2011 Legislative Session: Fourth Session, 39th Parliament

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON FINANCE AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES

MINUTES AND HANSARD

MINUTES SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON FINANCE AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

8 a.m.

Douglas Fir Committee Room

Parliament Buildings, Victoria, B.C.

Present: Rob Howard, MLA (Chair); Doug Donaldson, MLA (Deputy Chair); Bill Bennett, MLA; Mable Elmore, MLA; Dave S. Hayer, MLA; Pat Pimm, MLA; Bruce Ralston, MLA; Bill Routley, MLA; Dr. Moira Stilwell, MLA; Jane Thornthwaite, MLA.

1. The Chair called the Committee to order at 8:03 a.m.

2. Pursuant to its terms of reference, the Committee continued its review of the three-year rolling service plans, annual reports and budget estimates of the statutory officers.

    The following witnesses appeared before the Committee and answered questions:

3. The Committee recessed from 9:03 a.m. to 9:10 a.m.

4. The Committee recessed from 9:53 a.m. to 10:01 a.m.

5. Resolved, that the Committee meet in-camera to deliberate on its Report. (Dr. Moira Stilwell, MLA)

6. The Committee met in-camera from 10:01 a.m. to 11:03 a.m.

7. The Committee recessed from 11:03 a.m. to 11:19 a.m.

8. The Committee continued in-camera.

9. The Committee adjourned to the call of the Chair at 11:32 a.m.

The following electronic version is for informational purposes only.

The printed version remains the official version.

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS
(Hansard)

select standing committee on
Finance and Government Services

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Issue No. 66

ISSN 1499-4178

[ Page 1811 ]

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 2011

The committee met at 8:03 a.m.

[R. Howard in the chair.]

R. Howard (Chair): Good morning, Members. This is the annual review of statutory officers of British Columbia — three-year rolling service plans, annual reports and budgetary estimates for fiscal 2012-13.

We have with this morning the Office of the Representative for Children and Youth. Welcome, Mary Ellen, as the representative. We have Jeremy Berland, deputy representative; John Greschner, chief investigator — hello, John; and Tanis McNally-Dawes, manager, finance and facilities.

Mary Ellen, as you know, we've got about an hour set aside. I understand you have a presentation. I'll keep a speakers list, and hopefully, we'll have some time at the end for some questions.

Over to you.

Office of the Representative
for Children and Youth

M. Turpel-Lafond: Great. Good morning, everyone.

You've already introduced the staff. I'm pleased that they are here with me today, and we're delighted to answer questions. We've submitted to you a copy of our service plan, which was presented last week to the Select Standing Committee on Children and Youth, as is required by the Representative for Children and Youth Act, and tabled there.

Of course, members will know that I've just recently been reappointed to a second term as Representative for Children and Youth. The service plan that was submitted was prepared without any clear understanding as to whether or not that would occur, so it's a little bit more generic than is usual. I just make note for members of the committee that when I submitted it to the select standing committee last week, we had a very good discussion, and we will probably be providing more detail with respect to that to the Select Standing Committee on Children and Youth.

[0805]

Of course, unlike some of the other offices of the Legislative Assembly, because there is a particular committee that I work very closely with, we do meet regularly to talk about ongoing issues around the mandate and service. That committee is also currently — and there are some members of this committee who are also on that committee, so they well know — seized with a review of the Representative for Children and Youth Act and, I think, are about mid-point in that process.

So the service plan and budget were also prepared with the anticipation that there may well be, within the next year, adjustments made with respect to the mandate of the representative's office or some new expectations around the type of work that would be undertaken or how it would be undertaken.

What we've done out of prudence is prepare a number of scenarios as to how that can move forward, but essentially, the budget that we have submitted that I will speak to is a budget that is a stand pat budget, and that has been prepared for, sort of, very deliberate reasons, which I'll outline.

Our presentation this morning is divided into four parts: first, the overview of the mandate and some issues around the dynamics of the work; the state of vulnerable children in British Columbia; the work that we plan to undertake in the current year; an overview of our budget request; and an opportunity, of course, to answer any questions or certainly more than willing to provide some additional material, if needed.

With respect to the representative's office, of course, it arose as a result of the hon. Ted Hughes's report in 2006, which was a review of B.C. children and youth services. He recommended to establish an independent body to do three things: advocate for children and youth; review and investigate critical injuries and deaths of children and youth; and monitor and report publically on systemic issues across the child-serving system to improve the effectiveness and responsiveness of MCFD services, reporting and accountabilities.

The Office of the Representative for Children and Youth was created and began formal functions in terms of advocacy and monitoring on April 1, 2007, and the critical injury and death review in June 2007. The central theme of the work was a need for stability and accountability in the child-serving system and to assist citizens, and particularly children and youth, with navigating some of the complexities of the child-serving system.

Mr. Hughes, at the time — and I think it's an ongoing issue for us, although certainly we have seen significant progress recently — made it clear that the Office of the Representative for Children and Youth was important to restore public confidence in a system that had been buffeted by an unmanageable degree of change.

One of the functions of an oversight body such as our office is to help the public understand this system, to explain how the system works and to look at how it can work better. The role is to assist government, to reassure the public that there is an independent body providing oversight and, when necessary, act as a liaison between the public being served and government.

As you will know from your own experience at the constituency level, there are many people for whom dealing with a large government bureaucracy is extremely difficult and often intimidating, and that can be particularly compounded for those who are children or youth or families that are particularly vulnerable.

There are now very few provinces or states that do not have an official advocacy function for children and
[ Page 1812 ]
youth to try to level the playing field in these difficult situations. Certainly, our office within Canada — and I play a role as president of the Canadian Council of Child and Youth Advocates — is called upon to consult with or advise and support other governments that are looking at creating stronger advocacy functions.

In the past year we've been assisting both the government of Nunavut in creating an independent advocate. We've been providing support to the government of Alberta, just in terms of talking about how we do things in British Columbia. More recently we are looking closely at providing some advocacy support in Prince Edward Island.

The office is really here, as Mr. Hughes suggested — and I quote from his report — "to assist, encourage and sometimes prod the government to be more aware and responsive to the individual concerns of children, youth and families, and to recommend changes that will address broader problems in the child welfare system" — sometimes what we call the presenting issues that are underlying the child welfare system.

The representative's office is here to support the success of government, and particularly the Ministry of Children and Family Development and other ministries that serve children, such as the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Health and others.

The daily successes of those ministries and service providers connected to them, in small ways and large, mean better lives for vulnerable children and youth, and we're very supportive of the work that's done on the front lines of all of those systems.

[0810]

My office is a little different from the other independent offices in the sense that it's a very intense degree of oversight of a single ministry, and some services provided under an array of ministries, and that we have three distinctive functions that are mandated in the legislation that we must perform over and over again.

For instance, in the review of critical injuries and deaths, we must consider a very broad range of events, from broken arms on a playground through an accident through to deliberate acts of murder. So we have to have an investigative team that's skilled, that can exercise powers akin to a public inquiry and support clear public reporting as necessary around incidents.

My advocates similarly hear an extremely broad range of concerns and a request for assistance from children and youth in care, their parents, caregivers, service providers, often ministry staff, concerned citizens and grandparents.

Many issues are minor and can be resolved with a quick phone call. Some issues are very complex and require a multi-year commitment from the advocacy staff to resolve. Sometimes very intense work is required.

I'll just provide as an example some of the recent cases with respect to children and youth with special needs aging out of the ministry for children and youth services and into CLBC, where we've had some urgent advocacy cases that have required nothing short of months of detailed meeting and advocacy to resolve or support a better resolution of the circumstances that those young people face but also to ensure that people in the systems hear them and are not indifferent to their circumstances.

The research and monitoring arm of the office must sort of stand ready to take on a similarly broad range of issues, from child poverty to phallometry, addictions, adoptions. Some areas are not easily researched or even understood by those who are in charge of them. I'll give as an example an area that I hope to do some public reporting on this year, although it has taken really three years of work to have an understanding of how reliable the information in the system is, and that is how the civil justice system deals with child welfare cases.

We have significant issues around backlogs in the justice system — but even to understand with all the players involved in the justice system why it takes the length of time it takes. The reasons that impact that in the child welfare cases has been a product of a multi-year effort by my office, finally kind of coming into an understanding where we hope to report in the year ahead.

But again, often people who are responsible for systems don't have a common understanding of challenges that they face. Our office provides a bit of a meeting ground. We do research. We look at the data. We try and partner together to think about whether or not these systems are effective and responsive.

We have a bit of an unpredictable workload that fluctuates, and we plan for that and attempt to manage that. We approach it with a great deal of care and determination. It's extremely important in our office that we promptly respond to inquiries, particularly in the advocacy area but also with respect to critical injuries and deaths that are reported to us, that we undertake and complete investigations where they are taken up with dispatch, with thoroughness and with appropriate public reporting. But there are things that are unpredictable, so we prepare for that.

It's difficult to understand if a government policy change, for instance, will result in a large increase in advocacy cases in a year. Sometimes it does; sometimes it doesn't. Anticipating, possibly, if there are some changes with respect to the transition to adulthood for young people with developmental disabilities, we probably will have a significant upswing in our advocacy caseload in the year ahead. These are areas that we do work with and manage in our office.

The core business areas of the representative's office are those that I have discussed. They're set out in section 6 of the legislation, which is carefully detailed in the service plan. I'm not going to read it to you. You'll be well aware of it from the material that's been filed. Of course, just to say that independence, public accountability and
[ Page 1813 ]
transparency are very important to the effective operation of the representative's office.

I mentioned earlier meeting frequently with the Select Standing Committee on Children and Youth. I think I've appeared before them 23 times in the last number of years, and I think that's a good sign. That's a form of public accountability in terms of the work in progress and also to reflect the perspective that members of the Legislature have that this work is important and should be collaborative. So I think that's a very significant part of our perspective on how the work gets done.

[0815]

Even in the next short while, as I look at serving a second term in this role…. We have recently struck a bit of a committee with the Chair of the select standing committee and the vice-Chair to look at how we can report on performance of our independent office more effectively to the public and how we can measure that. I think that's a very welcome process, and I look forward to that.

I'm certainly very mindful how the offices of the Legislative Assembly, while they perform important functions, are sometimes not always linked in to normal accountability mechanisms. So it's a really good idea, I think, to regularly report and be connected to, and I certainly appreciate very much the support of the Clerk's committee in all of those functions, to make sure that that happens within the machinery of the Legislative Assembly with a high degree of public integrity and accountability.

Of course, our legislation requires that we do issue public reports at the end of an investigation; of course, that we issue annual reports detailing all of our services; and that we undertake special reports as requested. Occasionally cases are referred to us by the select standing committee, and so we must then undertake those areas and report on them. Of course, occasionally government comes to us and asks for us to look at an area and report on it, sometimes to them or to the public. So there are different aspects of the reporting function that are important.

Underlying all of the work, really, is a perspective that there are some citizens in our province who are particularly vulnerable and deserve careful attention, and certainly, we want to make sure we're never indifferent to the circumstances of some of the most vulnerable citizens. They deserve careful attention to ensure that the services and supports we provide are effective and responsive; that there are equal opportunities, in particular, for all children to succeed in British Columbia; and that where children are facing sets of vulnerabilities that other children don't face, there are strong institutional supports to boost their resilience and success.

Really, the four main groups of children that we have really targeted our work with in our assessment evaluations and our advocacy are, first of all, a group of children living out of the parental home. Some of those are children in care. Some of those are children in an extended family program — Child in the Home of a Relative, children on youth agreements living independently before they reach the age of majority.

Aboriginal children and youth are a very significant part of our work because of the fact that they have such disparate outcomes in terms of their education, health, experiences. Although we have some good information about the circumstances they face, there are still a lot of unknown areas with respect to why it is that we have a persistent undersupport for them and why they are not being adequately supported in their homes, communities and schools and elsewhere to succeed as do their peers.

We are particularly focused on providing supports to children and youth with special needs and children and youth who experience mental health challenges, either through diagnosed disorders or other behavioural issues that arise because of challenges that they face with respect to their health. That's a significant population. There are about 52,000 to 55,000 children in British Columbia with significant developmental issues that require support, so that's a major cohort of our work.

The final group, which is a group that we've worked very intensely with in the past year and we anticipate in the coming year to work with on an ongoing basis, are immigrant and refugee youth. So in the last year we've partnered very closely with immigrant and refugee youth with the Vancouver Foundation, with the immigrant and refugee Youth Advisory Group that's been very strong and effective.

We've had a major summit of 120 immigrant and refugee youth from the Lower Mainland who were brought together and partnered with those in the front-line service ministries that will affect their lives, like Housing and Social Development, Education, MCFD and others. It has been very successful to hear immigrant and refugee youth experience in British Columbia, and it certainly emboldens our office to work more effectively to see that they are supported. We've seen some significant change there, so I'm very pleased about that.

So those are some of the vulnerable young people. Occasionally, they fall into all categories at once, which is interesting — that you have a child living out of the parental home who may be a recent refugee, for instance, who comes into foster care and who is experiencing significant mental health issues. We do have cases that come our way that are particularly challenging, where the need for support is very high. So it's a value to have services for these vulnerable citizens but also to make sure that there's assistance to navigate these citizens.

[0820]

With respect to the situation of children in care, which is a key issue for us, of course we all know that the challenges for children who come into care are enormous
[ Page 1814 ]
— not only the reasons why they come into care. They may have experienced neglect or abuse in their family or family breakdown or death of a family member — death of the sole parent, for instance — the stigma of foster care, the separation from parents and siblings.

The need for stability, planning and support during that extremely vulnerable period is such that we have really heightened awareness and visibility in the system to make sure that government services are effective and responsive, that people who are contracted caregivers and others are doing their work effectively, and that, really, the lens is strongly focused on the child.

Not only are they about services, but they are services that norm certain values, such as replicating the concept of a family for a child living outside the parental home. It's important that children feel settled, safe with people who know them and can care for and love them, and that they will be attentive and prudent caregivers, paying attention to their education, their health needs and so forth.

These are principles that many children in British Columbia never have to be concerned about because they are living in strong families that are able to pay careful attention to their needs. But for this group of children, there's an additional lens and focus that's required.

Of course, I note that in British Columbia we do have an amazing network of dedicated foster parents, child-serving workers, teachers and others who really do care deeply and work with great integrity to support children. Sometimes they are not always working in an integrated and linked system, which is one of the challenges of our office — to try and get people to work more closely together and to share information and support children. But we do have an incredible, talented array of people at the front line of the child-serving system, which I think makes the work much easier than it would be if we didn't have those committed individuals out there.

With respect to aboriginal children in particular. I mentioned some of the poor outcomes for aboriginal children. I just wanted to remind the committee in terms of why we put such a strong emphasis on aboriginal children. Apart from what we know about their socioeconomic challenges, their family circumstances, one in five aboriginal children will have contact with the child welfare system during their childhood. That doesn't mean that they'll be in foster care for their entire childhood, but they will have contact, either through a child welfare investigation or a temporary removal or a placement with a relative.

Of the children in care — the approximately 8,100 children in care in British Columbia, at least in that category — about 56 percent are aboriginal, even though they comprise only 8 percent of the B.C. population. So there is a gross overrepresentation, as is there a gross overrepresentation in youth justice. For instance, the youth justice in-custody population in B.C. is fairly small, but it has continued to grow in terms of the numbers of aboriginal youth reflected there.

There continue to be some persistent challenges with effectively supporting aboriginal children and youth, and also with promoting practices and approaches which will see appropriate collaboration between the federal and provincial governments.

Our office has a distinct focus on collaborating and establishing partnerships with aboriginal children and youth. We do that through close partnerships with an array of organizations, like FNESC, First Nations Education Secretariat, the delegated aboriginal authorities, the Caring for First Nations Society, the First Nations Leadership Council.

We work with a number of organizations; we also work directly with children and youth. So it's important in an office like ours that we not just be located in the provincial capital but that we actually have offices such as an office that we have in Prince George, and that we regularly engage and meet with First Nations children and youth in their home communities.

In British Columbia 70 percent of First Nations children and youth live off reserve, but nevertheless, it's very important for us to have that coverage, often in rural, remote communities. So it's a different type of a mandate to deliver an effective outreach and advocacy program to that population of children and youth, and I think we've had a great deal of success.

We are very concerned, and this upcoming year we'll be putting an extra effort into working with respect to children and youth with special needs from the aboriginal population in particular, because we are finding, again, some persistent challenges about that population receiving effective assessment and supports during their childhood and their youth but also in their transition into adulthood.

[0825]

With respect to the work of the current year, just a couple of things that will be highlighted in the different areas. First of all, with respect to the review and investigation of critical injuries and deaths of children, my office receives reports or reportable circumstances when a child has been injured, as to who has been receiving services — the child or their family — in the year prior to the injury, or if there has been a death, in the year prior to the death we receive a report.

We have three levels that we work through with these reportables. First of all, they all undergo an initial screening, and in the initial screening stage we look at whether or not there were government services offered. What are the general circumstances around which the child has been injured or died? Then we look as to whether or not there is a need to go to a more in-depth review of those circumstances.

If so, we do a detailed review, and after the review stage we decide whether or not a full-blown, individual
[ Page 1815 ]
investigation is required or other type of report is required. So it's a staged process. About half proceed from the initial screening process to the review stage, and a small number then proceed to a complex and fairly time-intensive but important investigation stage.

In the review process we identify order files from the ministries and service agencies — might be MCFD, police, courts, medical, health, others — catalog and organize a fairly large volume of materials. We review records. We document the information, and we look very carefully at the services that may have been provided or not provided.

Occasionally, we will take a group of cases and do an aggregate review. In the past year we did an aggregate review of 21 deaths of infants under the age of two whose deaths were sleep-related. So we will occasionally aggregate cases out where there are common themes that we see across them.

In that aggregate review on 21 infants that died, we would have had a detailed examination of about 80 files and experiences around the lives of 80 children. Just in terms of actual numbers, to give you an idea of the volume of the work and the budget request to support that volume, between June 2007, when we began the mandate, and September 2011 we've had reported to us 770 critical injuries and 384 deaths, so a total of 1,154 reports.

As of the end of September 2011 there are 399 critical injuries and 154 deaths that have been identified for review. They've gone from the screening into the review stage. So 13 percent of these are being reviewed as part of an aggregate on self-harm injuries — suicide attempts and completed suicides. And 87 percent of the critical injuries will be put in future aggregate reviews or individually reviewed or are in the process of moving on to an investigation stage.

Approximately 8 percent of deaths are being reviewed as part of the aggregate review on suicide. We'll be reporting out on the first aggregate on that in the work in the year ahead, and 92 percent of the deaths that are reported are either in, again, aggregates or individual investigative streams.

The third stage of the process is this investigation. I just want to give you an idea of what is required in the investigation function, and this is prescribed in the legislation, because we have powers akin to a public inquiry. When we conduct an investigation….

A recent investigation that would have been reported from our office was the investigation of a critical injury of an adolescent girl who has significant developmental disabilities who was with her deceased mother, for instance, for seven days. We did a full-blown investigation report on her injuries — so around how that is prepared, the stages and the work that's required.

First of all, we have the power and the obligation to call witnesses and collect evidence or examination under oath, which is a fairly formal process but necessary in terms of the integrity. We review all related documents such as any police documents, court documents, medical documents, MCFD, some community agency material. We will do interviews in the community or communities where the child or family lived, which often involves, again, staff travel costs because these can be in remote communities, and it takes some time to understand the life and experience of the child.

Occasionally we have to re-examine witnesses to confirm facts in dispute. One person may say something very different than someone else, and we sometimes have to recall people and carefully go through the facts before we make findings of fact, because we must make findings of fact based on the preponderance of information in our evidentiary weighing process. We do research into similar situations, so any of our investigative reports look at systemic issues.

In the case of the teenager with special needs with the mom who died — left there with her deceased mom for a week — not only would we have looked at her circumstance, but we would have looked at the entire class of children who were transferred from CLBC back to the Ministry for Children and Families, for the Ministry for Children and Families to provide planning and assistance to those children.

[0830]

She was one of that class of children. Then we would look at all of them and find out if all of those children have a worker connected with them. How many are there in the case? If they haven't connected with them, how many did they not connect with, and why? And we tried to understand the reasons — the systemic reasons behind, as I say, one case. Or are there other cases like this in the system?

There's a careful bit of research and quality assurance evaluation that happens around that. That may also require collecting evidence under oath from other people. We then interview some collateral professionals, and we consult with a multidisciplinary team that we keep, which is a range of individuals there because of their expertise in health, child welfare, education and sometimes community development or rural circumstances for families. We allow them to look at the circumstances and inform us about any recommendations that they think would be valuable.

This is quite a complicated process. The reports go through an administrative fairness process, where government and others have an opportunity to correct any errors and omissions. Of course, because we're dealing with delicate issues around family members — parents, grandparents, siblings — it's very important that we spend the time to go out and meet with parents, families and siblings, to take the extra effort to explain what we've found and to prepare them for the release of a report.
[ Page 1816 ]

It's quite a delicate process, but the staff costs have to also contemplate the release of the report and ongoing consultation. Family members, in some instances, will want to have and maintain a connection with the office for a period of time and will want to check in periodically or would like us to meet with them periodically to let them know an update on what has happened. I think that's quite a positive part, because we want to show that if there's something to learn from an incident, we learn it and we connect back to people most deeply affected by it and tell them about how the system can be improved.

There are currently two major investigations underway; 16 others have been identified. And I anticipate that there'll be active work in the year ahead on those. In some instances, of course, we have to wait for criminal proceedings to be completed, and we're not always in control of that, so that's always a factor.

With respect to the monitoring, review and auditing of designated services, I've spoken a bit to a few of the reports that we've touched upon in the past year. In the year ahead we will continue to look at the implementation of some of the recommendations from these reports, particularly where there have been systemic issues identified.

We released a report a few months ago, in the month of September, on a First Nations infant that died at a few months old. That report was called So Many Plans, So Little Stability: A Child's Need for Security. That really looked at the issue of file transfer and the issues of a young infant's life where there were multiple plans and a lack of stability in the system.

That is a report that has just freshly been issued, but it will be an area of intense work in the next year, not only collaboratively with the ministry but with delegated aboriginal authorities, because it represented a case, although we did systemic analysis to suggest that there were broader-trend problems around file transfer, the level of planning and attention required with respect to the needs of an infant.

I appreciate that not everybody gets to read the reports of the representative, but one of the key issues identified in that report was the need to close a safety gap in the family law system. I know you're currently looking at a bill on a new Family Law Act in British Columbia, for which, really, some of the recommendations came strongly out of this report. But to give you an idea of the work ahead, let's say the Legislative Assembly was to in fact pass the bill through the various stages, it obtained royal assent, and we were working toward proclamation.

This would be an area on an ongoing basis where we would in the next year work closely with the Ministry of Attorney General and others on implementation to make sure that the safety considerations were effectively addressed. That's a key area.

I want to jump over just to the advocacy area in the year ahead and to talk a bit about the caseload there. Between April 2007 and October 2011 we had 7,234 new advocacy cases taken on by the advocates in the representative's office. On a monthly basis, we see about 150 new advocacy cases opened. Of course, we field many more calls for areas that we can't assist in, like calls about the family justice system. Often there are calls about a variety of issues. We try to redirect people into other places that they might find support, but there are about 150 advocacy files opened each month. As I said earlier, some of them are relatively straightforward; some are very, very complex.

[0835]

Significant themes — so the committee knows the types of areas that we're working on: children and youth that do not feel safe or protected, children and youth that feel that their right to participate in decisions being made about them are not being respected, and children and youth who feel that important people in their lives are not engaged or communicated with adequately. That work is important on an individual basis.

The child advocates in our office also do workshops in communities around the rights of the children to be heard, engaging and outreaching to children and youth. In this past year we did workshops and outreach in 12 different communities, mostly focusing on youth. Our advocates visited about 70 communities in total in the current fiscal year, and we're on track for about the same number in the next year.

Travel costs associated with providing that function are significant, and we note that. We've spoken to that in the past. But it's very important, as I said earlier, for us to do advocacy to rural and isolated communities and to make sure we have an actual presence there. Some don't have broadband Internet yet. They are not that connected to service providers, and frankly, sometimes we meet with them, and they've never seen a service provider.

They should see a service provider because their families and their communities are not in any position to travel long distances — whether that be to Prince George or Prince Rupert or where have you in the Interior — to receive services. They really need a more understanding system. So we remain very committed to going out and having a real presence in communities, especially, as I said earlier, First Nations communities, where I think developing relationship requires that protocol and respect of being present in face-to-face real time.

In terms of other outreach activities, I've spoken a bit about the recent summit, partnering with immigrant refugee youth. We also do host when we give out awards of excellence for service for children and youth, to raise the profile of those who do this work, but also to have a stronger outreach. We participate in many major conferences, forums and public events by providing public information to make sure that children and youth and their families will be well informed of our services.

As part of a very positive reset in the relationship between my office and the Ministry of Children and
[ Page 1817 ]
Family Development earlier this spring, we have entered into a very strong advocacy protocol with the minister and the ministry. I hope that in the next year we'll see automatic notification to clients of MCFD and for some of their affiliated service providers to receive automatic notification of the supports that the representative's office can provide in terms of advocacy. I anticipate that that will increase the advocacy function but in a very positive direction.

I also note, just around the management of the advocacy function, we regularly meet with the newly reinstated director of child welfare for the province to talk about advocacy cases.

So a new development this year, which I hope to continue next year, that I think is very positive, is where in a month we will see, say, 20 new advocacy cases from a particular region with respect to a particular service or a class of children that are experiencing a concern. In addition to doing the individual advocacy, we have the opportunity to meet almost immediately with the provincial director of child welfare or the deputy minister in MCFD as a very important early warning system to say, "We're identifying a concern. Can we get to work on it?" — quite apart from the individual cases. So I see that as a positive, maturing concept of the work. It again requires another layer of work, but I think it's extremely positive.

The work in the coming year will include these three key areas. A few other reports and areas which I'm hoping to report on in the upcoming year: the experience of young people in group homes or residential care in British Columbia. We had an unfortunate incident where a young child was tasered in a group home, and we have since looked at the issue of the relationship between police and group homes, and we have found some significant challenges there that we will publicly report on.

We are also working to do a report in the area of mental health and the intersection of mental health and addictions. A significant report is underway on adoptions, and also, planning for children in care. I mentioned, also, the court delay issues. There are quite a few significant projects. Some are of the status of an audit, if you like. Some are more of a review. Some are more of a collaborative research project. They're at different stages, but I anticipate them being reported in the next year.

So the organization, the representative's office, has a budget submission — approximately a $7 million budget. Again, we provide oversight to MCFD with its about $1.4 billion budget, so it's an ambitious undertaking but a very positive undertaking.

[0840]

As I indicated, I'm requesting a stand-pat budget. I'm doing that for one very clear purpose, which is that I think that from our office we have a very acute understanding of the province's fiscal reality — the challenges that you're all grappling with as legislators and that the government is grappling with — as well as my strong belief that available funds should be directed on direct services rather than oversight whenever possible, although we need these oversight functions to continue.

Certainly, I'm not coming to you asking for an increase in budget. I give great credit to my director of finance and facilities, Tanis McNally-Dawes, for very creative budgeting in the last year, because last year was a stand-pat budget, but we did have increases in service demands. We've managed within that budget and didn't come back to see you last year, in part because of very creative, careful planning and decision-making and trying to be very strategic about it.

I'm very pleased about the attitude in my office about that and the understanding about it. We have to be rigorous to do that, but I am presenting to say I'm willing to undertake that for the next year, even though I understand that there may be some areas where the mandate of the office may be expanded.

For instance, the Select Standing Committee on Children and Youth may decide to recommend to government that we do advocacy for 19- to 24-year-olds transitioning from child and youth mental health and special needs supports into CLBC services. That's about 500 youth a year in that category. That will, no doubt, result in an uptick or upswing in the caseload, but I'm still prepared to move forward.

The bottom line is the same between this year and next. In a few areas we've had some movement in the budget, as you can see around the statement of expenditures and the operating budget that have been tabled. Salaries — there are some minor increases that reflect seniority issues as staff move through the salary grid. Employee benefits change with respect to central government allocation of costs. Some information systems adjustments because there will be funding needed to reflect governmentwide upgrades to computer hardware. And there will be some office expenses changes as a result of the changeover from the HST.

In terms of the FTE, we are sort of fully staffed now. We have a total of 47 positions in three offices, six in Prince George, nine in Burnaby and 32 in Victoria. You'll note that our capital request includes an additional $60,000 for information systems. We hope to develop enhancements to our case management performance-tracking system.

These are important. I talked about the reset in the relationship with MCFD. It's important to have better tracking so that in our regular briefings with MCFD we will have good, real-time information to share with them as they are improving their reporting system. So this is, we feel very strongly, a necessary improvement to assist us to get a better handle on where there are particular challenges that arise.

In terms of the travel and other matters, I've spoken about how important that is. I think, again, that mem-
[ Page 1818 ]
bers of this committee, particularly those who are from outside Victoria or the Lower Mainland, will know the costs of travel in our province. For instance, from Vancouver to Prophet River, if you go via Fort Nelson, it's about $1,600. Vancouver to Bella Bella, via Bella Coola, is about $1,500. If we went from Prince George to Iskut via Dease Lake and Telegraph Creek, it's about $1,800.

As you can see from the chart on page 7 of the submission, salaries, benefits and employee travel account for about 70 percent of the budget of the representative's office. Fixed costs account for about 20 percent, leaving about 10 percent, which we can then allocate on a bit more of a discretionary basis into different projects, activities and program areas as needed. We do need to make adjustments.

Around the professional services category, I just wanted to speak to a couple of the unique areas that we operate within as the representative's office. We do require specialized assistance with investigations and reviews. For instance, I have a small contract with a pediatrician to provide advice on medical issues. I would not be able to hire a pediatrician. I don't want to hire a pediatrician. That would be an enormous cost. But we have a small consulting contract. Professional services — we need to maintain a certain level of professional services for coverage over key areas.

[0845]

We have two retired, very senior police officers who provide great experience and assistance with investigations — not something I could really keep in-house on a full-time basis, but we do require those supports as needed. On the professional services side, it's extremely important.

We do enter into agreements with foundations, universities and research entities to make sure that the quality of the information, the data presented and the quality of the reports that we produce is extremely high and takes into account latest research and evidence. We can't, again, afford to purchase full-on a Canada Council chair in social work, for instance, but we can, through creative process, acquire some of their assistance. Professional services has that requirement. Again, we have some legal costs as well.

In terms of looking at the budget request….

R. Howard (Chair): Mary Ellen, I'm sorry. I'll just remind you. You've got about 15 minutes left, and we've got a number of questioners.

M. Turpel-Lafond: Yes. I'll wrap it up. Thank you very much. I just wanted to make sure that I had a chance to go through some of those key categories — professional services, travel and salaries. I'm happy to answer questions about anything that we've covered, including about any of the budget items.

To say something I've said just in past years and which I haven't done, if there was an abnormal increase in volume or if there was a request to take on something, particularly from government, that had not been identified in the legislation, like a special report in an area or what have you, I would like to reserve the opportunity to come back, if necessary. I've never had to do that, but I would just like to always reserve that possibility in the event of an unforeseen circumstance at this stage.

I'll leave it with that, and I'd be delighted to answer any questions.

R. Howard (Chair): Thank you very much. I'll just remind the members that we're getting a little short on time, so please keep them brief.

D. Donaldson (Deputy Chair): Thanks for the presentation. I have to say congratulations to you and your team for the good work you do, and because of that, congratulations on your reappointment to the position.

You brought up the topic of transitioning. Your advocacy work, obviously, and your investigative work create a lot of knowledge around systemic issues. I'm wondering if you've been consulted to contribute to the review of CLBC in any way and whether the minister responsible for that has met with you on that topic.

M. Turpel-Lafond: I'm delighted to say that I have regularly provided information to the Minister of Social Development through the deputy, and I have had a chance to meet with the minister directly. I'm not a party or a participant in an internal review or an external review, but I have shared concerns around individual cases with respect to that.

I welcome any opportunity, and I've certainly asked the minister to keep me posted as to what changes might be taken to report on the transition of young people from MCFD to CLBC so that I can better understand what happens to the 500 to 600 young people each year that transition over.

I have maybe 50 to 75 cases, but then I don't work after they turn 19. I have a transition period, so there's a bit of an unknown for me. I need to hear what they know, if you like. We have a good discussion underway, but I'm not a formal participant in any type of a review of CLBC.

P. Pimm: Well, thanks a lot. That was a great presentation, and most of my question has been answered. Again, thank you for that, and congratulations on your reappointment.

I did want to go back to your staffing issues. It was one of the questions. You said three offices. They are…. I didn't catch the numbers that you said there.

M. Turpel-Lafond: Yes. I have three offices. There are 47 positions in total, or 47 FTEs. Six are in Prince George, nine are in Burnaby, and 32 are in Victoria. Then, when
[ Page 1819 ]
we assess the staff…. I'm not going to go into all the detail for you, but I can if you like. For instance, the advocacy staff will also be assigned a region. They will have a rotation to cover other areas off, to have a presence in different regions.

One of the challenges of having the stand-pat budget last year and this year is that I haven't been able to expand, if you like, services, I think, as effectively as are needed — for instance, in the Interior. I think there's a real need to do more of that. We have directed staff to have a regular presence in the Interior and to meet there.

[0850]

Our coverage, just geographically, is limited, but we do attend. But that is an area of concern for me — that particular area. While this year I'm not anticipating that, I may in future years want to talk about how we can make sure there are better quality services and more presence there.

P. Pimm: The other quick question was on your capital. Can you explain what your additional capital this year was for? I see it's up a little bit from other years.

M. Turpel-Lafond: Yes. I might ask Tanis to elaborate on this in particular if I make a mistake. The capital expenditure this year is really for three areas. The equipment, furniture and office space requirements are about $30,000. The information system is about $60,000 for the upgrade that I spoke about, to have a more modernized system. And some tenant improvements are about $50,000 with respect to a planned change for our office space in Burnaby, as the lease is up.

Tanis, is that…?

T. McNally-Dawes: Yes, that's correct.

M. Turpel-Lafond: Okay. Good.

P. Pimm: Fair enough.

J. Thornthwaite: Thanks very much for your presentation, and also congratulations. I'm also interested in your comment about — this keeps coming up in pretty much all of our discussions in committees, etc. — trying to mesh the aboriginal issues with the feds, given the fact that 70 percent of aboriginal folks actually don't live on reserve. I'm just wondering: what work do you do with your federal counterparts or other provincial counterparts on trying to get that situation more gelled so that the funding from the feds or our partnership agreements are focused on those aboriginal children and youth off reserve?

M. Turpel-Lafond: Well, I've been working…. Of course, the mandate isn't to review the federal department of aboriginal and northern affairs, but because so many of the issues do touch upon the federal concerns, we meet regularly with the regional director. We have contact with senior government staff at headquarters in Hull, Quebec.

I regularly correspond with the federal minister, for instance. Sometimes we're called upon to assist.

Next week I will be providing some, I guess, expert evidence to the Senate committee looking at the legislation on matrimonial property on reserve, looking at the issues of domestic violence and how the federal improvements in that legislation will better protect children and victims in British Columbia. It's kind of a parallel initiative to our family law initiative here.

I have a pretty regular discussion process with both the Minister of Justice's office and the Aboriginal Affairs Minister, because so many initiatives do affect the quality of life for children.

Having said that, I have been very clear, I think, to encourage that British Columbia and Canada work more closely together to think about how we're going to improve the quality of life for aboriginal children in British Columbia. There certainly are some significant gaps in the degree of services, especially voluntary parent support and other services for children.

There's a major review of First Nations education on reserve underway right now, with a special panel appointed by the Prime Minister. They've been looking in British Columbia. They've had a chance to meet with that panel. They're very interested in the work that FNESC has done here. The First Nations have identified major funding issues. There are some issues around the funding and supports. I think there's a lot of important work to be done around developing some new agreements and new approaches, and I certainly want to support the government to explore those.

But as to practical working relationships, although not technically within the mandate, the children's circumstances are very governed by that, and so we do have positive working relationships with those ministries and sometimes with the federal Auditor as well. When they're doing reviews, they will consult with us. So we do go outside to the federal sphere somewhat, but I think there's no question that some of the issues in British Columbia are affected by the lack of a clear understanding of where the service responsibility and the financial obligations are.

D. Hayer: Congratulations again. A couple of questions. One is the information system. Is that mostly computers or some software? Another part is: do you have a breakdown of the children in care between aboriginals and non-aboriginals? Do you also have some information about, maybe, new immigrants or refugees, people from different backgrounds? Also, do you carry any brochures or have information in other languages than English, or is everything in English?

[0855]
[ Page 1820 ]

M. Turpel-Lafond: Thank you very much. I'll take the last two questions, and I'll ask Jeremy to answer the first one, particularly about the systems improvement.

With respect to immigrant and refugee children and youth, also second- and third-generation immigrant families, the work that we're doing, particularly with the Ministry of Children and Family Development…. For instance, with respect to the foster care system, we've been encouraging the ministry for a number of years — and I think we've reached a very good point now where there is an opportunity to implement this more effectively — to recruit caregivers and foster families from the full range of ethnocultural communities in British Columbia. We've seen a real deficiency.

There's been a major outreach for aboriginal children. But where children are from different backgrounds, what about the match between their background and recruiting foster families, for instance? So we've really been pushing the ministry on that, and I think we've reached some new understandings. I'm really pleased about that, and that is through the collaboration with children and youth, so that's extremely positive.

With respect to the linguistic issues and materials, our advocacy staff…. We've just added a Punjabi-speaking advocate, which was a very significant objective that we had — to do that for outreach, for instance. So we have in-house a range of capacities.

We translate our materials into, I think, eight different languages. It's one thing to translate; it's another thing to have a very diverse workforce. We probably have one of the most diverse workforces with respect to the independent offices, but particularly in terms of ethnocultural communities and advocacy, I just don't think we've been successful until we've had a more diverse workforce. That has been really important to us in an area where we want the Ministry of Children and Families to reflect that in their provision of services and partnering with community agencies.

We also have had to have a strong outreach. Many times when we've done this outreach, particularly with the immigrant and refugee youth, we've found concerns they've had that are so easily fixed. I've really learned a very valuable lesson from our partnering, which is if we just talk to them, we can learn a lot.

Tomorrow the immigrant and refugee Youth Advisory Committee, which is very diverse, will come and meet with the senior staff in the Ministry of Education because we have a workplan around how to address ESL and other concerns. All of that came out from just talking to youth, so the Ministry of Education is very on side.

We have to do that listening process, and some of it involves appropriate outreach to ethnocultural communities. The diversity of British Columbia is such that…. You know, this is the future of British Columbia, so we're trying to be in more of a leadership position, but it's an ongoing commitment for me and our advocacy staff to keep pushing that.

With the permission of the Chair, I'll ask Jeremy to answer the question about systems.

J. Berland: I'd just add one note on languages. We also contract with an agency in Vancouver to provide translation services for our toll-free line, so in the event that somebody calls, we have access to translators who can translate it into over a hundred languages. We think it's just an additional outreach.

In terms of your question about capital and systems, generally speaking, we follow the same policies as the larger part of government around systems upgrades and acquisition of new hardware. But our capital request revolves around software.

We're following the recommendations of the Auditor General in the audits of our office in terms of the split between capital and ongoing operating expenses, in terms of the split around software development and software acquisition and hardware acquisition.

The software enhancements that we're talking about are considered to be capital, according to the Auditor General's rules about these things. So we're looking at both enhancing our existing case information system and acquiring new software that would allow us, as Mary Ellen said, to do a better job of tracking across some of the performance measures for the ministry and to better manage a pretty considerable flow of information that we have in terms of reports and investigation materials.

There's just a mass of information. It becomes very difficult to manage and index all that information. So that's our enhancement in the performance-tracking area.

R. Howard (Chair): Mary Ellen, I first want to thank you for recognizing the challenging financial times we have and coming forward with a stand-pat budget. I think that's great.

I do have a but, though, and my but is on page 22 of your service plan, when you talk about how the work of the office does not lend itself to outcome-based measurement.

[0900]

I find that a little unusual, given that your office is kind of set up to measure the outcomes of MCFD. I just wonder, on a go-forward basis, if you could comment. I think there need to be some measurable outcomes.

M. Turpel-Lafond: Well, I thank you very much for that question. I think the challenge was the outcomes, meaning changes with respect to improved outcomes for children in British Columbia. There's no question that we have an influence on that. I think the challenge for us is that we want to give clear credit to those who are doing the direct service for children and youth, and we want them to track and measure and report on those outcomes
[ Page 1821 ]
regularly. So we're in a very positive, collaborative relationship with the ministry on that.

Around the work that we do, that service plan, as I said, was prepared a little bit before my reappointment was firmed up. It was in the works. What I've done is undertaken with the Chair of the select standing committee and the Deputy Chair to have a bit of a process around how we can actually report — it may not be outcomes — some of the outputs that are important.

We have certain operational outputs that we report on in the annual report. For instance, any child or youth that calls our office for advocacy will get a phone call or a meeting within 48 hours — generally quite a bit sooner. But it's a policy. So we report on that in the annual report, but we don't make it a measure in the service plan.

We're in a very important discussion now, and I think it's going to take a few months to think about how we can improve that and enhance that, because I do feel a high degree of public responsibility to account for not only how the budget is spent but what we achieve for that. I want to see improvements in the child-serving system. That's sort of a vague outcome, but we also want to see that our service is delivered as effectively as it can be. So I intend to work closely with the Chair and Deputy Chair to think about how we might do that.

Also, as part of the statutory review, I'm inclined to encourage a bit of an amendment to the statute — our statute — which will allow us to do both the service plan and the annual report in one like the Auditor General does. I think it lends itself to a better public explanation of what is accomplished, what was accomplished and what will be accomplished in one document. I've also raised that with the Chair, and I think we have an opportunity to tweak this, particularly in the next while.

I'm hoping that when I return next year, I'll have an opportunity to see a more enhanced component of that service plan. I'm very mindful of it. I'm very mindful of the need for independent offices of the Legislative Assembly to demonstrate the value of the work that's being done just in terms of the three program areas.

The public assesses the value generally, but I feel a very high burden of responsibility to do that. I think we can do it better, but I think we need to have some discussions to get there, and so those are underway.

R. Howard (Chair): Okay. Good to hear. I thank you and your entire team for joining us this morning.

We'll just recess for about five minutes.

The committee recessed from 9:03 a.m. to 9:10 a.m.

[R. Howard in the chair.]

R. Howard (Chair): We have with us, as our second order of business this morning, the Office of the Conflict of Interest Commissioner — Mr. Paul Fraser, QC, and the executive coordinator, Daphne Thompson.

Welcome to you both. You understand we've got about an hour set aside for you. We'll let you make your presentation. I'll keep a list of questioners, and we'll get the questions when you're finished. Over to you.

Office of the
Conflict of Interest Commissioner

P. Fraser: Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. It remains to be seen whether you've left the best for the last in terms of your particular journey. It must be of some comfort to you to know that you're closer to the end rather than further from the beginning in terms of the work that you've had to do.

As the Chair has indicated, Daphne Thompson, our executive coordinator, is with me. She's here today to help me with the hard stuff. The rest of it is contained in the budget submission that we've made. I'm hoping that we'll have lots of time for questions.

The work of the Conflict of Interest Commissioner and the office really comes down to a balancing between the public's right to know and the obligation that members have to disclose. I don't think we need to take a lot of time to discuss our mandate or the vision of the office. I've included it in my submission simply because these proceedings are on the record, and members of the public, I think, are entitled to be able to determine from materials that we produce (a) what it is that we do and (b) whether we're doing it apparently reasonably well.

One of the little-known facts about the conflict-of-interest regime in British Columbia is that British Columbia, together with only one other jurisdiction in the entire country, gives members of the public access to the process that we have. It's surprising, on its face, that in virtually all of the other jurisdictions — save, I'm bound to say, Alberta — the public has no ability to access the process.

Here the public has, under the statute, an equal right to make complaints and seek opinions from the office. Interestingly, in the evolution of the 20 years that the legislation has been in existence, there's been a trend — a very gradual but now very obvious trend — away from members complaining about members, which was the stock-in-trade of the office's business for the first ten to 15 years, toward what has now happened, where in the last two years there hasn't been a single complaint by a member with respect to the conduct of another member that we were prepared to pursue.

The complaints, the requests for opinion, by and large, now are all coming from members of the public. That, I think, is a welcome trend both for the institution and for the fact that it appears that the strategy that was adopted in the office over the last 20 years of being available for consultation, essentially practising the course of advice
[ Page 1822 ]
as opposed to the course of having to deal with problems after they had arisen, seems to be working.

In other words, I think that members are perhaps better informed about their obligations under the act. And I hope members feel that the office is completely accessible to them for advice. The statistics, we'll get to in a minute, but it's clear that the office is being used for those purposes, and that's welcome.

The structure of the office is set out on page 2. As you can see, we are but four people — three part-time and one full-time. The commissioner is a 75 percent appointment by the Legislative Assembly.

[0915]

Ms. Thompson is the only full-time staff member that we have, and the other two staff members are both on contracts. Both of them are valuable members of our team, and both of them have now had more than a year's experience.

Our salaries and benefits portion is enormous in terms of the total budget that we have to deal with. The salary and benefits portion amounts to 82 percent of our budget, and all of that is pictorially set out in the pie graph which is on the last page of the material that we sent out.

In doing our work, we're really dealing with three broad aspects of our overall mandate. One is a service to the members. The other is service to the public, in the form of comprehensive disclosure. Finally, we render to both the public and Members of the Legislative Assembly opinions, when requested to do so and, I'm bound to say, when we have determined that the request is one that is properly founded and that is worthy of pursuit.

As you might expect in a complaint-driven process such as ours and with the title that the office carries, we have a lot of requests for information from members of the public that are non-jurisdictional in the sense that the conflict commissioner can mean anything or nothing to people who have reached the end of the line in terms of trying to get either information from the government or a complaint about what's happened to them.

Many of the people who phone are looking for direction. As I've said in the past, we regard that part of our function — which is essentially to help them, if we can, to a direction that will be useful to them — as a very important part of what it is that we do and as part of our role of public diplomacy, generally.

That role also includes speaking whenever invited to do so at universities, at professional organizations and groups that request and getting the word out about what it is that the conflict-of-interest office actually does.

Our physical plant, as all of you will know, is located in the red-brick buildings behind the west wing of the Legislature. It's often been said by…. I think Mr. Zeckendorf said it: "You should always buy next door." In our case, we're moving next door.

Now that, as we know, the Legislative Assembly actually owns the legislative precinct, it's been possible for us to make arrangements, by negotiation and through the Speaker's office, to move our office to 421 Menzies, on the main floor, where we're going to have approximately double the amount of space that we have now. We've done that, I'm pleased to be able to tell you, without adding at all to our building administration and occupancy costs for the next year. I'm very grateful to the Speaker, particularly, for having assisted us in making these arrangements.

At a time when, as we all recognize, both the province and the country — and, indeed, the world — are going through periods of financial anguish and re-examination, it's been good news for us in our small, little world that we've been able to make that change, accomplish an administrative advantage and to do so without having to ask you for any additional funds.

The work of the office is about to be done in a fiscal period forthcoming that will be, probably, the most important period of time that the office has had and the most important work that the office has had to do in the last 20 years since the act came into effect.

[0920]

Our act, as I think all of you know, contains no statutory provision for review. Over the years there have been a variety of recommendations for change, typically made in annual reports that were issued first by Commissioner Hughes and then Commissioner Oliver, and I've had some suggestions since I assumed office four years ago.

Getting to look at the act has been, if you like, a logistic dilemma. You can understand, as I'm sure the public can, that the best way to amend or to improve legislation such as ours is to do it in a bipartisan, non-partisan way, and to do that based on an opportunity to discuss with everyone who's involved in the process, either in fact or potentially, what the changes should be.

We have an advantage in the conflict-of-interest community of having an organization, which was started by Ted Hughes and the first ethics commissioner for the province of Ontario 20 years ago, called the Canadian Conflict of Interest Network. That organization meets every year. Ostensibly, the purpose of doing so is to exchange and pollinate views but also to find out what's happening in different parts of the country.

We have found that as our act has remained virtually static, except for one amendment in the area of apparent conflict of interest, other acts have changed. Quite frankly, we've fallen, to some extent, behind.

We were, in the first instance, with the province of Ontario, the pathfinder in terms of this kind of legislation. Even the federal government took until about four years ago to become involved in the whole conflict-of-interest legislative world.

Now, we find that we have been, to some extent, eclipsed. There are all kinds of new ideas, things that we
[ Page 1823 ]
would like to institute, that would be of some assistance in moving the effort forward and in achieving, if you like, a better-informed balance between the public's right to know and the members' obligation to disclose.

What we have done, in an effort to try to harness what interest there may be to amend the act, is to seek to have appointed a special committee of the Legislature that would review the existing act and hear submissions from the public and others on potential changes. That idea has the support of both the Premier and the Leader of the Opposition. I'm hopeful that before very much longer the committee will actually be formally struck.

That will give the public a chance to come in and make their views known. I think that's important, given that the public's involvement is legislatively recognized in the act. It will also give our office, in terms of the work that we need to do to inform the committee, an opportunity to provide what's going on across the country so that members of the committee will be able to understand where we fit in the scheme of things and where potential improvements to our legislation could be accomplished.

We've been working on that for, really, the last 18 months, but that will go into high gear in the forthcoming fiscal year. We have a good staff of people who are not only experienced at administration, but now that we've been able to have a legal officer who can assist me and we can get some IT support, which I'm going to talk about in just a moment, we think that we're well-positioned to be able to inform the proceedings that the committee will have as best as we possibly can.

[0925]

The work that we're hoping to do in terms of an ongoing operation of the office depends, at a couple of levels, on how well and how quickly we can organize the information flow — which is, really, part of our tool box — to good use. Our ability to be able to organize that material electronically is going to help us to save on the salary part, potentially, of our expenditures.

At the moment the way in which we have had to operate has been very labour-intensive and certainly very paper-intensive. All of you will know that, at least over the last couple of years, we've been able to send out the annual members disclosure forms electronically, and you've been able to respond to us electronically.

What we have lacked until now is the ability to take that information, when we receive it back from you, store it in some electronic form and then be able to return it to you in a timely fashion — when you have to take a look, year over year, at filling in the forms.

We have, for a couple of years, been exploring how we might be able to accomplish a web-based solution to that problem. We know that that would alleviate much of the administrative overhead involved with the management of the forms and allow us to automate and build in some work flows.

We were fortunate earlier this year — Mrs. Thompson is largely responsible for doing this — to take advantage of the proximity that we have, in the red-brick building, to the Legislative Assembly's IT team. As a result of doing that, our IT capability has now migrated from what was formerly the Ministry of Finance to the legislative team.

That's not only important in terms of the fact that it reflects the independence that we have from the government and the allegiance that we have to the Legislature, but it's also been, because of the proximity and an easy working relationship, a huge advantage to us in terms of being able to talk on a day-to-day basis or, if we need to, very quickly about IT problems.

The folks next door have proposed for us an ideal solution to the problem that we have in terms of collating and storing and returning electronic information. That solution is a web-based document library where our administrative staff could create folders containing tailored forms for each member to complete. A member would have access to their folder and forms for any web-enabled device.

Forms could be downloaded, filled and saved back to a web folder, at which time the administrative staff in our office would automatically be notified that a form has been completed. Members would also have the ability to upload related documents to their folders, such as personal RRSP documents, further reducing the collection and management of the information by the administrative staff.

The project will require additional forms; development of current, fillable PDF forms; as well as a new SharePoint site, hosted in the Legislative Assembly network, for web-based document libraries. Our administrative staff will have full control over the SharePoint site to create folders and grant required permissions for members to access their own folders and forms.

[0930]

In terms of security, the advice that I have is that the system will be completely secured. It will be encrypted up to a certain point if you're accessing the system from a distance. Thereafter, the server security that resides in the IT Leg. department will take over. So the information will be as secure as other information that I know you all put onto that server and certainly more secure than a system that we've been labouring under where, basically, you're having to e-mail back and forth to us.

The bottom line in terms of the financial mandate of this committee is that that system is not going to cost us, in direct terms, anything. I'm very pleased to tell you that the IT folks have said that they have the capability within their existing equipment to do the work for us. The only costs for us will be with respect to training, testing and that sort of thing, which I think will likely be very modest.

The result of all of that is that if it's true that there are occasionally perfect storms, for us this is kind of a per-
[ Page 1824 ]
fect sunrise. We've been able in a relatively short period of time to get new premises that are not going to affect our bottom line, and we've been able to make IT improvements that we're very happy about and at the same time not have that impact on our bottom line.

The various budgetary items that you'll see on page 8 in the planned 2012-2013 fiscal year are set out. The total operating budget that we're requesting has not changed. It's $480,000.

The changes that have occurred in two or three categories are simply reallocations, largely on the salary side, from STOB 50 and STOB 60. In STOB 50 we have the one FTE plus leave liability number, which, as you can see, is down from last year's budget — $64,000. And in the professional services STOB — which, as you'll see, has gone up from $50,000 to $108,000 — we have the salaries and related salary costs with respect to our two contractors. So that accounts for the change in those numbers.

The information systems operating amount is down $5,000 in terms of a budget expectation simply because the change we have made to the Legislative IT service has also resulted in some direct cost savings that formerly we had to pay to the Ministry of Finance with respect to usage of computer stations and so on. We've been able, therefore, to accomplish some modest prospective savings there, and hence, the reduction.

In the office and business expense line we're down in our projection from $20,000 to $15,000, simply because we have determined, without sounding too Presbyterian about it, that in these particular times we've got to do more with either less or not much more. There will be times, I'm sure, when we will have to put that to one side, and we'll want to come to this committee and make asks. We consider this isn't the year.

The other bit of news that you would have to have in terms of our financial standing is that the projections that we have from the Ministry of Finance are that we will be on budget. We are on budget now, and we will be on budget by the end of the fiscal year.

[0935]

That's a very quick run-through. I wanted to save time for questions rather than listening to me give you any more information about a subject that most of you are pretty well familiar with.

R. Howard (Chair): Thank you for that. We have some questions.

D. Hayer: Thank you very much for a very good presentation, especially since a flatline budget in today's economy is a good budget to have. We really appreciate it — to see you looking at, for the next couple of years, also a flat line.

Now, in your staff, 50 employees, salaries went down. Then the professional service went up. Is that maybe the employees who want to work indirectly? They're doing contract work?

P. Fraser: It's a direct reflection of that. At the beginning of the current year we were uncertain as to whether we would be continuing with people who would be on contract or whether we would be taking people on as regular staff, having to pay them benefits and so on. So we made an allowance for the fact that some of the people who are now working on contract would have, if you like, gone into the system.

In fact, we've been able to carry on those contractual arrangements by mutual and happy agreement. Hence, the amount that would otherwise have been spent under STOB 50 is getting spent under STOB 60. So it's simply a reallocation.

D. Hayer: And there's no cost for training of the staff, to my understanding, on the new computer system that will make everybody's life easier and more effective and efficient?

P. Fraser: Well, what costs there will be in terms of training — and we've investigated that — and testing the system itself are expected to be modest and insignificant for the purposes of this kind of presentation.

B. Bennett: Paul, I have a gap in my understanding of the IT improvements that you talked about. I think my mind wandered off there for about a minute. You were saying that the IT folks can provide you with some sort of platform that we would be able to access individually, that would be secure. That's where I have the gap.

Would our information be lodged in that electronic location, and we would be able to go in and file forms of change and that sort of thing? Is that the idea?

P. Fraser: Yes, indeed. As I understand it — and I don't pretend, frankly, to be anything other than a technopeasant — it's very much, in terms of your usage, what you're now used to dealing with in terms of your expenses. It's quite interactive. You can use the information that you're getting from us to store in your place, and we can use what you're sending us in our place. It's a whole new world, as far as we're concerned.

B. Bennett: Okay. Well, I do. I've always filed my own travel claims, so I know how that system works.

I do have to ask the question. It doesn't represent an opinion on my part. I'm sure that this will be a good idea, but I'm going to ask the question anyways. Given that there are only 85 MLAs, do we really need to put our information on the Internet? Is it really that…? Obviously, there are some staff cost savings associated with that. What are they? You probably told us, and I didn't pick up on it. But what are the staff costs of doing that?
[ Page 1825 ]

Have you very, very carefully assessed the risk of that kind of personal information — you know, somebody hacking in and accessing it?

P. Fraser: The answer to the last part of the question is yes. We have assessed that as carefully as we can against, of course, the certain knowledge that nothing is perfect but also against the certain knowledge that there have been problems — for example, at the federal government level — with people hacking in and so on.

[0940]

I think the conclusion that we've come to, reasonably, is that with the assurances that we've obtained from the legislative IT folks, the system that we envisage will put us in a much more secure position than what it is that we've been doing to this point of time — and is as good as it can get, to the extent that we are well informed about encryption techniques.

We have from them an assurance that already in the system there is an encryption process up to a certain point. They're prepared to investigate with us whether from that point on there are possibilities of making improvements.

If that's sounding like a bit of a dissemble, it's because, frankly, I don't have the technical ability to be able to….

B. Bennett: You and I are on the same level, so that makes perfect sense to me.

P. Fraser: Here, for example, is what I'm being told. With respect to encryption, the data in the system would be encrypted between the point the member accesses the SharePoint site — that is either from your car or your ferry or your constituency office — to the point it reaches the server. Then the server security takes over from there.

In answer to our question as to whether the data could be further encrypted on the Legislative Assembly's secure server, the expectation is that it could be done, if required, and they're prepared to investigate that. That is why we've taken, if you like, the plunge.

The other part of your question is that the process, as we now know it, is hugely labour-intensive. Of course, there are 85 members. They're all obliged to fill out the forms, as we all know. The information that is contained in those forms is then validated in disclosure meetings that we have. Then the information has to be distilled into a public disclosure statement, and we all know about that process. All of that takes a lot of time.

Equally, in the front end of the process, getting things out to members — doing it basically by mail, in the old system, though with some improvements — is time-consuming. So we have to have people doing it, and for the most part, in our operation we can't easily go out and hire people on a casual basis because of the nature of the work that we do.

In a sense, we've got people who are overqualified for doing some of the menial administrative tasks that they're doing, at the risk of us not having, if you like, enough capacity at the top end of the work that we're doing to improve the product.

B. Ralston: Just one comment on the discussion that just took place. I'm wondering if the Information and Privacy Commissioner might be able to help you with that, because she's embarked on a major project of looking at the impact of Bill 3 and data linking and information architecture and security thereon. She might be able to provide you with some assistance.

My question arises out of your annual report. On page 27 you talk about post-employment obligations, and you anticipate some changes there. I wonder if you could at least sketch out some of your thoughts on what those might be.

P. Fraser: Yes, thank you. The act, as it now stands, has in section 8 a provision that deals with post-employment activity. Without being critical of the draftsmanship or anything else, I think it's fair to say that a read through that section indicates that it's not particularly helpful in terms of advising people who have decided to leave politics how they can be clearly compliant with what — if I can put it this way — the public expectation might be or the spirit of the act might dictate.

[0945]

At the moment the prohibition that a member of the executive council faces is that they cannot, under some of the provisions of section 8, be eligible for a contract or a benefit to be bestowed upon them by the executive council except in circumstances where that additional benefit or contract is in the service of the government. That sounds counterintuitive on its face, actually, but that is the way the legislation reads.

The other restriction is that a member of the executive council cannot for 24 months after leaving office be part of a discussion with respect to matters that he or she may have had under their portfolio responsibility whilst they were a minister.

But that's it. There are no monitoring provisions in the existing act. There is no ability in the commissioner's office to request information and jurisdiction with respect to a member who's gone, as the member leaves the House. That may or may not be as it should be, but it should be the subject of further discussion.

The other answer to the question that's been put is that for some time now we have been looking and talking about systems elsewhere. The system that has attracted much attention, at least from us, is the system which is in effect in England at the moment and has been now for five or six years.

That system involved the establishment of a committee. The English like to establish committees, as any
[ Page 1826 ]
graduate from history in Cambridge University will know. The committee is comprised of seven, eight very distinguished members of the public, and to the committee, in the first instance, former cabinet ministers would go to discuss their plans with respect to work after they've left the parliament.

In the first instance the process was completely informal. The committee would listen to what the plans were on a confidential basis, and the committee would then indicate whether they considered that the work that the person intended to do was "appropriate." If the committee's advice was followed by the member, that was the end of it. If the member decided that they didn't like the advice and were going to go ahead anyway and do what they had proposed to do despite the committee's view of it, then the committee would publish its report publicly.

The members of the committee were appointed by the Prime Minister in informal consultation, as I understand it, with the Leader of the Opposition. It was an entirely voluntary process. That has now matured to the point where it's become not voluntary but mandatory. The process is described briefly in our annual report. It's going to be described in considerable detail when we come to try to inform the committee about these kinds of potential changes.

All indications are that, at a number of levels, that process is worthwhile. At the level of the member, it's the kind of, if you like, filter that I think people appreciate as they are about to leave public life or as they have left it and are about to take up other responsibilities. It's a way of having, essentially, your peers indicate — as an expression, if you like, of public approval or not — their plans. Tony Blair, for example, went through this process when he left office and was being engaged by Europe and others to advise on the Middle East.

[0950]

From the members' point of view, I think it's valuable. From the public's point of view, the best indications that we can get are that the public is satisfied, or more satisfied, that there's been a process that assists, in any event, them coming to the view that people are not somehow profiting after the fact from public service. That opportunity, that transparency is seen to be valuable. So it recommends itself to us.

As opposed to that, you've got other systems. The federal system, in Canada at least, is much tighter than our system here in British Columbia is. The commissioner has the ability to monitor what happens. The commissioner has the jurisdiction to insist that a cabinet minister, once they receive a formal offer of employment, come and discuss it with the commissioner. It's not clear whether the commissioner has the jurisdiction to somehow refuse that request, but at least there's a process.

The other jurisdictions have various provisions. None of them particularly, frankly, stand out in this discussion. The English system represents, if you like, a complete opportunity to change, and that's why we've spent time — much time, actually — looking at it.

R. Howard (Chair): Thank you, Paul. We have no more questions, and that must be indicative of a very thorough presentation. We thank you for that. I know you've done some good work streamlining the processes where we all file, and that's appreciated, I think, by us, and it sounds like there are some more improvements to come. Lastly, thanks to both you and Daphne for coming out this morning.

P. Fraser: Thank you, sir, and thank you all.

R. Howard (Chair): Members, we'll just take a quick recess and reconvene at ten o'clock.

The committee recessed from 9:53 a.m. to 10:01 a.m.

[R. Howard in the chair.]

R. Howard (Chair): I guess first up is a motion to go in camera.

A Voice: So moved.

The committee continued in camera at 10:01 a.m.

The committee adjourned at 11:32 a.m.

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