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, December 3, 2008

10 a.m.

Douglas Fir Committee Room

Parliament Buildings, Victoria, B.C.

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

Unavoidably Absent: Robin Austin, MLA; Harry Bloy, MLA

1. The Chair called the Committee to order at 10:04 a.m.

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

3. The Committee recessed from 11:07 a.m. to 11:14 a.m.

4. The following witnesses appeared before the Committee and answered questions:

5. The Committee recessed from 12:31 p.m. to 1:03 p.m.

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

7. The Committee met in-camera from 1:03 p.m. to 1:13 p.m.

8. The Committee adjourned to the call of the Chair at 1:14 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, December 3, 2008

Issue No. 96

ISSN 1499-4178

[ Page 2279 ]

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2008

The committee met at 10:04 a.m.

[R. Hawes in the chair.]

R. Hawes (Chair): Good morning, committee members, and good morning to the Privacy Commissioner and his assistants. We'll call this meeting to order. Today we're going to be looking at the budget of the Information and Privacy Commissioner as well as the Representative for Children and Youth. We're going to start with the Privacy Commissioner.

Mr. Loukidelis, the floor is yours. If you want to proceed, we're all ears.

Office of the
Information and Privacy Commissioner

D. Loukidelis: Thank you, Chair, and good morning, Members. As you've indicated, Chair, I'm joined today by Mary Carlson, who's the executive director of my office and who works, amongst other things, extensively on Lobbyists Registration Act matters. She'll be available to answer any questions that might arise in relation to lobbyists registration issues.

[1005]

I'm joined by Lanny Hubbard, by now a familiar face for the committee, who through the good offices of the Office of the Ombudsman provides corporate administration and corporate services support through our shared services arrangement. He'll be available to answer questions that relate to the financial details, if you will, of the budget proposal that I've put before the committee today.

This budget proposal for fiscal years 2009-10 through 2011-12 asks the committee to approve a budget for the next fiscal year of $4.007 million, with a capital budget of $45,000 which would allow my office to meet the challenges that arise and the service demands that arise under the broad scope of statutory duties I have.

That's under three pieces of legislation: the Lobbyists Registration Act; the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, which confers on the public rights of access to information and imposes on public bodies, the broad public sector in British Columbia — over 2,000 public bodies — obligations with respect to the privacy of citizens; and lastly, the Personal Information Protection Act, which applies to the entire provincially regulated private sector in relation to the collection, use and disclosure of customer or client information.

Further details of our work under these pieces of legislation, with emphasis on freedom of information and protection of privacy in both sectors, are found in the appendix to the budget proposal, which I know is available to you.

Under these three laws, again, we have a significant breadth of regulatory responsibility for extensive aspects of both the public and the private sectors. In view of this broad scope of responsibility, our workload continues to challenge our ability to provide effective, efficient and responsive services to British Columbians and to public bodies and organizations in the private sector as well.

I would like, therefore, to first highlight a few key features of our operations so far this fiscal year under these three laws. Details of these operations over the past fiscal year are found in the budget proposal, and I would like just to highlight a couple of aspects in each instance.

Under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act and the Personal Information Protection Act in fiscal year 2007-2008, which is the last complete fiscal year, we opened 2,235 new case files. This excludes the over 1,000 general requests for information or assistance that we received under those two pieces of legislation during that fiscal year.

The case files number, the 2,200-odd case files that I've mentioned, relates to the work that we do under both pieces of legislation on access-to-information appeals, because we, of course, are the oversight body when it comes to reviewing decisions made in the public sector on access-to-information requests and complaints. These complaints relate to concerns — again, in the public sector but also the private sector — from citizens and consumers about how their personal information has been handled in either sector.

These case file numbers also reflect our investigations on systemic issues, primarily in the public sector and very often in relation to the privacy practices of public bodies, and very often they're in relation to provincial government ministries.

They also reflect our work in overseeing the timeliness of government's responses to access-to-information requests. We have a role in approving requests for time extensions. And just to give you one example, we had a 45 percent increase in the last fiscal year in the numbers of requests for time extensions received from public bodies — in other words, their requests to us to approve more time for them to respond to access requests that they've lodged.

These case file numbers also reflect our work in stakeholder communications, public education and speaking activities, the creation of support tools. Most recently, yesterday, in collaboration with our colleagues in Alberta and the federal Privacy Commissioner's office, we issued support guidance for retailers in advance of the holiday shopping season around the collection, use and disclosure of driver's licence information. This is the kind of proactive educational activity that does, as you'll see detailed in the proposal, consume a fair degree of our time.

[1010]
[ Page 2280 ]

Last, these files indicate the work that we do in consulting with public bodies and private sector organizations around proposed legislation, programs or policies. Again, as is detailed in the proposal itself and as I'll mention a little later in my remarks this morning, we have over this last year spent a considerable amount of time expressing our views to the provincial government around a diverse array of information-sharing initiatives, electronic health information systems, the development of law and policy. This is an important part of the work that we have done over the last year.

These examples illustrate the broad scope of our work, and I think they measure the extent of our work more meaningfully than a narrow focus on only the number of formal appeals and complaints that we received. Excluding requests for information, general information, since the beginning of this fiscal year we have opened 1,373 case files, and at this time we forecast that our caseload for the current fiscal year is likely to reach just over 2,100 case files.

Turning to the third piece of legislation under which we work, to give you a sense of the scope and nature of our work over the last year, under the Lobbyists Registration Act we have been very busy this year on a number of fronts. Work is underway on the new on-line registration system in collaboration with the Ministry of Attorney General, which is the ministry responsible for administration of the legislation in terms of the operation of that system. This will allow us to properly administer and monitor registration activity under the legislation, and further details about this work, again, are before you in the written submission.

Certainly under the Lobbyists Registration Act, over the last year we have also been busy investigating a number of complaints about failure to register. These complaints, to the extent that we've been able to work on them, have involved a considerable investment of my time and the time and attention of the executive director of my office, in addition to her other duties and my other duties as well.

Now, before turning to the particulars of the budget request before you today, I did want to make it very clear to the committee that I am well aware, of course, of the challenging economic times in which we live. For all of the governments across Canada these are indeed challenging times, but I submit to you that to the extent that the budget request before you today is discretionary in nature — in other words, to the extent that it involves choices on my part as to the funding that I'm seeking from you, and that is, by the way, the decidedly smaller part of what I'm asking for, for the next fiscal year — I do believe, after very careful consideration in light of the prevailing economic circumstances, that this is both a prudent and reasonable request.

I would ask the committee to accept my assurances that this is something that has been put forward after careful deliberation in view of the context in which we're now operating. To summarize, the request is for an increase of $404,000, which would enable me, amongst other things, to fund two full-time-equivalent positions in the office. I will get into the details of that in a moment. This is in order to meet service requirements and, for the greater part, increased costs that are beyond my control. The details of this are found at pages 13 through 15 of the budget proposal.

I will now just touch on the highlights of the request that's before you. As is detailed in the proposal, fully 74 percent of the requested increase for the next fiscal year stems from factors beyond my control, and 36 percent of that is the direct result of salary increases and associated benefit cost increases stemming from the broad public sector pay award some two years ago. These are of course beyond my control.

In addition, 38 percent of the requested increase stems from a reallocation in the charges made by the Office of the Ombudsman for the corporate, human resource and other administrative services that are provided to my office under the shared service arrangements with the Office of the Ombudsman, which also, of course, involve the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner and the Office of the Merit Commissioner.

The annual charge is calculated on a per-capita basis, and the increase being put forward for this coming fiscal year reflects the current staffing count for my office but also a rebalancing of the costs amongst all of the offices. I know this is something that has been the subject of discussion with the committee, in the context of appearances by other officers participating in this scheme.

[1015]

I would like at this point to just briefly record, again, my deep appreciation for the shared services that are provided by the Office of the Ombudsman and personally thank Lanny Hubbard and his colleagues for the excellent services they provide. The shared services arrangement, I think, is indispensable to a cost-effective and prudent operation, if I may say, of all our offices. As I say, I do want to again record my thanks to the Office of the Ombudsman for their support for all of our operations.

Now, a further non-discretionary component — and I have not reduced it to percentage numbers — of the requested increase consists of ordinary course increases and operating costs and accommodation costs which are passed on to us — property tax increases, operating costs and so on — in relation to leasehold accommodation.

Last, the minority, if you will, of the requested increase flows through my assessment of needs — demands on our office for services that would permit me to staff, as I've said, a total of two new FTEs. I would like to now describe both how and why this request is being made.

I'll deal first with the lobbyist registration situation. Again, I am also the registrar of lobbyists as well as the Information and Privacy Commissioner. As is detailed
[ Page 2281 ]
in the submission, in view of the increased workload and demands of the program, I'm seeking an increase of one-half of an FTE as being necessary to properly administer what has become an increasingly busy program. As a ballpark number for you, that half of an FTE would cost out at approximately $55,000.

I'd like to give some background for the committee to this particular request. When it was enacted, the LRA was envisaged as an honour system that required very little hands-on administration. The budget that has been allocated over the years has reflected that assumption. For the current fiscal year the amount allocated is $150,000, and that is, of course, intended to cover both salary and overhead costs, things such as legal costs, training and education — the full range of services, if you will, that you would imagine being necessary and that are in fact necessary to support that kind of program.

That funding is intended to cover approximately 15 percent of my time, 25 percent of my executive director's time and 30 percent of the time of another staff member, as well as legal costs, travel costs for necessary meetings, training and education. The current demands, as I say, of administering this program have increased, especially over the last fiscal year.

Even if I look at the situation as it stands under the present legislation, the time spent by, for example, my executive director in providing information to would-be registrants or already registered lobbyists — dealing with extensive media inquiries, investigating complaints, which I've already mentioned, and developing business requirements for the new lobbyist registration system, as well as communicating with professional counterparts elsewhere in Canada — has exceeded 50 percent of her time over the last year or so. That obviously has implications for what she does in relation to our other areas of activity.

The same holds, as I've said, both for myself and for the staff member who is responsible for the mechanics, if you will, of actual registration and spends considerable time stickhandling the attempts to register under the existing system.

Looking forward, for our service plan priorities for next year, which are again detailed in the written submission, we plan to increase provincewide compliance rates through education and guidance. This adds to my conviction, when we look forward to what we have planned for the next fiscal year, that this role now requires the full-time attention of a single person — a focused position, if you will — to be able to efficiently deal with the existing demands.

The last point I'll make about this is that as we look forward to new lobbyist registration legislation in British Columbia, I am very clearly of the view that the near certainty will be that the demands of the role will grow even greater.

As recently as this past Sunday the Government House Leader, the Hon. Mike de Jong, indicated that the government intends to introduce new legislation in the upcoming spring session of the Legislature. Past indications by members of cabinet have been that the legislation that's being contemplated will more closely mirror legislation more recently enacted elsewhere in Canada — Alberta, for example, or the federal legislation, both of which came into force earlier this year.

[1020]

These are much more burdensome, if I can put it that way, in terms of the time that will be required. It is expected, and I think it's reasonable to expect, that there will be, for example, broad enforcement powers and that there will be a greater demand on the time of my colleagues in terms of investigative activities — looking into complaints and the like.

I would think that, looking forward, there is a case that there will be greater demands on our time. Certainly, I've decided that the present demands under the existing legislation are such that we do need to have that focused approach. That, therefore, leads to this request for one-half of an FTE to focus, in conjunction with the existing allocation of funds, all of these activities as far as possible in that one position.

The other aspect of the request that I've made for funding for addition of staff relates to our work under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act and the Personal Information Protection Act. The need of the office to focus and make more efficient the research and policy consultation services we offer has a number of underpinnings.

We have operated without any dedicated policy, research or technology expertise resources. We have over the years operated off the sides of our desks, if you will, in a situation where investigators, who are responsible for handling complaints and appeals, find the time when they can to respond — either directly or assisting me — to the considerable number of now increasingly complex and time-consuming requests for consultation and our expert views from public bodies, particularly provincial government ministries.

The time has come, I would suggest, for us to actually staff a position that allows us to focus all of those demands in that one position. This will free up our investigators to concentrate almost exclusively on their work in responding to complaints and appeals. Of course, we have no control over those. You know, those come in the door, and they have to be responded to. In the case of access-to-information appeals, there are imposed statutory time lines within which we must respond.

The difficulty that we continue to face is that this is the fourth year in a row that I'm here to report that we have a backlog of cases. We have at present some 199 files holding in our early intervention process, waiting to be assigned to a portfolio officer — an investigator, in other words — for investigation and mediation.

There are a variety of factors for this. I mean, candidly, we have trained nine new portfolio officers in the past
[ Page 2282 ]
two years. These are not new additional staff; these are staff who are new to the office through retirements and turnover in the ordinary course. So for most of the past two years we have had only eight portfolio officers, and the majority of our investigators are new to the position. It takes roughly two years to train an investigator to be able to fully come up to speed and be able to close the average of ten files per month that we ask of them.

Even though we now have a majority of investigators who are experienced and even though the majority are hitting that ten-file-per-month closure rate, we are still adding ten files more per month to the holding pen, if you will, than we're taking out. The reason for this is because of these other demands on the time of the investigators — again, directly working on consultations or supporting me in working with government ministries and others.

The policy files, the legislative consultation files, responding to reviews of draft legislation or regulations add to the workload and materially challenge our ability to reduce that backlog and get into a situation where we're actually complying, as we should be, regularly with the statutory time lines and providing the timely and high-quality service that British Columbians can expect under both the public and the private sector legislation.

[1025]

Again, the challenge for us is, I think, to concentrate our expertise in one position — which, of course, has other advantages. It means you have some consistency and development of expertise in terms of how you do this kind of work — concentrated in that one position in order to free up time of the investigators so that they can, again, concentrate on getting that investigative work done and bring that backlog down, ideally, to zero and improve the quality of services that we deliver there as well.

As I've mentioned a couple of times and as is detailed in the submission, we find ourselves increasingly being asked to provide our perspective on significant public programs. The provincial government's move towards e-health, which represents an investment in the hundreds of millions of dollars, is just one example of this.

Consultations on legislation during the past year and a consultation on the design and operational decisions around that system have consumed a considerable amount of my time and my executive director's time as well as the time of some of our portfolio officers.

As another example of new challenges that we'll have — actually, it's more of an operational example — under the new e-health legislation that has more or less entirely come into force in the last number of weeks, I will have a new role to approve applications by health researchers for access to personal health information of citizens in order to contact them for research purposes.

When I was asked to take on this role, which I agreed to take on, the Ministry of Health Services estimated that there would be some dozens of applications per year. I am sure that it will be that at least, because researchers not only from around the province but, indeed, around the world will be knocking on our door, seeking to have that access approved, and that will add to our operational burden as well.

For these reasons, I'm asking for funding in the range of approximately $95,000 for the creation of a new position so that for the first time, as I say, my office will have a portfolio officer who is dedicated to, who has the expertise to provide services to support public bodies and also private sector organizations and stakeholder groups in complying with British Columbia's access-to-information and privacy legislation.

Last, the requested funding increase — that portion of it that is discretionary — also seeks funding for one-half of an FTE, in the range of roughly $50,000, to make an existing half-time adjudicator position into a full-time position. Under both the Personal Information Protection Act and the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, we have a quasi-judicial, as it's sometimes known, function. We operate as an administrative tribunal, and if a particular complaint or appeal is not resolved through investigation and mediation, we do proceed to a more formal adjudicative process.

I have colleagues who are working as adjudicators. Of course, I do that as well. That's one of my other functions under the legislation. We have an existing one-half of an FTE position, and I would like to make that a full-time position so that we can bring down the time it takes us to issue decisions once a matter has gone to a formal appeal process.

The time needed to do that is coming down somewhat, but it continues to be a real drag on our performance. I will, by the way, be reporting on this publicly, starting with this fiscal year. The public will be able to see that we're not, candidly, able to get those decisions out in as rapid a time as I think the public has a right to expect or as I would like. This one-half of an FTE would put us in a position to improve our output, if I can put it that way, and improve service in that respect.

In conclusion, I would respectfully suggest to the committee, as the committee found in 2006 and reported at that time, that our need for adequate resources is, I would ask, to be viewed in light of the evidence that the committee then accepted. Our workloads, compared to other comparable offices across Canada, are such that, given our funding, we qualify as — and this is the committee's characterization — a lean organization.

We do continue to work as hard as we can to provide cost-effective, prudently costed yet high-quality and timely services to citizens, consumers, public bodies, businesses and other private sector organizations. But for the reasons given in detail in the proposal and highlighted today, I am firmly convinced that we are not, despite the committee's welcome funding recommendations — including since 2006 — where we need to be in terms of staffing.

[1030]
[ Page 2283 ]

So I ask the committee, respectfully, to approve this request, bearing in mind, again, that the smaller portion of it is for new staffing to enable us to provide the kinds of services that we're statutorily mandated to provide and in a manner that I sincerely believe British Columbians have a right to expect.

R. Hawes (Chair): Thank you, Commissioner. We'll start with questions.

J. Yap: Thank you, Commissioner, for your presentation.

A few questions, and I'll preface my questions with a reference back to your comment earlier and your remarks about these extraordinary fiscal times that we're facing right now — a really exceptional fiscal situation — and considering your requests with that in mind.

First of all, a little bit of context here. In the previous fiscal year…. Well, for the current year, when you were here before the committee last time…. Just so that I understand this correctly — I was not on the committee this time last year — from the table you've provided, would it be correct that your office received a $700,000 lift going from '07-08 to '08-09? Am I reading that correctly?

D. Loukidelis: One component of that…. I can ask Lanny Hubbard to supplement what I'm about to say in terms of the detail.

So $150,000 was allocated by the committee as a one-time allocation for the current fiscal year, and that was specifically to meet the cost of designing and procuring the new on-line lobbyists registration system, a project that is underway. The preferred proponent has been selected, the contractor has been selected, and the work is being done. So that is one component of it as well.

Lanny can, I think, speak further to the details of this.

L. Hubbard: The budget in fiscal '08 was $2.952 million. The budget in current fiscal '09 is $3.603 million — so $650,000.

J. Yap: Right. So that's about $700,000, of which $150,000 was the one-time addition. So about $550,000 was the lift year over year, ongoing.

This year you're asking us to consider $400,000 as a lift, which is approximately an 11 percent lift. You've been very thoughtful in your presentation about why you need this and where it would go, and some is non-discretionary.

If the committee were to discern that we needed a more modest increase, what would that do? In light of what you've said and what you'd like to achieve for the office, how would you cope with a hold-the-line approach?

D. Loukidelis: Well, I think of the hold-the-line approach that the most obvious, immediate consequence would be, as I concluded by saying, that we would continue to not provide timely service in terms of, I think, the reasonable expectations of the public, and of government for that matter. We would also, therefore, be in a position where we're not in fact consistently, as we need to do, meeting the legislated time lines that are imposed on us through the legislation in terms of responding within the stipulated times.

We would then continue to be, when it comes to the kinds of consultation and policy-oriented work, which I do believe sincerely is a cost-effective way of approaching things — trying to anticipate and address problems before they arise and then turn into appeals and complaints and so on — doing that off the sides of our desk.

We would also be challenged in terms of getting the adjudication decisions out, which provide guidance to public bodies and private sector organizations in terms of how they proceed.

On the lobbyists registration front, anticipating the new legislation that we now understand will be introduced in the spring…. It's difficult to be more precise than to say that that would be a considerable challenge. I expect that we're going to be put to the test in terms of actually rolling out what will, I think, prove to be a much more extensive and ambitious legislative program and the service demands that that entails for us and that would be, again, expected to be met by the public.

[1035]

J. Yap: Right. You have an item, STOB 60 — that's contract services — and you're anticipating quite a reduction year over year. What's included in that?

D. Loukidelis: The contract services reduction of $150,000 reflects the fact that the lobbyist registration system rebuild funding was a one-time lift, and it had been accommodated in the STOB 60 line for the current fiscal year.

J. Yap: Okay. So that was the 150 that you were referring to.

D. Loukidelis: Yeah.

R. Hawes (Chair): Commissioner, can I just ask — or perhaps it's Lanny…. The $153,000 for the Ombudsman — where is that in here? Is that in salaries?

L. Hubbard: Yes, it shows up in STOB 50. It's included in STOB 50.

R. Hawes (Chair): Okay. You know, your verbal description of your needs was pretty clear except that…. Perhaps it's just me. I kind of got lost in it from this
[ Page 2284 ]
respect. You're looking for a $456,000 lift in salaries, and $145,000 of that is beyond your control. That's the increases, I think, that PSEC gave — the 2½ percent lift — to employees. Is that not correct?

L. Hubbard: Two and a half percent.

R. Hawes (Chair): Yeah. So that's under control, and there's $153,000 in there for the Ombudsman. So that's close to $300,000. But that leaves $150,000-odd from which you've got….

Now, this is where I got lost, because I heard more than one position that you were looking to change. You wanted one full-time intake person, and you wanted to change somebody that's now half-time to full-time. But then there were some other positions that you talked about, and with only the $150,000 left, you lost me totally. I'm not clear on how many positions you were looking to change.

L. Hubbard: Okay, maybe I can help just in terms of…. When you're talking about the salary component, you have to also look at STOB 52.

R. Hawes (Chair): No, I agree.

L. Hubbard: Just in terms of STOB 50, the makeup of that $456,000…. Just to be clear, $50,000 of that is due to the general salary increase across the board — okay?

R. Hawes (Chair): Oh, okay.

L. Hubbard: That's roughly 2½ percent of the previous year's budget. And $164,000 is due to the salary costs attributed to the two new positions.

R. Hawes (Chair): The half-time?

L. Hubbard: The two, which was divided by half an FTE on the lobbyist registry, one FTE on the portfolio officer and another half an FTE on adjudication.

R. Hawes (Chair): So this is two?

L. Hubbard: It adds up to two FTEs, but they're different classifications, so the salaries are not exactly distributed evenly. So $89,000 of that $456,000 is due to increments and reclassifications of existing positions.

R. Hawes (Chair): Could I just stop you there? Those were beyond your control as well?

L. Hubbard: Increments are awards that come through….

R. Hawes (Chair): Yeah, I get those, but the reclassification…. Did PSEC not…?

L. Hubbard: Reclassifications are changes in job duties that result in changes of classification.

R. Hawes (Chair): But I don't think they're done internally within the office. You don't make that determination — do you?

L. Hubbard: The management-excluded ones are now delegated within the office. But I'm not sure. There may have been one of those that was done in the past year.

R. Hawes (Chair): But for the most part, these are not management positions?

L. Hubbard: Most of the positions in the offices are management-excluded positions. The administrative staff are what's called schedule A positions, which are shadow classifications of the clerical positions in the BCGEU. But they are excluded as schedule A positions.

D. Loukidelis: And if I could add to that. All of my staff are put in, in accordance with the Public Service Act. We follow Public Service Agency guidelines on issues like classifications and reclassifications — and increments as well.

[1040]

The structure in terms of the staff in the office was set up, obviously, when the office was first opened in 1994.

R. Hawes (Chair): I guess I'm just asking if the $89,000 is, for the most part, beyond your control, really. These are just things that are automatically going to happen.

L. Hubbard: Beyond your control unless you want to withhold increments that are properly earned.

Then the last amount — the $153,000 remaining, if you were doing the arithmetic — is the increase in the shared services chargeback.

R. Hawes (Chair): Okay, that's much clearer for me then. I thank you very much for that.

J. Horgan: Thank you very much, Mr. Loukidelis, for your presentation.

Just last night I was watching the hockey game, and I saw three ads about how great things are here in British Columbia. Then I turned to the news and saw four more ads. And then I come here today, and I see the hard-working efforts of your office trying to manage three distinct pieces of legislation.

I see a 45 percent increase in requests for extensions, thousands of new case files and a modest request to meet that challenge. So in terms of what you are able
[ Page 2285 ]
to manage and what is within your discretion, it strikes me that this is a very modest proposal, and I appreciate you bringing it forward in that light and making your introductory remarks about your understanding of the situation we find ourselves in.

If the financial crisis is such that we're going to suspend legislation, then of course we would direct you, as an officer of the Legislature…. We haven't done that, to the best of my knowledge, so I appreciate you coming forward with a modest proposal to meet the ever-increasing requirements.

I have two particular questions. Do you see, as a result of the increase, particularly in terms of extensions, a lack of resourcing within public bodies and ministries to meet the requirements that the public is putting on them? How would you suggest this committee and the Legislature or the government respond to that?

Secondly, with respect to the Lobbyists Registration Act, I'm curious…. Certainly, we in the Legislature have raised the issue a number of times. We have heard on the public airwaves, as you did, a commitment from the government to come forward with legislation. We also heard, last week, the minister responsible say that the act doesn't work.

So in light of the minister responsible for the legislation saying that it's broken, how do you and your office propose, between now and the spring and the expectation of legislation, to manage that?

D. Loukidelis: On the first question of the resources in public bodies for their duties in responding to access-to-information requests, there are over 2,000 public bodies across all levels of the public sector in British Columbia.

Certainly, one area that we have focused on over the years and in recent years is the question of the ability of the dedicated and skilled and professional staff in provincial government ministries to respond to the burden of requests, which is extensive and always has been. It's something that I have had discussions with senior executive staff about over the last year.

Not all ministries are similarly placed, but I think it's fair to say that I continue to be watchful and concerned that the ministries have in place the resources they need to meet the time lines in the legislation without necessarily seeking extensions of time to respond, without being in a situation where they're simply not responding in time and, therefore, are deemed to have refused access.

As a result of ongoing concerns around this, I've embarked — and this was mentioned in the annual report for the last fiscal year, in my message there — on a program of reporting on performance by provincial government ministries. The pilot for that will be published in the second or third week of January. It'll be on a calendar year basis for 2008, and we will be publicly reporting ministry by ministry on how it is that they're meeting their legislated responsibilities in terms of timeliness of response, bearing in mind the adage that access delayed is access denied.

I might add that this is one of the reasons I felt that we should enhance the reporting we do on our own performance, and — I mentioned this earlier in my presentation — we will start reporting on our own performance in terms of timeliness, including in getting those adjudication decisions issued in view of the concern that access delayed is access denied.

[1045]

The second question, around the Lobbyists Registration Act. Relatively recently, within the last couple of months, I decided that we would no longer investigate or attempt to investigate — even on a consensual, cooperative basis — complaints brought to our attention, or concerns that came to our attention, around the failure of individuals or organizations to register as lobbyists under the Lobbyists Registration Act.

Pending enactment of new legislation — which again, as we've recently heard, is apparently in the works — at this time we continue to administer the program. We receive registrations. We have had 414 registrations in this most recent fiscal year, up from 312 the year before.

One of the things that I hope will be a benefit of the new on-line system and will be enhanced by new legislation is greater clarity around how many lobbyists actually are active in the province, because the existing system doesn't, for a variety of reasons, necessarily capture all of the nuances and the details, if you will. So I think that there are things in the works, including the on-line registration system, and I would hope that new legislation, certainly if it looks like the legislation in Alberta or the federal legislation, will enhance the accountability and transparency that these laws aim at achieving.

J. Horgan: Just a supplementary to that response, Commissioner. The public awareness of your decisions some months ago to not participate, even in consensual scenarios, was brought about by a decision by someone who was found, or suggested to be, in contravention of the act declining to participate. Can you explain to me and to the committee how it is that an individual can say: "I don't want to participate"? Is that the fundamental flaw in the legislation, or is that just an addition to the other flaws that we've been aware of for some time?

D. Loukidelis: Under the existing legislation — and I know from statements publicly made by the Attorney General that this is something that he is committed to addressing — the registrar, my role as registrar, is limited under the act to verifying information submitted in connection with a registration application — limited to, therefore, asking for further particulars from someone who has registered as a lobbyist. There are no investigative powers. There are no complaint powers.
[ Page 2286 ]

It is an offence not to register, but certainly we have no law enforcement function, if you will, to investigate and gather the information necessary to seek the laying of any charge.

Legislation elsewhere in Canada, newer legislation — of course, as you know, this is an iterative and evolving thing; jurisdictions learn from each other and adopt newer approaches — does contain investigative powers, more on the civil side. So the registrar of lobbyists in Alberta, for example, has a power of compulsion — can compel testimony. He can acquire documents, and so on, and can look into a matter with a view to reporting out any perceived breech, with again, the sanctions really being in the form not of an administrative penalty but possible prosecution for failure to register.

R. Hawes (Chair): If I could remind members to try and stick to the question at hand, because I think this is straying just a little.

J. Horgan: Well, I understand that, Chair, but the commissioner is looking forward to the next calendar year and the next budget year, and he's anticipating legislative change that will affect his office. So a better understanding of what that would look like in his mind is, I think, useful for the committee.

R. Hawes (Chair): I think we're all speculating. At this point I'm just saying that I think we should stick to the matter at hand.

I would also comment that the advertising that's on television, I believe, is from the current budgets of the respective ministries that are advertising. I would suggest that we are dealing now not with this year's budget for the commissioner or any of the officers, so we're not taking away anything, and we're not asking them to suspend anything. We're dealing with next year, and I would suggest that any comment about advertising next year would be appropriate. But I think an apples-and-apples comparison is fair.

J. Horgan: I just assume that if we're in a crisis, it's a crisis today and not in this fiscal year versus next fiscal year.

R. Hawes (Chair): And I don't want to leave the impression out there that…. I don't think any of us know what contracts have been signed and what obligations are ongoing in those contracts, so cancelling things and that is beyond the speculatory powers, if you will, of this committee.

So we'll move on.

[1050]

B. Ralston (Deputy Chair): Thanks for your presentation. You mentioned the new proposal for health records, and it's hard to imagine anything more intimate in terms of personal privacy than one's health records. Given that the government is proposing to spend, I think, hundreds of millions of dollars on system design, do you have an option when the government asks you for comment on legislation?

Is it something that could be referred off to lawyers in the private sector, for example? Or is it a statutory obligation, when asked by the Health Minister to comment on proposed legislation that has that kind of impact on privacy, that you feel obliged to comment and to devote the time and the energy necessary to give the kind of opinion that will assist the drafting of important legislation?

D. Loukidelis: The mandate under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act includes explicit authority, certainly, to comment on the implications for access or privacy of proposed programs, policies or legislative schemes. Certainly, since the office opened in 1994 we have consistently responded to requests from government ministries, but also other public bodies, for our expert perspective on access and privacy implications of programs such as e-health.

This is a massive project. It is, from a privacy perspective, I think, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and challenge to get this right. In view of the significant investment of money in this system and the implications for the health privacy of British Columbians, I think it's incumbent on me to — when requested, in this instance by the Minister of Health Services himself — respond by bringing to bear our expertise as best we can to support sound development and design of a system that not only respects the legislative framework but, I think, meets the expectations of British Columbians around their health privacy.

That is a time-consuming endeavour but one that, I think, we really must respond to, as best we can, in-house.

B. Ralston (Deputy Chair): Just if I might…. Not in the immediate past session but in the spring session you also commented on other pieces of legislation. So is it a function of your office to review all legislation that comes forward for its privacy implications? Are you regularly consulted, or is that something that is simply part of your statutory obligations?

D. Loukidelis: We are quite regularly consulted by government ministries on proposed legislation at various stages. We sometimes are not brought into the circle.

We certainly encourage that. It is something that we also do in terms of responding to bills that are tabled. So if we haven't been consulted on a particular bill — and that is the exception, I should emphasize…. You know, once a bill hits the order paper — if you will, hits the table in the chamber — that is a sign to somebody to review for access or privacy implications.
[ Page 2287 ]

Certainly, in the run-up to any legislative sitting and during a sitting, that is something that we give high priority to. It does take a considerable amount of my time and that of my colleagues. We think it's important that you try and address those issues before the fact, if you can, in designing and drafting legislation, rather than trying to deal with complaints or issues that arise after the fact.

B. Ralston (Deputy Chair): But in terms of its impact on the budget, there's no chargeback? If the Ministry of Attorney General requests your opinion on the proposed changes to the Lobbyists Registration Act, that's something that you do, but you don't charge back for the considerable time and expertise that go into making those…?

D. Loukidelis: That's correct. Sorry. In terms of your original question and your follow-up, that's right. We absorb that from our budget.

B. Ralston (Deputy Chair): Last year we approved…. I think it was to be done jointly — I'm not quite sure of the arrangement — with the Ministry of Attorney General to redesign the lobbyists registration website. Now, last time I checked — I think last week — on another matter, the changes don't appear to be in effect. Is that work still ongoing? When do you expect the new, revamped website to be in operation?

D. Loukidelis: The contractor has been selected and retained, as I understand it. The work is underway to actually rebuild the system.

[1055]

There was a lot of work that went into the creation of the business requirements for the new system, trying to ensure that the full mandate, if you will, of the legislation — in terms of public access to information, ease of use for registrants and what have you — was built into the system. So that's underway.

I'm hoping that, certainly from my perspective, by the end of this fiscal year it will be done.

I've certainly continued to make it clear to the ministries involved that the one-time funding from the committee, for which I'm grateful still, is exactly that — that I do not propose to go back and ask for more money. I'm confident that they understand this. They've been fully supportive, in fact. I appreciate that, and the work will be done.

R. Lee: My question is on the extensions. It seems that there's a reduction of 24 percent in terms of extension requests over last year, so it's an improvement in terms of the numbers. Also, I see almost a 90 percent reduction in the general requests for information and assistance. It seems that your office is operating more efficiently this year than last year. I imagine that there are probably one or two staff increases. Do you have a staff increase over last year?

D. Loukidelis: Yes, we have, as a result of funding from the committee, had a bump in our FTEs. This goes back to Mr. Yap's question earlier. If I could just clarify — the 14 percent reduction figure that you're quoting there….

R. Lee: Twenty-four percent is projected versus last year. If you look at page 6….

D. Loukidelis: Oh, you're talking about the projection for the current fiscal year.

R. Lee: Yeah, that's right. In the current fiscal year it's 266, and in the last fiscal year it's 351, so it's a reduction of about 24 percent. And also, in the overall files open this year, it's about a 90 percent reduction over last year. So I think the requests are coming in less — the number.

D. Loukidelis: Well, I guess a couple of things. I suppose one should be careful offering projections. You've fastened on one aspect of our work. I don't know whether that will actually be the case. As indicated in the main body of the material, we actually had quite an increase in the last fiscal year over the previous one in requests for extension.

What the record over the remainder of this fiscal year will be, I don't know. But you're quite right that if the projection proves to be accurate, there will have been a reduction in that area. And I'd certainly acknowledge that, as you've indicated, if the overall caseload projection for the current fiscal year proves to be accurate, there will have been a reduction from last fiscal year — where we had 2,598 cases — to 2,354.

I would just point out, though, that for fiscal '06-07 we had 2,285 cases. So even if the projection for the current fiscal year is accurate, we'll still have an increase over two fiscal years ago, and yet we'll be down from the fiscal year before. I fully acknowledge that it shows that the workloads do fluctuate, but again, what I've brought forward to you is not predicated on the projected demand for the current fiscal year.

It is in respect to the three areas I've emphasized, because I see that we can provide better service, meet our statutory responsibilities — and I do emphasize that we have statutory time lines that we have to meet — and better respond to major initiatives of the government including e-health, for example.

R. Lee: But my point is that if you have, internally, some case reduction in one area…. So maybe internally you can allocate your staff to handle the three areas.
[ Page 2288 ]

D. Loukidelis: Fair question. I appreciate it. To be clear, the requests for time extension are handled by our intake team, and that is part of their professional responsibilities and skill set. That, I think, underscores that not all of the types of case files are transferable across functions between investigators, whom we call portfolio officers, and the intake team, for example.

We continue to be challenged at the intake level. We have some excellent staff there. We have posted, for the third time, the position of intake manager, because at present our intake staff are facing a workload that means they're taking eight weeks to open a file. And that clearly is another example of how we need to improve our service delivery to respond to the demands that are confronting us.

[1100]

J. Rustad: Thank you for your presentation. There's no question that the work that your office does is important and is critical. I just have one question for you, as we have talked about in terms of the fiscal challenge that we're facing.

The difference from your 2007-08 budget to your proposed 2010-11 budget, taking the $150,000 one-time funding out, is about 58 percent over that three-year period. That's a pretty significant increase that you're asking for. A large chunk of that, of course, was already in the previous year, in terms of the increase, excluding that one-time amount.

I'm just wondering. You mentioned that you've brought forward a budget here that reflects the challenges that we're facing. What would the request have been if we weren't facing the fiscal environment that we're currently facing?

D. Loukidelis: A couple of responses. First, the comparison between the '07-08 fiscal and the one out two years…. Of course, included in that is the increase already sought by the four offices that share accommodation as well as services for the new leasehold premises, which we've already canvassed with the committee. I remain grateful for the committee's support in that respect.

Candidly, the current fiscal environment certainly concentrated my mind on what it was that I was going to come forward and ask for. If we were in different times, I think at this time I would have asked for essentially the same thing.

R. Hawes (Chair): Any other questions? No other questions? Hearing none….

D. Hayer: Can I have one question? It might have been explained. I didn't understand it.

As for that person who's working currently for you, their job description is reclassified. Say, they have more responsibilities. The pay goes from, say, $40,000 to $45,000 on their new job. Is that increase considered a pay increase, or is it just because there's just a reclassification? You know how everybody is getting a 2½ percent increase. Is there separation between the two?

R. Hawes (Chair): I don't know if you followed that.

L. Hubbard: Yes. Across-the-board pay increase is really a reflection of cost of living. It flows from the negotiations that take place every three or four years between the Public Service Agency and the various unions. Typically, then, those percentages are awarded to excluded employees, who of course don't otherwise negotiate their salary increases.

So that 2½ percent is just a general across-the-board increase that is separate from any reclassifications that result from change in job duties.

Does that help?

D. Hayer: Could, theoretically, a person get reclassified at a different job, get an increase for that and then also get an increase — the 2½ percent — which is negotiated as a salary?

R. Hawes (Chair): That's correct, Dave.

J. Horgan: It's really a question that I wanted to direct to the Clerk and research, but Lanny needs to hear it.

To the best of my knowledge, we haven't seen a single table clearly explaining to us what the shared services arrangements are between the various officers that are working with the Ombudsman. I would ask either Josie or Lanny to provide, before we finish our deliberations, some coherent document so that we can understand where the money is going and where the savings are.

R. Hawes (Chair): If I understand it correctly, I think there's $303,000 that's been reallocated. So there's $303,000 added to the budgets of three of the officers and taken from the budget of the Ombudsman. I think that's….

L. Hubbard: It shows up in the recovery on the Ombudsman's budget. The recovery line increases by that amount year over year, which has the effect of reducing the bottom-line budget request of the Ombudsman.

R. Hawes (Chair): I'm sure, Lanny, you could maybe give us a short document that just says: "Here's the change."

L. Hubbard: I'll give you a little one-page thing that shows the plus for the four offices all on one page — a summary.

[1105]
[ Page 2289 ]

R. Hawes (Chair): Perfect.

Commissioner, thank you very much for your presentation, and Lanny and Mary. The one comment I would make and the one thanks I would give you, Commissioner, is for the decision that you made for all of us in our constituency offices that allows us to deal with constituent problems without having a signed consent form from the constituent, rather the certification from the office or the MLA that says that constituent has requested the assistance. Often we deal with constituents who can't get into the office for a variety of reasons, and it becomes very difficult to deal with them. I think your decision is of great benefit to a lot of British Columbians, so thank you for that.

D. Loukidelis: Thank you. Happy to do that, and I look forward to continue to work with both caucuses to advance that new approach.

D. Thorne: I did just want to thank the commissioner for such a prudent and well-thought-out application request. I look forward to discussing it after he leaves.

R. Hawes (Chair): Okay. That is a pretty good segue into where we're going. Thank you for your presentation. We will be deliberating in due course, and we'll get back to you.

We'll do a very brief recess while we change over to the next presenter.

The committee recessed from 11:07 a.m. to 11:14 a.m.

[R. Hawes in the chair.]

R. Hawes (Chair): Okay, we will go back on the record and resume the meeting. Right now we have the Representative for Children and Youth.

Without any further introduction, the floor is yours.

Office of the Representative
for Children and Youth

M. Turpel-Lafond: Good morning, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. I appreciate the opportunity to present our budget submission. I know, as with the other independent offices, that you have had a chance to receive the materials in advance, and so I don't intend to review them in detail.

I'm going to introduce my associates who are with me today. First of all, to my left, your right, is Bill Valentine, who's the Deputy Representative for Children and Youth. To my right, your left, is Tanis McNally-Dawes, who's the manager for finance and facilities with the Representative for Children and Youth office.

I'll be telling you today a bit more about the work of my office, and I'll briefly walk through my budget proposal and, of course, entertain any questions that you may have or any opportunities for me to illuminate this submission.

[1115]

First of all, in summary. If you turn to page 3 of the budget submission, you'll see that I'm requesting approval for an operating budget of $7.337 million and a capital budget of $120,000 for fiscal year 2009-2010. This represents an increase of 11 percent, or $779,000. You can see that the operating budgets for '10-11 and '11-12 are $7.441 million and $7.562 million.

I'll note for the benefit of the members of the committee that I have taken into consideration the changing fiscal situation and have presented a budget which will allow us to continue operations to meet some of the fixed costs and some of the other areas where we have committed in our service plan to undertake and fulfil the mandate assigned to us under the Representative for Children and Youth Act.

I note in that regard that the service plan, which you would have also received electronically, was, according to the statutory obligation, laid before the Select Standing Committee on Children and Youth last week and reviewed with the members of the select standing committee. I do note that there is a single member who overlaps both of those committees, and that's Member John Rustad, who would particularly have familiarity with the service plan and the work of the representative's office, as he has served since the creation of that committee as an active member of that committee.

In terms of my presentation supporting the budget submission, for those who are not as familiar with the operations of the representative office, I will review a few of the core business areas. The role of the representative is established, as I say, in the Representative for Children and Youth Act, which was amended in the past year to expand the responsibilities and the authorities of the representative. As well, the list of designated services for which the representative's office is responsible was also expanded in the past year.

I will speak a little bit later about the fact that I anticipate there may be a further expansion to that role, given a particular set of circumstances in the year ahead.

In particular, it's our mandate to support, assist, inform and advise children and their families regarding a set of designated services, which is a fairly broad class of services particularly oriented to some of the children who are most vulnerable in British Columbia, such as children and youth with special needs, children living out of the parental home, and families who are accessing services to support them with their parenting and family structure.

We actually do advocacy on behalf of individual children, and I'll speak more about that in a moment. We monitor, review, audit and conduct research on
[ Page 2290 ]
designated services by a public body for the purposes of making recommendations to improve the effectiveness and responsiveness of those services.

I can certainly just pause for a moment on that point to note that in the context of somewhat changing fiscal circumstances and the provision of government services and programs, the importance of monitoring the effectiveness and responsiveness to services, particularly when the clients that we're looking at are children, becomes a more heightened and significant responsibility, I think, in difficult financial times.

We also have the statutory obligation to review, investigate and report on the injuries and deaths of children. Now, with respect to the discharge of our function, the independence, public accountability and transparency are important to my office's operation. Of course, I do produce an annual report to the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly and report periodically on a number of matters and work closely, as I said at the outset, with the Select Standing Committee on Children and Youth.

The fundamental role of our office is to support better recognition of the rights of children, to ensure that their voices are heard and that they participate in decisions that affect them and, most significantly, that we can obtain better outcomes for vulnerable children and youth in British Columbia. The ultimate goal of the office, which was created after Mr. Hughes reviewed the child-serving system in 2006, is to encourage improvements to the child-serving system that ultimately result in better lives for children, youth and their families.

With respect to the main focus of our work, which is on vulnerable children, just to review with the committee briefly. There are about 9,026 children in care. About 52.4 percent of that caseload today is aboriginal children. In some regions it's as high as 75 percent. Looking at the unique circumstances for aboriginal children is a very significant component of our work in all areas of the mandate, and some aspects of that become a bit more complex because of the fact that we're looking at federal and provincial obligations and responsibilities and service duties.

[1120]

We don't have authority with respect to the federal side. However, very often the government of British Columbia provides the quality assurance framework for federal funding that flows into aboriginal programs and services. Therefore, we do monitor, review and look at that, which is a particularly complex area. I think I am unique in the independent offices as having this additional federal-provincial dimension to the work that we do.

There are approximately 4,403 children in the home of a relative. This is an area that was added to my office. I can speak a little about that. It's been a very active area of work in the past year for us, leading to reviews and the suggestion of strengthened criminal record checks for children that are placed in out-of-parental-home placements with relatives, which led to a screening process.

We are now in the early stages of an audit of the screening process. This new component has been a very active area, because it's approximately as many as 5,000 children at times who are out of the parental home in a program, which moved in this past year from what was the Ministry of Income Assistance — the Ministry of Housing and Social Development — to the Ministry of Children and Families. So it has just migrated back, and we are actively evaluating the effectiveness and responsiveness of that program and meeting the needs of the children who are in it, for whom relatives receive money each month.

They are 267 children on kith-and-kin placements. Again, the majority of those are aboriginal children.

There are about 1,500 aboriginal children on what are called guardianship financial assistance placements in British Columbia. These operate on reserve. There is some pilot effort to do some criminal record screening on these placements. There are some very significant vulnerabilities around these children — some overlapping issues as to how we can better support and understand their circumstances.

We have about 652 children on youth agreements.

These are sort of the core areas that we look at. These are the designated services — and the children and youth that are approaching our office for support and advice routinely.

Of course, with respect to the aboriginal children, quite apart from the snapshot of their participation in these various programs day to day or month to month, the research and work we're doing on sort of a full cohort of children…. We've just completed a major piece of work, looking at all children born in 1986 in British Columbia — a cohort of more than 50,000 children who were in school in 1996 — and followed them throughout their entire childhood to adulthood. What actually was the lived experience of the lives of some of the more vulnerable children?

That evaluation, which is probably the most comprehensive to date, indicates that for some of the vulnerable children, like aboriginal children, one out of five of those children at some point lived away from the parental home, and one out of eight of those children were involved with the child welfare system. So with this work, we're getting a much better understanding of the degree of vulnerability and our capacity to assess the effectiveness of the system supporting these children and also an understanding of what the circumstances may be in the future with respect to meeting these challenges.

Quite apart from the vulnerable children I have identified who receive designated services, a very significant risk factor in terms of compromised outcomes for children is poverty. In British Columbia there are approximately
[ Page 2291 ]
150,000 children living in poverty. That's based on the most recent after-tax data. There is some dispute about how large or small that number is, depending on how you calculate poverty levels, but that's a significant group of children who we do look at as to whether or not they are progressing appropriately in the school system, etc.

In terms of the work of the current year, just to talk a bit about what was done…. On reviews and investigations of the critical injuries and deaths of children. Obviously, my office receives reports when there are injuries or deaths of children. We conduct a thorough review of those situations. We determine whether or not services that were being provided to the family or the child at the time of the incident or within the year previous may have had some role in the situation. If we determine that they did, we will then consider whether or not the matter should go on to an investigation.

As of September 2008 approximately half of all the reported critical injuries and deaths were identified as requiring a full review. We have 111 critical injuries and 46 deaths of children now under review in the office. We are conducting individual investigations in a number of these. I can say that having produced this past year a report that looked at the investigations of four child deaths and a number of other incidents, we have a better understanding of the degree of work that is required to produce these and the resource needs that we feel may be there.

[1125]

We were very appreciative of the offer last year by this committee to return, should we require additional resources to fulfil our mandate. We have been able to manage the work this year within resources. I can report that, based on our fiscal projections, we will be approximately 2 percent under budget by the end of this fiscal year, so we were able to manage within the budget. However, I can say that there are more investigations underway, and I would of course again ask for the permission of the committee, should we need to return if some of those investigations were more extensive than we had thought they might be.

I would note on that front that there are some particular expenses connected to these investigations that create an unknown situation, such as…. The investigative powers of the representative's office include the ability to subpoena witnesses who may not be compliant. They may not be prepared to testify or to give evidence about what happened to a child, in which case the representative's office has to secure legal services to get an order from the Supreme Court of British Columbia to in fact subpoena and enforce the subpoena.

There are some situations, such as those, for which we need some contingency that we provide for. However, it's always unknown as to what the actuals will be, because we're not sure of that until we are quite far into an investigative process.

There are two main aggregate groups of deaths and injuries that we're looking at for reporting on in 2009. One is an aggregate or a group of safe sleeping and early infant deaths, and the other is an aggregate of attempted suicide and suicide death. There are two where we've grouped them, and two significant reports that will be prepared in the next year. We also have two active investigations underway. As I say, we're continually reviewing these.

In the area of critical injuries and deaths we also have a Children's Forum that I chair, which involves the chief coroner, the Public Guardian and Trustee, the deputy for the Ministry of Children and Families, the Ombudsman and the provincial health officer, where we have an opportunity to discuss some of the systemic issues that we see and to collaborate in our work. My office provides the administrative support and coordination for that body — and occasionally, the reports and so on that are required.

Moving on, then, to some of the work that we've done in the past year around monitoring, reviewing and auditing of designated services, I've highlighted the issue of the Child in the Home of a Relative program, which is under an audit at the moment.

We recently completed an update, and tabled it with the Select Standing Committee on Children and Youth, on the system of support for children with special needs in British Columbia, and this is an area of active monitoring. We did a report in February of 2008, and we just tabled another report. We anticipate reporting again, as we monitor whether or not the supports for children and youth with special needs, particularly developmentally disabled children and adolescents and young adults, are adequate, effective and responsive.

I do note that there was a significant amount of public input in the budget consultation process on this issue, and I did follow that with great interest. I noted, as well, that a significant amount of that work was referencing to and acknowledging the work of our office, and looking at the system of support here for vulnerable children and youth with special needs and how we may be able to consider strengthening the system of support for them in the future.

We also released an independent review of some youth justice practices, the physical examinations of youth in custody. It was a justice-related report that we released this year, really on the issue of breast and genital examination of youth in custody. We also will be releasing in a very short while an update on the Hughes review and the government's implementation and progress on following through with the recommendations in that important report from 2006.

In 2009 the provincial health officer and I will also release a very significant report on youth justice which will look at this cohort of children born in 1986, through their entire lives, to understand better how we may lower
[ Page 2292 ]
the criminogenic risk profile for extremely vulnerable children so that we can see that they have better outcomes, and we will look particularly at the relationship between children living out of the parental home and the criminal justice system in British Columbia.

We will also release a report on the sexual abuse intervention program which will look at how children who have experienced sexual trauma and abuse are supported, and make some recommendations as to how there could be, perhaps, some stronger prevention and more universal and accessible supports for those children.

[1130]

I'm also engaged in an active review and report process with the Ombudsman, where we are jointly producing a report on how we see the issue of complaints from children, how children's voices in complaints can be addressed and effectively resolved — particularly children who are in government care — how their voices can be heard and how they can become more active participants in resolving issues that arise.

Finally, we will produce a shorter report, early in 2009, on the education of vulnerable children and the issue of full-day kindergarten. This report will address whether early education opportunities actually improve outcomes for vulnerable children — looking at the evidence and looking at that significant issue in British Columbia.

In terms of the work in advocacy, this again continues to be a very significant area for our office. I think, just practically, to give the committee members some understanding of the work and because some of this deals with individual cases…. Between April 1 and October, 867 files were opened by my office with respect to advocacy calls, visits and meetings with children and youth and their families.

Of the 867 files, 282 are closed — meaning they've been dealt with. The others are active. I just make that note because often the children and youth who are being served in the advocacy component by us are children and youth that are in care. So they may call us about an issue with a foster home placement or a social worker. Then we become involved, and we will have repeated supports or opportunities to ensure that their voices are heard and there is resolution of their disputes. These files don't sort of open and close. Some of them do; some of them do not.

I thought it would probably be helpful if I just gave you a few practical examples. Again, I know, as many of you are well aware, as Members of the Legislative Assembly, through your constituency offices quite a few of these advocacy files come to my attention — through that process.

I'll give you some examples. First of all, my office was contacted this year by a foster parent who had provided care to two teenage sisters for 12 years. One of the girls felt pressured by the social worker to be put up for adoption. She didn't want to be put up for adoption. She wanted to remain in the foster home with her sister, her sibling.

Our office contacted the social worker and ensured the voice of the youth was heard. We were able to resolve the issue, to allow the foster placement to continue so that the siblings could be together.

Another example. Our office was contacted by a grandmother who was caring for her nine-year-old granddaughter. The granddaughter has significant health and developmental issues, and the grandmother and the pediatrician were concerned about the child's extended time that she had to ride the bus to get to a special education school. It was affecting her ability to learn and causing a great deal of stress and anxiety to the child.

Our office worked with the social workers, the delegated aboriginal agency here and the Ombudsman office. As a result, we were able to get a very practical resolution: have the bus company adjust the schedule so the child was only on the bus half as long as she was before.

Many of these individual advocacy cases are just opportunities to hear the voice and have some very practical resolution of issues in a very collaborative way with others.

A final example I'll give you is that our office was contacted by a 13-year-old child in government care who was unhappy with his foster home placement. His mother had died, and he wanted to be reunited with his siblings and placed with an aunt in another community. He felt particularly homesick and away from home. This is an aboriginal child.

The office advocated for the youth, made sure his voice was heard, worked with the family, the siblings and a social worker, and in the end, allowed for an arrangement and encouraged an arrangement where the delegated agency supported an aunt. A restricted foster home was created, and he was in fact placed with an aunt closer to his family.

These are just some examples of the practical advocacy work for members of the committee. As I say, some of these cases come from the offices of Members of the Legislative Assembly.

I would note with respect to advocacy that our caseload continues to grow. I can say on this one that we are managing it relatively well, considering that we have locations in three parts of the province. It's very important on advocacy that we are not simply a call centre that receives telephone calls, but that we actually meet and see children, speak to them and support them.

[1135]

There is a bit of an unknown on this, which is if there was a significant change in the situation for vulnerable children and youth in British Columbia. Let's say for whatever reason there was an increased number of children coming into care or an increased number of children
[ Page 2293 ]
accessing services, it is probably to be expected that we would have an increased demand on the advocacy side to inform, support and advise children and youth.

In addition to dealing with the individual case advocacy calls, we targeted 22 particular communities to visit this year. We target them again each year to year. We visited 17 of those communities. Many of those are aboriginal, first nations communities where we go in and speak about improving the situation for children, and we speak to children and youth and other leaders in the community about what the main issues are that they are addressing or facing.

Obviously, travel costs associated with providing the service, particularly in rural and isolated communities, is a factor for us. There are some limitations with respect to the options that we can take in northern communities.

In terms of the strategic plan going forward into 2009-2010, one of the activities that we engaged in this year was to conduct a review of our business plan and to engage with an outside consultant, after an RFQ process, to look at whether or not our organization is as efficient and as effective as it can be. That was a very helpful process, and certainly we were able to make some internal improvements, I think, so that we can discharge what is quite a significant mandate that we have.

We were able to reorganize a little bit to bring on a single deputy representative. We had had three deputies in the past, and this year they had their status changed to associate deputies running three program areas and a single deputy assisting the representative to make sure that the three mandates are effective and that the representative can also perform the external role at the head of the agency in terms of engaging with children, youth, families and government ministries and service providers, etc.

Our key focus in the next year will be, again, delivering this mandate which I've described. We also are hoping to host a very significant event where we will have adolescents and youth together, particularly vulnerable youth, to talk about the systems of support and how they might be improved for them and ensure that their voices are heard.

We are continuing to work to encourage the government of British Columbia and to encourage work in a non-partisan way by both parties in the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia to support a coherent and strong plan for children that will see outcomes improve year to year and not sort of be dependent on various vicissitudes of these institutions. We are also preparing a very comprehensive assessment of the health and well-being of children in British Columbia.

In terms of the to-be-delivered in this year, we expect 150 reviews will be closed by 2009. That's of the critical injuries and deaths. We expect to complete up to eight significant and complex investigations, produce reports and monitor recommendations which flow from them.

We will be reviewing MCFD's aboriginal programs and aboriginal service delivery plans and operations. We will have a final update on the Hughes report. We will complete the audit on the Child in the Home of a Relative program. We will report on the implementation by MCFD of some of the recommendations in the first major death report, called Loss to Learning, which affected the northern region of the province.

We will track other recommendations, and we will, particularly, engage in some fairly focused research with some parties on aboriginal overrepresentation in the child welfare system and in service delivery. This will be a significant theme for us again this year.

We are also doing a particularly important piece of work, which may span this coming year and the next one, on the impact of children exposed to domestic violence — lethal domestic violence, but also the injury and abuse that is experienced by children who are exposed to domestic violence. We're seeing this as a common risk factor for children who are engaging with our office. Reviewing services, we think that there is a real opportunity to do a significant piece of work here in the next year. So the advocacy work will also continue.

If I can turn your attention, then, to page 6 of our budget submission. I will note that I'm not requesting an increase for many areas in my budget. As I said in my opening, I'm requesting an additional $779,000, and I'll just, at the high level, review this and then, of course, entertain any questions you might have.

First of all, with respect to salaries, we're seeking an increase in the salary area. Approximately 2.5 percent of that increase is for COLA, or cost-of-living adjustments.

[1140]

On travel, we're seeking a modest increase in the travel area of approximately $22,000. Again, that's primarily highlighted for the advocacy staff and the costs of travel to remote communities.

A slight increase in professional services of $10,000. This is to allow us to engage with professional services, which we do require in an organization such as ours, including legal services and the services of a number of professionals that can assist us in the investigation review function and also in the monitoring and audit function.

On that front I will note that we do have…. This year we did formalize a multidisciplinary team — which is a team of professionals from the health system, the education system and the justice system — that works with us on critical injuries and deaths, and they are appointed. There was, in fact, a regulation passed to our statutes stipulating how the multidisciplinary team will function and support the work of the office. Their costs are also covered in the professional services line item.

In terms of information systems, there is an increase of $50,000, which is mostly system maintenance costs. That allows us to do better tracking of our case information
[ Page 2294 ]
and continue to do the work that's needed on that front for public accountability and internal accountability, and also to allow for ongoing enhancement of our intranet and Internet sites. This is especially important for children and youth, because we have a section of our website for children and youth, and that has been a very active site.

We have an elevation of $50,000 for the year in office and business expenses. Most of that is targeted to the need to have a significant opportunity to bring youth together, particularly vulnerable youth, to talk about their experiences and hear their voices around their engagement with the services that they receive.

There is a small additional amount in amortization of $20,000 for capital requirements, which are really related to vehicles and tenant improvements. In building occupancy you'll see that there is a $357,000 line item. That is a reflection of the fact that we have two leases now with non-ARES landlords. I can speak briefly about the situation on the building occupancy side.

We have two ARES leases and two non-ARES leases. In particular, we had a situation in Victoria where my office inherited the Children and Youth Office, which was co-located with the Public Guardian and Trustee. It had been co-located…. Sort of three versions of the office had been there before it became an independent office. We examined all of our options with respect to this — whether or not we could do a forced move of the Public Guardian and Trustee, because we didn't have the space requirements. We also didn't have the privacy requirements to be able to maintain our filing system, because we basically had a tenancy in common, if you like.

There was a very substantial cost to do a forced move for the Public Guardian and Trustee, which would involve the representative's office footing a bill for more than $400,000 for that. So we had to look at an alternative arrangement to find some space with respect to that.

On the building occupancy side there was an increase this year, and we now have an office where our staff is together. We have appropriate arrangements, particularly for file storage and maintenance and the administrative requirements of our function. The manager of facilities and finance, Tanis, can speak to those questions if you have any.

In the area of grants, you'll see that we have an increase. It's really a new item. Grants are significant in our organization. The title is a bit of a misleading title. Because we have a mandate to do research and we engage with some very significant leading researchers around the child-serving system, these researchers are not put on a contract like a professional services contract. Many of them are, say, Canada research chairs in child welfare or what have you. We give a direct grant to their institution. So there would be a grant to a university, which would allow us to have the time of a leading researcher to get access to data, under appropriate confidentiality arrangements, to conduct some very significant leading research.

So the grants component…. They're not grants to the public. They're grants to universities to allow for us to have these very distinguished people engage in research. Again, that primarily focuses on…. In this coming year we'll focus very much on safety of children and the risk assessment tools that are used and some very particular things at the level of practice.

[1145]

There's a great opportunity here as well for us, in what we've seen in the last year, to do quite a bit of collaborative work with the Ministry of Children and Families in particular, because we are able to bring in people who can evaluate some of their systems and make some suggestions for improvements to those systems.

I would just say, by way of conclusion, that the increase we're asking for is a minimal one. As I noted, I'm mindful of the fiscal climate, the uncertainties and the important decisions that will have to be made by this committee and, of course, in the budget process.

Most of the increases I've identified, except for the few that I've spoken to, are primarily fixed, meaning wage increases, building occupancy costs, workplace technology services, etc. I'm not proposing any FTE increases. As I note, we do project meeting budget targets for the current year. Our current projections show expenditures within the established budget of around 2 percent under.

The budget request really only speaks to what I consider are essentials to allow us to continue doing the work that we must do. I would like, though, with the permission of the committee, to consider returning should there be a change in circumstances, in particular should some of the investigations become more costly, for whatever reason, or should the mandate of the representative's office be expanded.

On this point, I will just come to an area where I've recommended an expansion of mandate. It's unknown; however, it may be acted upon. That is that in the work that I've done on children and youth with special needs, there is a significant gap for adolescents when they turn 19 to about the age of 24. These are for developmentally disabled adolescents. They age out of foster care at 19, and the services and supports for them are voluntary as adults, so they must then go and apply for services as an adult.

Because these are individuals of diminished capacity, if you like, and have extreme challenges navigating the system, for those who are in foster care or living out of the parental home, it has, in my assessment of looking at the cases…. Particularly, I've looked at all of the cases where the children were served. Then when they became 19, they no longer were served. I've actually tracked quite a few of these, perhaps close to 300, where I see that there's a gap. At 19 the services end. They should be applying for and receiving some adult services, but the system is very complicated to navigate, even if there is a parent present that can assist.
[ Page 2295 ]

When the children are out of the parental home and they turn 19, they may be chronologically 19 but developmentally functioning more at the level of a 12- or 13-year-old and have some significant risk factors. So there has been a recommendation that the advocacy services in my office be expanded for developmentally disabled adolescents to the age of 24, so we can ensure that they are matched up with those supports for that period.

If that happens, that's just a group that would require particularly targeted support. So that is another item upon which…. If that was to happen, I think there would be a need for particular outreach. I'm concerned that some of them have fallen off the system, if you like, and we need to do a very strong piece of work to make sure that they're engaged.

On that, I will stop the presentation and again say thank you very much. We're certainly prepared to take questions and illuminate for you our budget request for this year.

J. Rustad: Thank you for your presentation. I just have a couple of quick questions, and that's with regards to building occupancy. Between that, the grants and amortization, that's about 70 percent or thereabouts of the budget increase request.

I guess my concern is: are those expenses now locked in? I guess the reason why I'm asking that is because if those expenses are locked in, in hopes that we can give you the budget increase…. If we are unable to give you a budget increase, what impact will that then have on the services that you are providing?

When you combine that with the information system — and I'd like to ask a question on that and the office expenses — that's over, you know, pretty much 80 percent of the request that you're asking for.

So I'm just wondering how much of that now is locked in. And if the money doesn't come, what would that mean in terms of your budget and the services you provide?

M. Turpel-Lafond: Well, first of all, maybe we can just break it down, and we can deal with the building occupancy issue. So with the permission of the Chair, I'll ask Tanis to respond to the issues around building occupancy.

[1150]

T. McNally-Dawes: The answer is yes. We have negotiated those. There are actually two private leases that we entered into — the Victoria office and also the Burnaby office. We had an office in Burnaby for the advocacy staff. It wasn't big enough to hold the staff that we have in place for the reviews section. So we had to find additional space for that to accommodate the review staff and the work that goes along with that — the multidisciplinary committee — and the fact that that was where we wanted to have our records management space allocated as well.

So we have had to manage those leases very quickly in a very timely fashion, and they are five-year leases.

J. Rustad: In terms of follow-up to that…. Those costs are now locked in. I guess I just want to also ask around the information system. There's a $50,000 increase in the information system. I wonder if you can elaborate on what that is for.

T. McNally-Dawes: It's broken down into three different parts. We just allocated a bit of an increase to the current contract that we have in place that manages our case-tracking information system. We had entered into a notice-of-intent situation in the summer to confirm that we would maintain that contractor. We didn't have any responses on that, so we have continued that agreement with him. But we had to negotiate an increase to that particular contract. So there's about $10,000 to cover that.

Then there's $20,000 for the Internet maintenance and enhancement that we would like to do, and $20,000 for the intranet work that we have already established.

J. Rustad: Okay. So basically what I'm hearing, then, with regards to the way the budget has been set up with pretty much all of that being fixed costs…. If there isn't an increase, then you were looking at about a $500,000 or thereabouts decrease, in terms of having to come off the areas of things that aren't so much fixed — if that were to be the case.

M. Turpel-Lafond: I think that's a fair observation. Certainly, we were mindful, as I said, about the fiscal situation, so we haven't made requests for other changes. But we had to enter into, for instance, building occupancy arrangements to accommodate the staff.

Because we really are only 18 to 20 months into the business, you will recall last year there were some FTEs added, particularly to be able to allow us to discharge the mandate. We need to put them somewhere. So we have to have an arranagement, and I think we entered into probably what was the best arrangement.

Certainly in working with ARES and estimating what our space needs were now and maintaining that, we were able to actually find some arrangements that were quite reasonable and less costly than would have otherwise been the case — particularly if we were forced to move our co-tenant, which would have been a very significant one-time cost, but still assume the lease cost for an entire space. We attempted to exercise due diligence and discretion on that, but we do need to house the employees.

I certainly would not want to lose sight of the fact that an organization and an agency such as ours, with our unique mandate, needs to operate in several locations,
[ Page 2296 ]
in particular, the Prince George office. It's very significant that we do have a presence elsewhere, because we are serving children and youth throughout British Columbia. The implications of not getting the basically fixed costs addressed would be possibly quite significant for us, given the fact that it's not an expansive budget, and it's a fairly significant mandate to actually be there to deal with the children and youth.

R. Lee: A couple of questions. One is on page 6 on the STOB. I can see that the employee benefits actually decrease for next year. Yet you have salaries increasing. How do you explain that?

T. McNally-Dawes: That's actually just…. Last year, when we put the budget together for you, I always anticipated that there would be an increase in the benefits rate, because most years there is a slight increase. So I actually built in an increase, thinking that that was going to happen, and it didn't. So this year I've put it back to the 23.83 percent.

[1155]

R. Lee: Okay, that's good. The second question is: you mentioned that the children in care…. Actually it's one of the mandates. What percentage of your work is actually for children in care — dealing with, say, the parents, the social workers and foster parents? What percentage of your operation, in your estimation…?

M. Turpel-Lafond: Well, on the advocacy side, I would say a very significant component is for children living out of the parental home. Some of them may be in state care, under state guardianship. Some of them may be placed in homes of relatives. Some may be homeless. That's a significant piece of work for us.

The dynamics of that are such that…. Particularly the adolescents don't generally just sort of walk into the office and say: "Can you assist us?" So we need to be out talking to them. Sometimes we receive information about their well-being, and we make sure that they know about our ability to support them. A lot of collaborative work happens.

In monitoring the system and the performance of the system…. Because, in fact, we were created largely after this review by Mr. Hughes of the child welfare system, a very significant focus for us is on safety for children. Children who may have experienced abuse, neglect and maltreatment in a parental home, or who are out of the home, are a big area. But they may also be returning to the home and then returning back into the child welfare system.

So the safety and well-being of the children, if the current programs and systems adequately assess and secure and provide for the safety of those children, are a significant piece — probably one of the most preoccupying pieces — of our work across the system. Because children who die or are injured, where there are reportables to my office, are more often than not children who are out of their parental home and in care.

This is a big area because there are particular vulnerabilities for these children, and there has been a high degree of, if you like, invisibility around their circumstances. So better understand their circumstances, better support them. Especially the issues of safety. That does cut across…. I can't give you an exact percentage, but in advocacy it's quite high.

R. Lee: Not only advocacy. I mean the actual dealing with…. For example, in your report you also mentioned that children in care have a higher percentage of problem areas. They may have health problems or other problems. My question is…. We cannot assume they are all safe or happy in a foster home. I sometimes receive complaints from parents in that regard. I think my question is: are you listening to the children inside those homes as well?

M. Turpel-Lafond: Yeah.

R. Lee: Also, you mentioned the Ministry of Children and Families. You actually looked into some of the systemic problems. Can you elaborate on what you have found?

M. Turpel-Lafond: Yes. Well, first of all, our focus is very much on the children. So even if an adult were to call us — whether it's a foster parent, a parent, a lot of times social workers, or we'll get referrals from people working in the child-serving system…. When we look at a file and then we meet a child, the focus is really on the child because, of course, adults can have very different interests about children. So we must stay focused on what's good for the child — their safety, their health, their well-being — and who will support them in that process.

Sometimes children want to stay in a foster home; they don't want to go back home because they feel they'll be abused. Sometimes children, as in the case I gave you here, want to move in with a relative and not be in a foster home. The circumstances depend very much on the maturity of the child, but their views need to be heard, making sure that the state acts as a corporate parent. That means that when the state makes decisions for the child, it would be decisions with the best well-being of the child, as any of us would want for our children, and so that there's no distinction. So developing this concept that the corporate parent must be very responsible and make sure they're doing well.

[1200]

In terms of systemically looking at the Ministry of Children and Families, there's a significant amount of work on that. The first major report that was done
[ Page 2297 ]
on child deaths in the north area really looked at the capacity to conduct assessment. What happens when someone goes to knock on the door? What happens with the child, and what are the risks, and why is it important that we have a strong functioning child welfare system, and we know that it works well?

My office promotes that kind of accountability, looking at the system. Do we have enough people working in that system? Are they trained? Are the interventions effective? Is this an area where the public resources are used appropriately and with good output? I mean, these are all things that our office looks at from a system level. Are we optimizing the use of these? Particularly, the focus is on the outcomes.

If it's a child in care, we want to make sure. Are they having good outcomes in the school system? Is someone paying attention to their school progress year to year? Do we need to do a better job on that?

These are areas that my office has been very active in. But the system requires further improvement without a doubt. However, we are actively engaged, particularly with the Ministry of Children and Families, to discuss that, suggest improvements, encourage that they evaluate it and ensure that they're there to respond to issues of child safety.

J. Yap: Thank you, Representative, for your presentation. I appreciate your opening remarks, which include a reference to the challenging fiscal situation we all face. I'm pleased to note that your budget appears to be within that spirit.

With regard to building occupancy, I'm wondering why there was no budget amount for 2008-2009. I wonder if Tanis, perhaps, could comment on that. I wasn't here last year, but wouldn't the Finance Committee have looked at this and said: "Well, aren't you going to have some lease costs?" I mean, would you not be paying some amount of lease in an ARES building as well?

T. McNally-Dawes: Yes. Last year we only had ARES leases, so it didn't show up in this document. It would actually be shown in the "Centralized management support services" piece line item. That's made up of ARES costs, workplace technology service costs, all corporate accounting system costs and public service agency costs that we incur.

Our building leases at the time we came to the committee last year were in that piece, and now that we have the private leases, it's reporting in a different area. So we actually have two leases in central management support, two office leases, and two office leases in the building occupancy.

J. Yap: Maybe building on the question that John Rustad had asked…. The present arrangement — is that within your, kind of, overall budget in terms of what you will be needing in not just the next fiscal year but the present time?

T. McNally-Dawes: Ongoing. Yes, that's correct. They are all five-year leases that we have entered into, so they are all ongoing fixed costs for us.

J. Yap: Okay. Prior to my arrival at the Finance Committee…. I'm just throwing this question out. Would this be an out-of-budget item, or how was this handled?

M. Turpel-Lafond: I think probably I need to respond to this one. The circumstances operationally for a public body like ours…. The challenge we face with respect to non-ARES leases is like the situation where we would invite ARES in and say: "Let's identify what the space requirements are." So ARES will come. They identified that: "Yes, you need 8,000 square feet of office space." Then they say: "But we're never going to be able to find it for you, so I guess that's it. Goodbye." Then we say: "Okay. Well, we have to look at an alternative arrangement. Thank you for assessing it for us, but there's nothing available." So then we have to look at a private lease situation.

The challenge was that if we were to keep the ARES situation, it would have cost us an additional $400,000 versus getting a private lease situation, which is more at the lower end of the market value, if you like, in the field.

So for myself as a head of an agency, I have to make a very difficult decision, which is: do I stay within the ARES category, actually spend more, or not have any space, or do I make another arrangement understanding that we have to make it no matter if it's in this STOB or that STOB; there's going to be an expense for it? So the responsible approach, I think, is to make sure that you have it there.

[1205]

So when we vacate prior space to come into new space, we make sure someone else can lease it and take it and so on. So I think the whole issue is just to exercise the due diligence and responsibility on it.

I appreciate that different people have different arrangements. I know you met with Elections B.C. or you met with the Ombudsman and others who are considering new buildings, new spaces, whether that’s within ARES or private areas. I mean, people look at whatever can suit their needs, because it is difficult to find appropriate building space, particularly for us. We are in Burnaby, and you've heard good reasons why we're there, because a very significant number of children and youth we serve are there. And then in Victoria there are some pressures and challenges.

So I'm quite satisfied with the arrangements we've made. I think they are appropriate. They're suitable for an office of our size and calibre. However, had I chosen to stay with the ARES arrangement, it would have been
[ Page 2298 ]
a significantly larger expenditure, because I would have to do a forced move on another tenant. As I said, the low estimate was $400,000. It could even have been more. So to me, that's my building occupancy cost for my two offices in one year.

So I felt that we made, probably, a very good decision with respect to that opportunity, and I do credit our manager of finance and facilities for creatively finding appropriate space for us in an affordable range.

J. Yap: I guess my question…. I should be more specific. Was that within the approved budget for the office — the arrangement with the private landlords?

M. Turpel-Lafond: Well, I think that the important point is that in terms of the budget that we're operating in now, we are managing within our budget. So as I indicated at the outset, we are projecting at year-end managing about 2 percent under the projected budget. But these costs that we're asking for…. Clearly, they're increases for the next years.

So we will require an increase to be able to do those and still carry out the mandate of the work. But it was to be expected. I was very clear about this last year — to say that this is a challenge that we have to face, and that in particular, we could no longer continue to share an office space with another agency and have private records of child deaths and so on present. I mean, it just wasn't going to work.

There was going to be a cost one way or the other. We had to face that cost and deal with it, and I think we've made appropriate arrangements. But it will require a budget lift to be able to carry that.

J. Yap: Forward into the future years, yeah.

M. Turpel-Lafond: That's right.

J. Yap: My next question….

R. Hawes (Chair): Before we leave that…. Maybe we can put this part to rest. I'm very hesitant to deliver an admonition, but I feel compelled.

The four other officers in the shared service arrangement are moving to a new building. They laid out their plans, and they came back to the Finance Committee, because actually it's us that make the decision because we're the ones who dole out the money and approve the money.

I understand exactly what you're saying. I'm sure you did make exactly the right decision, but to be honest, it should have come to us before you made a firm commitment. Because now we're dealing with a problem, because we have no choice but to approve that budget. Without any oversight whatsoever, we have to approve what you're going to spend on the new building.

To be consistent with what we expect from the other independent officers, frankly, I think as a committee we need to insist that when there are going to be commitments made for future budgets, before the commitments are made you need to come in front of us and tell us what it is that you wish to do and get our authorization.

It's us that actually approve the money for future years, and at this point, that decision has been taken away from us by the decision you made. Because I'm sure you know we're not going to cut your budget by $350,000 — not cut it, but not approve this — so that you have to take that money from other services. We can't do that.

M. Turpel-Lafond: Well, I just want to say in response, with all due respect…. Is there a direction to do this, and is this offside with what anyone else has done? Other offices move. They move offices from year to year and in particular….

R. Hawes (Chair): But they get approval first. That's the point.

M. Turpel-Lafond: Yeah, but in particular, we came last year to present a budget. The budget included an FTE increase and the understanding that we would look at…. There is always recruitment lag — when will staff come on; when will we have this? — and so forth and to be able to manage within the budget.

[1210]

We do not have an overage this year. We are managing within it. We have managed it thus far. We are coming forward to present it for a decision. We are certainly not presenting it to say: "Here." We are presenting it to say, "Here are our circumstances and our situation," which certainly, for myself as head of the agency, is completely reasonable, I think.

The idea that any variance in a budget, even though we're managing under and projecting it for the year, requires us to return to a committee to discuss it is something that has never been clarified with myself, as an independent officer, and I haven't seen on the record that that's required of any other independent officer.

I know the Ombudsman and the others entered into a separate discussion process with the committee, about building needs into the future. We looked very much as to whether or not we would be part of that process as well. We couldn't defer that until 2010 or 2011. We had to have space to be able to perform the functions.

In my view, decisions that are taken that are required to be taken by the head of a public agency that are appropriately taken…. I don't feel that any of them are inappropriate decisions.

R. Hawes (Chair): I'm not saying they're inappropriate. I'm simply saying that prior to making the firm commitment, you needed to come back to this committee, as other independent officers do. When they're making longer-term commitments that are going to have budget implications,
[ Page 2299 ]
they do come back to us. I think your deputy, Bill Valentine, would certainly know that. I know he does.

So I'm just saying that for future, when you're going to make a decision that's going to have future budget impacts, and you are going to make commitments like this that are fairly substantial, I think you need to come to us and get approval. The four other independent officers that are moving did come to us first and say: "Could we get approval before we enter a commitment for our new space?" They were given that approval.

I'm absolutely confident that your decision was right, and we would have said yes. So I'm only saying for future: could you please come to us when you're making these longer-term commitments…

M. Turpel-Lafond: I certainly….

R. Hawes (Chair): …to respect the responsibility of this committee.

M. Turpel-Lafond: First of all, with all due respect, I can say that I took the advice of my deputy Bill Valentine. He advises me. I took the advice. I entered into these commitments. I don't know if you have some separate understanding of what Mr. Valentine would advise someone, but he advises me, and I took his advice.

Secondly, if I hire a sailor or a lumberjack, ultimately…. I am the Representative for Children and Youth. I fulfil my statutory obligations. I have no overage. I manage my agency. The suggestion that the management of the agency is outside the terms of this committee is one that….

In the future, if there are some commitments that I…. If the budget and finance committee is going to sort of micromanage my agency, I guess I need to have some terms and understanding of how that will operate.

I am projecting at the end of this year 2 percent under expenditure. Whatever the budget decision is by this committee and by the treasury, I will manage my agency. There is no suggestion that there is any type of malfeasance with respect to my operations.

R. Hawes (Chair): I'm not suggesting that at all. I think we're going down a path here that I was hoping we wouldn't have to go. The longer-term commitments such as a lease in a new building that has significant future impacts on your budget, frankly, need to come to this committee. They always come to this committee from the other officers. I can't think of instances…. Well, I can think of some smaller ones where they haven't come.

I'm not criticizing your decision. I'm sure we would have supported it, but it is us, though, that approves the money. Your independence and your ability to operate your commission are completely within your purview, but the money to do so is approved by this committee. We are an oversight committee, and so when you're making long-term commitments, whether it's you or any other officer, we would hope you would come to us and ask us if you're going to make a future commitment. There's nothing more to it than that.

We’re not trying to micromanage anything. We have responsibility to approve the money. I know if we don't approve $357,000 for next year for your lease that you are committed to, that would have dramatic impacts. Frankly, our hands are tied. I know that we have no choice but to approve it, and I'm sure we won't consider not approving the $357,000, just as we probably would have approved it had you come in advance.

[1215]

I'm just suggesting we have a duty, too — a responsibility — and to discharge that properly, we need you to come to us before you make those kinds of commitments.

John, were you finished?

J. Yap: I had another question regarding advocacy. You gave a couple of examples of where your office has advocated and assisted children and families. The examples — and I'm sure there are many others — sound like situations that might come to the offices of MLAs.

I know with that my own constituency office, from time to time we get referred cases that are similar, where there's a disagreement between what MCFD are thinking of doing and the family and the children, who have a different view. Our office gets involved and quite often resolves the situation.

I just want to get a sense of if you're seeing cases that may have gone to an MLA's office, not received satisfaction and your office got involved. Or would there be a component where really the families, the individuals, could have gone to an MLA's office? Whoever the MLA is, you know, every constituency office is there to serve constituents. Do we — meaning MLAs — need to be more proactive in discharging that part of our responsibilities?

M. Turpel-Lafond: Quite a number of the advocacy referrals come from constituency assistants, so constituency assistants have the information about the office. We've made some effort there. I think there's still a greater opportunity to provide more resources. We have some quite good material that's available. Often we will get the intake through constituency offices. Individual MLAs will also call, as well, or occasionally meet with me about matters that they're concerned about.

Again, because we have that independent ability to take another look at something and to bring, in some instances, the views of the child forward, if there is a safety issue…. I can think of a few of these.

One that came to our attention was where some foster children were going to be moved out of the province with a relative they'd never lived with, and an MLA's
[ Page 2300 ]
office called us. We looked at the circumstances for the foster children. There had been no safety assessment in the other province. They were just going to be sent over to a relative they didn't know, and that office brought the issue forward. We were able to make appropriate arrangements to keep them in British Columbia until a safety assessment could be done by the other province.

This is really valuable. Obviously, we're providing advocacy support and inform…. MLAs' offices do that as well. It's perfectly to be expected that constituency assistants would do that. Again, with children and youth with special needs, we do see that there's a significant involvement there, often by Members of the Legislative Assembly.

J. Horgan: Thank you, Representative. I want to extend my gratitude to you and your staff for the extremely difficult work you do each and every day across British Columbia. The staggering figure of 150,000 children living in poverty…. If that doesn't shake every citizen to their core, I'd be very disappointed.

I wanted to ask a couple of questions of line items in your proposal. I have a document that we received yesterday that has in STOB 67 a $50,000 item for '08-09, and in the document we received this morning it's $80,000. Could you clarify which of those numbers is correct?

M. Turpel-Lafond: I'll turn that over to Tanis.

T. McNally-Dawes: Which…?

J. Horgan: It's STOB 67, "Advertising and publications." In the document we received in advance of the hearing, the number we have is $50,000. That's constant through the next three years. In the document in front of us, it's $80,000 in '08-09, reduced to $50,000 in '09-10.

T. McNally-Dawes: I'm only showing $50,000 on my documentation, so maybe there was…. Last week, when I did send the original submission, there was an error in that page, if it's the same page that I think we're talking about, and I re-sent it. So that may explain….

J. Horgan: Okay. Well, I have page 6 on the document we got this morning, which has $80,000 in STOB 67 for this year, and it's down to $50,000 for next year. So is it $50,000 for this year?

T. McNally-Dawes: It's $50,000.

M. Turpel-Lafond: It's $50,000, yeah. I think it's just a typographical error on that part.

T. McNally-Dawes: I think an error on the part, yeah.

[1220]

J. Horgan: Okay, great. I was just, again, seeing leadership in terms of reducing advertising in a time of restraint, and I thought I'd commend you for that. Randy will get me for that later on.

I wanted to also talk a little about the grants. I think that's a terrific idea. Are you endeavouring to distribute those grants across the province, or have you got a focus on a particular institution? Are you trying to shake it up?

M. Turpel-Lafond: Yeah. What we did in terms of the arrangements and relationships we have with researchers — because we don't want to create a research function…. We want to work with leading researchers. We have grants and arrangements with the University of Victoria, UBC, Simon Fraser. There will, we hope, subject to the approval of the committee, be an arrangement with the Canada Research Chair in Child Welfare.

We don't have one of those in British Columbia, unfortunately. I would like to encourage the university presidents to do that, and I do work quite a bit with the university presidents to ensure that the research is being done in this field.

We will probably need to have an arrangement with perhaps University of Toronto, which does have that, to bring someone in. It's like a visitor — a short period of time. They will work with a local.

We have, of course, leading researchers in British Columbia. My office has an agreement with HELP, the human early learning partnership, with Dr. Clyde Hertzman, which is UBC, UVic and others. So we do some particular modelling around trajectories. If we were to improve early opportunities for children, what would that mean around, say, reliance on income assistance later? We do some, particularly economic modelling, with researchers which I think is quite valuable.

J. Horgan: The other question I would have…. You made reference to the webpage. Of course, my kids tell me that the webpages are lame, and if you're not on Facebook, you're nowhere. I want to know what adventures in facebooking you've undertaken.

On that subject, in my constituency and across B.C. and perhaps further afield, I don't know…. Certainly at one of the high schools in my jurisdiction, the kick-a-ginger campaign led to some suspensions, as it should. I'm wondering if that type of activity, if you do have a Facebook presence or are monitoring Facebook…. Are those the sorts of things that you will be looking for in terms of trying to prevent abusive situations — not necessarily in a family, but children on children? Maybe you could comment on that.

M. Turpel-Lafond: Certainly from our side, the website issue is there. We have a talk-to-the-rep section, where people can do that. A lot of the children and youth
[ Page 2301 ]
that use the website are also learning. They want to learn more about children's rights, their voice and so on.

But I agree with you that we have to look at a variety of things. Even my kids tell me that Facebook is finished. They've got the latest — right? In any event, I think we need to look at whatever that is.

An area of concern for the office, particularly with the sexual abuse intervention report, is really protecting children in terms of Internet use and so forth. So I am very mindful of the fact that I don't want to use any type of medium that might be potentially used in an abusive fashion. So it's significant.

Also, for the most vulnerable children that we're serving, they're not terribly connected to the Internet. It's the face time — seeing them, supporting them.

I think for me as the representative, as the external head of the agency, getting out to speak to people, speaking to children and youth directly is very important and using any ability we have.

Quite a bit of the expense on the Internet side is just the maintenance of the site — to continually allow for new information to come up and refresh that site so it's of interest.

J. Horgan: The last question would be your review on government progress on the Hughes recommendations. You mentioned early in the new year that you would expect to have that data available for the public. Or did I misinterpret that in terms of your time frame?

M. Turpel-Lafond: I'm hoping to release it within the next week to ten days.

J. Horgan: January was in my head, so December is much better. Thank you.

R. Hawes (Chair): I've got one question, and that's with respect to the eight fully designated aboriginal agencies now that are, if I'm not mistaken…. I think the number we got yesterday was that there are 30 now. I think it's increased to 30, though, since there are six new ones. But there are eight fully designated.

Are you able to fully access those and do everything that you need to do and have complete access to information within those agencies?

[1225]

M. Turpel-Lafond: There are 24. Some of them are fully delegated in terms of having child protection responsibilities and guardianship responsibilities for children.

We have access. The ministry does the delegation agreements. The agencies report to chiefs and councils. So the structure is a unique structure.

In terms of access to that, we do, and certainly we pushed very much for and were encouraged to see the Ministry of Children and Families post the audits of the delegated agencies for the first time.

We want to, of course, ensure that there is good performance in those agencies and that they have the capacity and the resources to do the work. Of course, as the Representative for Children and Youth, the objective should not simply be that children be provided support or that children be in one agency or another. It's improving the outcomes for those children.

So ensuring that whoever is exercising the responsibility of the state has the capacity to do so is ensuring that the function is discharged appropriately and, if they are using new interventions that have never been used before, if you like, that those be effective and that issues like child safety be foremost.

So we're looking at it. I can't say it's a perfect situation in terms of looking at the operations side, because the level of reporting on those operations is not where it perhaps could be in the future. We will certainly work closely with them, and we do, to see that they're strengthened.

D. Hayer: My question is…. You look after children, who are very diverse as British Columbians are very diverse. Does your staff also reflect that diversity of the clients it serves — speaking different languages and all that — or not?

M. Turpel-Lafond: I think we probably have the most diverse staff in terms of any of the independent offices and certainly any of the public agencies. Being able to provide access to services in a variety of languages is a significant area. Particularly, the outreach to the ethnocultural communities is a main area of focus for us this year.

If you look at the advocacy caseload, we can see that while there is a significant area with the aboriginal children, just because they are very much overrepresented in these vulnerable situations, we also get a significant advocacy caseload in terms of some new immigrant families where there are some barriers in terms of language and around the children accessing supports. This is really a prominent area for us. In particular, we located our Lower Mainland office in Burnaby so that we're closer to those communities and that we're supporting them.

We haven't published our information in every language. It's a pretty significant piece of work to do that. It's a very costly piece of work, as I'm sure the Members of the Legislative Assembly know. But what we do is have very good relations with organizations that are working with children and families in various groups reflecting various languages as well. So it's disseminating through those agencies our information, meeting, making sure that if they have unique needs, we understand them and look at them and support them.
[ Page 2302 ]

D. Hayer: What languages do you publish your material in?

M. Turpel-Lafond: I'd have to get the advice of my deputy representative for advocacy on that.

We have Cantonese, Mandarin — I think we have Punjabi — and English. We don't do the aboriginal languages per se. They're mostly in English, although there is some aboriginal terminology in different languages.

There are quite a few. I'd say there are probably six languages now.

D. Thorne: Can I just ask one? It's not a program question.

R. Hawes (Chair): Go ahead.

D. Thorne: The budget is clear and easy to understand. I thank the budgeter, whoever put it all together, for that because it makes it easier for me on the telephone. Where I'm now confused is…. John referred to papers or a budget that he received this morning, and I'm wondering if I'm looking at a correct budget, in fact.

R. Hawes (Chair): I believe you are looking at a correct budget, Diane.

D. Thorne: Okay. So you didn't get something this morning that I don't have.

R. Hawes (Chair): No.

D. Hayer: I received it this morning, but on STOB 67 it has: "$50,000; $50,000; $50,000." It did not have $80,000 and $50,000 as John received it.

R. Hawes (Chair): That's fine, Dave.

D. Thorne: John got his own special budget.

[1230]

R. Hawes (Chair): Just for the record, I will say as Chair that one of the things that I am going to ask — and I hope I would have the support of the committee — is to have some form of discussion with the committee and with the independent officers, or at least their accounting crew, to come up with a more standardized presentation, because they're all quite different, or many of them are quite different.

I think it would be very helpful for all of us if there were, first and foremost, a standardized presentation format and, secondly, a clearer understanding between both the committee and all of the independent officers about the bounds in which they should come back to us and where they don't need to come back to us.

I hope we can enter that discussion over the next few months so that we all understand exactly what the process is. I think that's what we're talking about here — a process.

With that, thank you very much to the representative and to your staff. We will be deliberating over the next few days, and we will get back to you.

With that, we will call for a recess, and we will be having a short discussion in camera after.

The committee recessed from 12:31 p.m. to 1:03 p.m.

[R. Hawes in the chair.]

R. Hawes (Chair): We have a motion to move in camera.

Motion approved.

The committee continued in camera from 1:03 p.m. to 1:13 p.m.

[R. Hawes in the chair.]

R. Hawes (Chair): We're back on the public record. We will now reconvene on Monday to begin our deliberations. Until then, I think everybody is going to go away and take a look at all of the budget submissions. Hopefully, on Monday we'll reach some conclusions. With that, I'll take a motion to adjourn.

The committee adjourned at 1:14 p.m.

[ Return to: Finance and Government Services Committee Home Page ]

Hansard Services publishes transcripts both in print and on the Internet.
Chamber debates are broadcast on television and webcast on the Internet.
Question Period podcasts are available on the Internet.

Copyright © 2008: British Columbia Hansard Services, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada