Parliamentary Reform, Ethical Conduct, Standing Orders and Private Bills — Issue No. 9

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON PARLIAMENTARY REFORM, ETHICAL CONDUCT, STANDING ORDERS AND PRIVATE BILLS

Present: Colin Hansen, MLA (Chair); Harry Lali, MLA (Deputy Chair); Donna Barnett, MLA; Jagrup Brar, MLA; Murray Coell, MLA; Mike Farnworth, MLA; Randy Hawes, MLA; Jenny Wai Ching Kwan, MLA; Mary McNeil, MLA; Jane Thornthwaite, MLA

1. There not yet being a Chair elected to serve the Committee, the meeting was called to order at 10:04 a.m. by the Deputy Clerk and Clerk of Committees.

2. Resolved, that Colin Hansen, MLA, be elected Chair of the Select Standing Committee on Parliamentary Reform, Ethical Conduct, Standing Orders and Private Bills (Harry Lali, MLA).

3. Resolved, that Harry Lali, MLA, be elected Deputy Chair of the Select Standing Committee on Parliamentary Reform, Ethical Conduct, Standing Orders and Private Bills (Murray Coell, MLA).

4. Rod MacArthur, Acting Law Clerk, reported to the Committee with respect to the Private Bills anticipated for the Committee.

5. Resolved, that the Committee meet in-camera to consider the Statutory Review of the Members' Conflict of Interest Act. (Harry Lali, MLA).

The following electronic version is for informational purposes only.
The printed version remains the official version.

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS
(Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON
PARLIAMENTARY REFORM, ETHICAL CONDUCT, STANDING ORDERS AND PRIVATE BILLS


CONTENTS
Page
Election of Chair and Deputy Chair	75
Private Bills	75
Members' Conflict of Interest Act	77

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Deputy Clerk and Clerk of Committees): Good morning, Members, and welcome to the first meeting of the Select Standing Committee on Parliamentary Reform for the current session.

As there has not yet been a member elected to serve the committee as Chair, I'd like to open the floor to nominations for that position.

Are there any further nominations? Any further nominations? Any further nominations?

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of Committees): Okay. With that, I'll put the question to members.

C. Hansen (Chair): Thank you very much, and thank you, Harry, for that nomination. That will be the only electoral challenge I plan to face this year, so I'm glad to see it was unanimous.

The next order of business is to appoint a Deputy Chair, and I would welcome a nomination for Deputy Chair.

Moved by Murray Coell, seconded by Jagrup, that Harry Lali be appointed as the Deputy Chair of the committee.

C. Hansen (Chair): Today the first thing that we want to look at is the private bills that have been tabled in the Legislature. There is a time frame in which the bills have to be gazetted before we would be calling the proponents and formally reviewing those bills before this committee. But I thought that in an informal way today, it would be useful for Rod to give us an overview as to what's in the two bills to get a sense of the degree to which members of the committee may have questions for the proponents.

I would like to be able to give the proponents some expectation as to what their time frame should be for the meeting, which would be held next Wednesday, to formally review the bills. I think in the past I've been told that the average length of time to review a private bill is about a half an hour each. As I understand it, that's typically because we asked the proponents to travel to Victoria, usually along with their legal counsel, to formally present to the committee. I think in those circumstances it would be only fair that the committee devote enough time to do a thorough due diligence and perhaps engage in more time than would be necessary.

The purpose today is really to get a sense of how much we need to engage with the proponents in order to get to a comfort level that we would be prepared to recommend this to the House — these two bills.

With that, I will turn it over to Rod to give us an overview of the two pieces of legislation.

R. MacArthur (Law Clerk): One of the two bills…. The Hooper family trust is simply a restoration to the register under the Society Act and, for whatever reason, was dropped off. The drop-off period is in excess of ten years. It was 2002 when it was last on the record, so it simply has to be reinstituted. It carries on a philanthropic program, and for some reason, it just simply dropped off. That's that one. I expect there'll be no opposition to that from the general public.

The other one is the Mennonite Seminary Act. Actually, one of your committee members is an expert on this one — who sponsored the bill — and he can fill in the details, if need be.

It was basically a society under the Society Act, and there's an augmentation going on here. It did grant degrees in the past, and because of a certain thing that happened, that status is being continued and perhaps expanded as compared to what it was.

I think that's all there is to it. Certain provisions of the Society Act continue to apply to that particular bill, and it's a group, apparently, 25,000 strong in the province. Perhaps Mr. Hawes could talk a little more about that.

What I'd like to do first of all is the two proponents of the bill — Mary for the first one, the Hooper family trust, and Randy for the Mennonite Brethren.... First of all, to Mary.

Let's actually look first of all at the Hooper family trust. As I understand it, it is pretty basic, and there's lots of precedent for this type of private bill to come before the House, certainly over the 17 years I've been around here.
[ Page 76 ]
I gather this is the only vehicle by which these organizations can be formally reinstated — via private bill.

I don't know if anybody has any questions or issues that, I guess…. To what extent do we want to engage with the proponents next week with questions? Or is everybody fairly comfortable with what's being asked for?

R. Hawes: I would just have one question, if I could. I take it that they were struck off because they didn't make their annual filing.

R. MacArthur (Law Clerk): They didn't pay their annual fee and file their annual documentation. I think it's a very closely held trust, and it was just inadvertent. You can go to court up to ten years to get reinstated, but they're at the 11-year point, so they have to come this way.

C. Hansen (Chair): It's not like an organization can save money by not filing and then come back and get reinstated. This private bill process certainly is far more expensive than if they had continued with their annual filings in the appropriate way.

H. Lali (Deputy Chair): These things are actually fairly straightforward. I know I had one in my constituency a few years back where the society, for whatever reasons…. Sometimes they lose members and somebody forgets to add a file, or they go defunct for a while and then the membership goes back up again, and folks want to get reinstated. They find out that they've actually fallen off the Society Act, or an organization hasn't filed for a number of years.

These things usually don't take very long to discuss and are fairly straightforward. Often folks are trying to reorganize and get their organization back on its feet again, and they have to go through this process. So I don't see us taking too long in terms of deliberations or any kind of lengthy questions unless somebody has something in particular.

C. Hansen (Chair): I'm going to draw from this discussion that we have a comfort level with what is being proposed and that it would not be necessary for the representatives of the organization to be on line or available to us next week when we formally consider this. I see heads nodding, so I will take it from that that there's concurrence on that.

With the second piece, the Mennonite Brethren Seminary. Randy, do you want to give us a little more background?

R. Hawes: It was the Mennonite Brethren of…. I'm not sure what their full name was, but it ran from California up the west coast. A year ago or so they restructured. They formed a Canadian chapter and a separate American chapter. The degree-granting status that they had was under the California charter. They are a partner with four other religious denominations in Trinity Western University.

Their students go to Trinity Western, but they're taught in the Mennonite Brethren program. They are graduate degree programs, and I think they also have doctorates, which is a graduate degree, I guess. They have students there now that have earned their degree, but because of the change, they can no longer grant degrees. So when it comes up to convocation, they are asked by Trinity Western, "Do you have the power to grant this degree?" and their answer today would have to be no. That would mean their students don't get the degree. It's devastating for the Mennonite Brethren, as it would have been, I think….

The Baptists also have the same problem, but it has been restored because it was a cancellation by error, I think. So they are being restored. This one will grant the Mennonites who, based on the partnership with Trinity Western, clearly are responsible…. That's about it.

M. Farnworth: In other words, we are, in essence, creating a Canadian chapter…

R. Hawes: Absolutely. I think it's 55,000 members in 250 churches. That's where their religious leaders come from — from this theological school.

C. Hansen (Chair): Randy, am I correct that this is very specific to a degree in theology only?

C. Hansen (Chair): It's not that they have any broader degree-granting powers from this.

R. Hawes: There's no other degree. It's a theological degree. For the most part, these are going to be graduate degrees.

C. Hansen (Chair): So again, my question is: is there a comfort level? We have the option of asking them to come over to appear before the committee.

We have the option of having them on the telephone so that we can ask any further questions, or if there's a comfort level, we can just proceed with the formality next week. Everyone is fine with proceeding with the formality, and we will not need to engage with them next week.

R. Hawes: Could I ask…? If we agreed, and we're go-
[ Page 77 ]
ing to dispense with the formality, is there a reason that we couldn't just adopt these today?

R. MacArthur (Law Clerk): We have a five-day waiting period, under the rules, following introduction.

C. Hansen (Chair): No. I think the rules have been set…. I'm not sure which, whether it's through standing orders or….

C. Hansen (Chair): We will be meeting next week, and then we will have followed the rules in terms of the appropriate time for gazetting and the appropriate time after introduction of the bills into the House. We will proceed with the formalities at our meeting next Wednesday.

R. Hawes: Just so they know, I would like…. I know they watch this on the legislative channel. If we meet on Wednesday and we confirm it next Wednesday or our next meeting, before that afternoon…?

C. Hansen (Chair): It would be either Wednesday afternoon or Thursday, but we certainly will have adequate time afterwards to ensure that it's completed.

R. Hawes: But it could go forward on the Wednesday afternoon. There's no reason for it to be delayed.

C. Hansen (Chair): I would expect that the Lieutenant-Governor is already booked for doing royal assent on Thursday afternoon next week.

R. Hawes: …which I assume will just be open to committee and closed and a third reading granted. I'm assuming there will be no questions from….

R. MacArthur (Law Clerk): Just so everyone knows, the gazetting is all done. The advertising is all done on both the bills.

J. Brar: Mr. Chair, I just want a clarification. I'm a little confused about this process. I just would like to clarify that. We see a lot of private members' bills introduced in the House. So what comes to this committee, and what doesn't come to this committee? If somebody could clarify that for me.

C. Hansen (Chair): These are not private members' bills. These are public bills in the hands of private members. We call them a private bill as opposed to private member's bill. It is only private bills that come for review before this committee.

R. MacArthur (Law Clerk): No general application. They just apply to one particular person or a group.

C. Hansen (Chair): Okay, let's move on to the next piece of business at hand, and that's the review of the Members' Conflict of Interest Act.

C. Hansen (Chair): I think that everyone is aware Harry and I got together before Christmas to go through all of the various issues. What you have before you is a document that shows the areas that Harry and I agreed on. We can go through those recommendations.

Given that we are contemplating legislative change and recommendations for legislative change, it's probably appropriate that we go into camera for that. With that, I would invite a motion to do so. Moved by Harry and seconded by Mary to go into camera.

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Chair:	* Colin Hansen (Vancouver-Quilchena BC Liberal)
Deputy Chair:	* Harry Lali (Fraser-Nicola NDP)
Members:	* Donna Barnett (Cariboo-Chilcotin BC Liberal)
	* Jagrup Brar (Surrey-Fleetwood NDP)
	* Murray Coell (Saanich North and the Islands BC Liberal)
	* Mike Farnworth (Port Coquitlam NDP)
	* Randy Hawes (Abbotsford-Mission BC Liberal)
	* Jenny Wai Ching Kwan (Vancouver–Mount Pleasant NDP)
	* Mary McNeil (Vancouver–False Creek BC Liberal)
	* Jane Thornthwaite (North Vancouver–Seymour BC Liberal)
	* denotes member present
Other MLAs:	Joan McIntyre (West Vancouver–Sea to Sky BC Liberal)
Clerks:	Kate Ryan-Lloyd
	Roderick MacArthur, QC
	Susan Sourial
Committee Staff:	Byron Plant (Committee Research Analyst)

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS(Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON PARLIAMENTARY REFORM, ETHICAL CONDUCT, STANDING ORDERS AND PRIVATE BILLS

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS
(Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON
PARLIAMENTARY REFORM, ETHICAL CONDUCT, STANDING ORDERS AND PRIVATE BILLS