here, and I can't reflect the views…. I'm not sure, without canvassing the other members of the committee…. But I do want you to know how I feel.

The renting of the office in Surrey, while perhaps not a large amount of money, again, compared to your budget, is very material. That would have been the kind of expenditure that, personally, I would have loved to have seen come back here before it occurred, because it is going to change…. It does impose, obviously, an ongoing cost.

Now, you know, in your budget that's one thing. But if we say, "The $15,000 in your budget is a small thing, and it really doesn't matter. It's not really material…." Well, in a budget of $5 million, would a 5 or 10 percent lift, unauthorized by this committee, be material? At what stage do we say that there's materiality and that the treatment you receive here would be the same as all of the other independent officers?

There's got to be some uniformity here — I believe, anyway — in the way we deal with…. I guess I'm just saying that I don't feel particularly good about the Surrey office. It may well serve to decrease the overall cost of your office, but…. So if we don't see the savings, I'm not sure that I'm very comfortable with it other than had you asked first.

P. Fraser: Well, I take your point that essentially the committee's task is to deal with things qualitatively. You can't treat people differently regardless of the amount, which is…. I well understand what you're saying.

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I also take the point, because I'm learning how this place works, that on balance it would have been more responsible of me to come and say: "This is what we're proposing to do, and this is what it's going to cost."

I guess what turned out to surprise me was that I didn't realize, as indeed the committee didn't realize, that there would be the salary gap that would be created as a result of the benefits which were conferred upon me as a result of my appointment. I didn't realize…. I thought, quite frankly, Mr. Chair — and I appreciate what you've said — we'd be able to handle the Surrey office within the existing budget.

R. Hawes (Chair): I would say that it's not at all the change in your salary. That's completely beyond your scope. I mean, if we have an agreement that you're going to be compensated with a salary that's tied to something else and that moves, well then it's going to move. We don't decide from this committee what that outside salary is. So it's beyond your scope and beyond our scope. But some things are within your scope and within ours, and those are the matters that I'm talking about.

I guess, just from the matter of uniformity, again, $15,000 may not be a material amount of money — well, it is, but it isn't — compared to the overall budget of, certainly, the government. In order to treat all independent officers equally, I just find it a little problematic. I would really like to make sure that all of the independent officers…. If they're going to stray from their budget and they know they're going to do something that is outside of what they were approved to do, and it can cause an overage, I think this committee has a right to know what that is.

I believe that all of us in this committee take our role very seriously, which is to provide oversight. We are, at this point, the only oversight for the independent officers.

I wanted you to know how I feel about it anyways.

P. Fraser: Well, I understand that the most difficult thing that a committee like this faces is people who decide to freelance. All I can say is that the point has registered.

R. Hawes (Chair): Any other questions of the commissioner?

Your request is very clearly understood, so we will be dealing with it in due course. Then we will get back to you as we finish our deliberations for all of the independent officers. Thank you very much.

Committee, I don't think we need to do anything more today.

J. Horgan: I wouldn't mind having just a brief discussion in camera.

R. Hawes (Chair): To the committee: could we have a motion to move in camera?

Motion approved.

The committee continued in camera from 3:58 p.m. to 4:11 p.m.

[R. Hawes in the chair.]

R. Hawes (Chair): We're on the record. Thank you very much. Our next meeting will be Monday morning at 10 a.m. We'll take a motion to adjourn the meeting, and we are adjourned.

The committee adjourned at 4:11 p.m.

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