Finance and Government Services — Issue No. 1

Present: Dan Ashton, MLA (Chair); Mike Farnworth, MLA (Deputy Chair); Mable Elmore, MLA; Eric Foster, MLA; Scott Hamilton, MLA; Gary Holman, MLA; Marvin Hunt, MLA; Lana Popham, MLA; Jackie Tegart, MLA; John Yap, MLA

1. There not yet being a Chair elected to serve the Committee, the meeting was called to order at 12:04 p.m. by the Deputy Clerk and Clerk of Committees.

2. Resolved, that Dan Ashton, MLA, be elected Chair of the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services. (John Yap, MLA)

3. Resolved, that Mike Farnworth, MLA, be elected Deputy Chair of Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services. (Eric Foster, MLA)

5. The Committee reviewed correspondence from Elections BC. The Committee agreed to invite the Chief Electoral Officer to a future meeting.

7. The Committee received correspondence from the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner, dated April 17, 2013.

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


CONTENTS
Page
Election of Chair and Deputy Chair	1
Committee Terms of Reference	1
Correspondence from Elections B.C.	2


Budget Consultation Process: Preliminary Planning	3




Other Business	6

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Deputy Clerk and Clerk of Committees): Good afternoon, committee members. As this is the first meeting of the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services for the first session of this parliament and there is not yet a Chair elected to serve the committee, the first item on your agenda is the election of a Chair. I would like to open the floor to nominations.

Are there any further nominations? Any further nominations? Any further nominations? Seeing none, Dan, would you accept nomination?

First of all, welcome, everybody. I really look forward to this opportunity. I know that the membership of the committee also probably has the same feelings about what's going to be transpiring over the next little while. I'm one of those individuals that likes lots of open dialogue and lots of open communication. I'd also like the opportunity, instead of having this side and that side in committees, where everybody sits together, but I'll let everybody figure that out themselves. Hopefully, things….

Second in line is the election of a Deputy Chair. So nominations from the floor for a Deputy Chair.

Welcome. Glad to have you aboard. I look forward not only to your experience but also Mable's experience. I might be knocking on your door at the odd time asking for some advice. So thank you.

D. Ashton (Chair): Review the terms of reference. Committee members have terms of reference that have been put forward to them. Are there any questions?

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of Committees): Yes, of course. Just briefly, members who have served previously on the committee in prior sessions will recognize that the terms of reference for the present session for this committee are essentially identical to previous terms of references.

The work of the committee is primarily focused on items 1 and 2. The first portion of your terms of reference is in support of the budget consultation process, which is an annual process that this committee manages each year to consult broadly with British Columbians on matters relating to the forthcoming provincial budget, so the provincial budget that will be presented to the Legislature in February of 2014.

In doing so, the committee will be coordinating a very intensive consultation process that will begin in mid-September and continue through till November 15, which is the statutory deadline for the report of your committee to be presented to the Legislature or, if the Legislature is not in session at that time, to be released at that point and then presented to the House on your behalf by the Chair at the next earliest opportunity.

The second portion of your terms of reference is with respect to your oversight role of the statutory offices of the Legislature. There are eight statutory offices, as you know, who are independent and report directly to the Legislative Assembly. They're listed there in item 2.

At the end of the fall, typically in the period of time immediately after the budget consultation process concludes — so after November 15 — this committee then shifts gear into its second area of responsibility: to meet with each of these eight offices and receive from them a copy of their annual reports, service plans but, most importantly, their budget proposals for the coming fiscal year.

In having each office appear before you, you will have an opportunity to ask them questions about those three documents and to discuss with them the budgetary requirements of their office, anything that they might re-
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quire to fulfil their statutory mandate for the coming fiscal year. Those are the two primary pieces of your terms of reference.

The third item there is a specific number of sections under the Auditor General Act which primarily come into play from time to time when this committee has to engage itself with the selection of a private sector audit company to audit the Office of the Auditor General. That, fortunately, is a task that this committee completed earlier, I guess, this spring.

An appointment has been made of the Grant Thornton accounting agency to undertake those responsibilities for the next four years on behalf of this committee, and this committee will be kept apprised of the findings of that process. That's essentially what the reference in the third item of your terms of reference refers to.

Primarily, what you see laid out in front of you is a very busy fall period. We appreciate and thank you in advance for your efforts to undertake these responsibilities. As I mentioned, it's primarily focused around the very public budget consultation process in the first part of the fall and then segueing into the review of the budget proposals of the eight independent offices later in the fall.

Any questions or comments on this? As we've all heard, it is going to be a busy time. It'll be an amalgamation of our calendars over the next couple of months to see the direction that we will be going. Any comments, questions?

D. Ashton (Chair): That'll lead us right into the correspondence, then, which you'll have in front of you, from Elections B.C., No. 4.

D. Ashton (Chair): Dr. Archer came to see me about a week ago with these two letters. I did take it to the Finance Minister and then have since had a discussion with Kate on the direction that we would have to take.

Since he is one of the statutory offices…. The first one is in regards to the by-election, which has taken place, and those numbers will be coming in officially at some point in the future.

The second letter is the possibility, under the Police Act, of a possible referendum question that may be going out with some substantial costs attached to it. From the committee, if you do have a chance — I don't want to spring this on you right away — is the direction that we should or that we would like to take on this.

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of Committees): Perhaps for the information of the new members of the committee, in the past the committee certainly has received similar requests from Elections B.C. and other statutory offices from time to time. Those instances do arise when an unforeseen budgetary expense has arisen in the course of a fiscal year for which there's not yet a provision.

The committee would typically have an opportunity, if they required more information or would like to discuss the request with the office, to set a subsequent meeting date to meet with the offices involved to confirm their understanding of how the figures were arrived at in the proposed allocation here. From there, the work of the committee would essentially see a recommendation being made to the Legislature and also conveyed on your behalf to Treasury Board.

In the event that your committee found that you would like to endorse the request from the independent office, then on your behalf, the letter is drafted to Treasury Board advising them of the support of your committee with respect to that additional supplementary funding request.

I think we should probably actually have a meeting with them and get the full information. I think there are some questions.

If they feel that it is likely to happen, obviously, that has to be taken into account in the budget. But at the same time, there are questions about…. Okay, so it's approved. What happens if it doesn't go ahead? I think there are some questions around that where we should probably get answers from the independent officers.

I kind of see a few nods. Is the general direction that we would set up another meeting? It's not extraordinary, though, is it? We'd set up another meeting as soon as we can in the near future to have Dr. Archer come and have the opportunity to sit down and talk with us.

E. Foster: We discuss having these meetings. As I look up and down the line here, can we think about doing them in Vancouver? It's a lot easier for everybody. It's a lot cheaper to get people around.

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of Committees): Yes. We'd happy, in our office, at any time to coordinate meetings, whether they're based here in Victoria or in Vancouver. It's not unusual for a committee to meet in Vancouver, given the membership of the committee. As Eric suggested, it can be much more cost-effective and more timely to do so.

With respect to this particular request, I'd be happy to meet, perhaps informally, with the Chair and the Deputy Chair just to confirm the best timing and to work through your respective offices to schedule a meeting.

Not to jump ahead on your agenda, but the other area where it would be beneficial to have some direction from the committee would be the budget consultation process. I'm not sure, in due course, if another meeting might need to be scheduled just to sign off on a final consultation plan for the fall. I guess I'm just putting that out there in case the committee did decide, let's say, to meet in between now and UBCM. Certainly, by September 15, as per the Budget Transparency and Accountability Act, I would expect that the work of this committee would be well underway.

I understood that the UBCM was actually meeting a week earlier in September than usual. I would expect that your other responsibilities might, in fact, be underway by that point in time.

D. Ashton (Chair): No, that's fine. We're on the agenda. We were just discussing point 4, the two letters from Elections B.C. One of them is regarding the by-election, and the other one is a proposed referendum question that may be coming forward.

After hearing that, maybe there is an opportunity to jig those around and see. Maybe Mike and myself would be able to work with Kate and get that information out to each and every one of you, then. Would that be okay? I'm seeing the nods.

D. Ashton (Chair): So No. 5, budget consultation process preliminary planning. There's another document that was included. If you'll have a look, there's a bit of a history here dating back to the fall of 2000 until the fall of 2012, of the townships and municipalities of where this committee met.

As you heard a little bit earlier, there is the opportunity of video conferencing, which is shown on some of these with "VCS" in front of them. So there is an opportunity. If I remember correctly, the average is around 16 to 17 communities. It was quite aggressive last year at 19 plus three, so 22. You can see it bounces back and forth, but it would be the direction of the committee.

Kate, could you maybe just give a quick overview for the committee of what transpires at these meetings? Would you mind?

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of Committees): Yes, I would be happy to. Well, Susan is the lead Clerk on that portion of your work, so I'll let her start us off, and I'd be happy to add any other information if I can.

S. Sourial (Committee Clerk): Okay. For the members who haven't been on budget consultations before, as you can see from the chart, the province is divided into about eight regions, and we visit communities in each of those eight regions.

As the Chair noted, last year we had a fairly aggressive schedule. We went to 19 communities. We've had ranging as low as eight, which was when it was an election year. We had a very shortened consultation time. On average, it's between 15, 16, 17 communities that we visit.

Traditionally, the Chair and Deputy Chair get together and determine the communities in consultation with the members. So the Chair would consult with his members and the Deputy Chair with their members. What we do is that the Ministry of Finance releases a budget consultation paper that frames the consultations that the committee holds.

Once that budget consultation paper is referred to the committee, the consultation process starts. Traditionally, the Minister of Finance would make a presentation to the committee on the first day of the hearings — it's traditionally the first day, but it doesn't have to be the first day — to essentially give an update on the province's finances.

Then we will advertise in all the communities that the committee is visiting, to ask and invite people to either make presentations or send in written submissions. We also develop an on-line questionnaire based on the questions asked in the budget consultation paper. Members of the public can go to our website and fill in the questionnaire, or they can make an oral presentation to the committee, and they can send in written submissions.

At the end of that process…. Usually what we've done is travel a week, have either a week off or some hearings here in Victoria, travel another week — up to three weeks of travel, split up. Then starts the process of, I guess, digesting all of the information that we've collected and developing a report with the recommendations.

Byron Plant is our committee research analyst assigned to the committee, and he will lead the research team that will summarize the presentations that we've heard and
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help the members draft the report. Then the members develop the recommendations based on the information we've collected during the consultation process.

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of Committees): To supplement Susan's overview, the committee does collect information, as Susan mentioned, in a variety of ways. Public hearings are one component piece of that. Typically, the committee will receive about 200 presentations at a variety of public hearing formats. Some of them, in the larger centres like Vancouver and Victoria, will be all-day meetings. That has, I think, been the case with Surrey as well.

In other communities, in the smaller regional areas, sometimes the committee will do two public hearings in one day. Getting a sense from you as early as possible as to where you would like to travel will assist us in making some preliminary travel arrangements on your behalf.

The committee typically travels as a group, so we will make the necessary arrangements to get all of the committee members to that meeting location in a coordinated effort. It can be very difficult to accomplish the travel schedule if we're all taking separate flights around the province. If we can travel together for the course of that week, that's usually the most effective way to go.

In addition, British Columbians are able to send the committee written submissions, but most will undertake the on-line opportunity, the on-line version of the survey that Susan described. So there are a number of streams of information that we manage.

In essence, we're trying as best we can to expand the opportunities for the public to take part in this important process, and so we're always looking for ways to innovate.

The video conference opportunity is something that we've tried in the last few years, and it seems to work well, as I said earlier, in the smaller regional centres. If there are some communities that you feel we might not be able to fit into the main public hearing schedule, what we've offered in the past is a meeting here in this room with a live video conference link out to three or four locations concurrently. Then we just schedule the meeting, public hearing presentations, based on the availability of witnesses in each of those communities.

Typically, witnesses will speak to the committee for about ten minutes, up to ten minutes, and then there's always an opportunity for about five minutes of questions and discussion with committee members.

D. Ashton (Chair): I'd sure like the input from our respective peers, too, on both sides, to make sure that we are getting what we need to from the people that they represent. I think that's really important.

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of Committees): It's a very public process. Our Hansard team, the good folks that we see with us this afternoon, just behind…. A team of them will come on the road with the committee and bring with them a travelling recording kit, a mobile kit. In each community we will have made advance arrangements in meeting facilities to arrange the room in a way to accommodate presentations by the public, and microphones at the head of the table for all of you as well. So it will be, hopefully….

As we arrive in each new location, the room has essentially got the basic requirements, so it's an opportunity to produce a live audio webcast or a mobilecast of those proceedings, and then transcripts are produced.

How do you…? Sorry, dumb question, but what are you doing, and what is your output from the meetings? What do you provide the committee?

Basically, my job is to assist the committee with research services. That would include managing all of the submissions that are received and also processing them into a condensed format so that it's easy for committee members to navigate this mass of information.

We also maintain a database where members can access full versions of everything that's received. I will also be assisting with the drafting of the report that concludes this process.

G. Holman: Thanks. Do you provide the committee with sort of your summary of the proceedings, from your perspective? Or that's just what you were referring to before, in terms of the compilation of the documents. Do you provide your set of comments and notes on the proceedings?

B. Plant: I will provide…. No, not really filtering the data in any way but providing a summarized version. I will provide other documents later on in the process to facilitate deliberations, but that would be the extent of it.

D. Ashton (Chair): It's my understanding, though, that Hansard…. There will be a written transcript. Is that correct?

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of Committees): That's correct. A transcript is produced of all meetings of the committee, including public hearings. There will be that written account available on the website shortly after the adjournment of each meeting.

I should also mention that our office also coordinates all the advertising for the committee, and those are decisions that we work closely with the Chair and the Deputy Chair on. The practice of this committee in the past is to
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purchase newspaper advertising in support of your public hearing work. We also have a website that we use to publicize the committee's public hearing schedule.

As well, we've used Facebook in the past, to advertise on Facebook to British Columbians, particularly those around the province and those in the regional centres where public hearings will be held. We've also purchased advertising in a variety of multicultural newspapers throughout the province.

To the extent we can, we attempt to make the process known throughout the province and particularly attract people to your public hearings in the regional centres but also provide opportunities for others, who might want to make an on-line submission or a written submission, to receive the information.

J. Tegart: As someone new on the committee, what has the feedback been across the province in regards to this schedule? Are people satisfied with the opportunity for input, or have there been requests for more or less? Where are we at with that?

S. Sourial (Committee Clerk): I would say it depends. Last year…. I can't remember the name of the community — was it Osoyoos? — where the committee had decided to go, and there were no registrants for it. Certainly, the hearings in the Lower Mainland are always fully booked. And certainly, when we do half-days in those other communities, there's rarely a gap in the schedule.

On occasion we do get feedback, someone saying that we should come to a community that's — say, Campbell River, for example — further north. We try and cover all the regions. Again, given the amount of time the committee has, it's really up to the members where they want to go.

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of Committees): I think that as best they can, the committees each year try to cover off as much of the province as possible within the timelines.

We are always hopeful that British Columbians will recognize that although they may not have an opportunity to make a face-to-face presentation, there are other opportunities to also involve themselves in the work of this committee. In the past the committees have always weighed equally the evidence, whether it has been presented at a face-to-face public hearing or provided as a supplementary written submission.

That is not necessarily to say that in the course of planning your consultation schedule, you'll be able to go to every community that you hoped to visit, but hopefully a combined effort and input from all members will ensure that your schedule is meaningful and responsive to the interests of the province.

J. Yap: Since my last opportunity to serve on this committee, technology has advanced, and I think it's a great idea to use the video conferencing systems as far as possible.

My first question. Have you had feedback on how that works from participants who were involved in video conference meetings?

S. Sourial (Committee Clerk): We certainly haven't surveyed any of our video conference participants, have we?

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of Committees): No, we haven't surveyed. I think, generally speaking, most participants in meetings would prefer a face-to-face dialogue.

That being said, I think that they preferred it over not having an opportunity to engage with committee members, because really, that's the advantage of the video conference. It still allows for a bit of a discussion or a Q and A with members of the committee after the presentation is made. That is sort of the strength of it, I guess.

Like any video conference experience, we found that it worked better from our end, logistically, if we could send a staff person to each remote location to facilitate and welcome the participants. Because of the variable level of participation in those meeting opportunities, we haven't always found it to be cost-effective to send out a staff person to a remote area if there are only one or two participants.

If we got a very good response in a larger population centre, then we would make that investment and send out somebody to that centre. That would probably make that meeting experience more beneficial, from the public's point of view, because there'd be somebody to greet them and explain the process to them and show them what was happening here in Victoria — that kind of thing.

J. Yap: That actually leads me to my next question, which is on the cost-effectiveness of the review of the budget consultation.

Will the Chair be reviewing the budget for this exercise from last time versus what budget is available this time? I'm thinking, given the current environment, where we are wanting to be cost-effective and keep spending under control, as much as it's enjoyable to go on the road with members of the committee throughout the province…. It's important to do that, but also with a mind to conserving taxpayers' resources as far as possible. Will there be an opportunity to review the budget? Will the Chair and vice-Chair do it?

M. Farnworth (Deputy Chair): It's that balance between our job to do and doing it effectively, mindful of budgetary issues.

D. Ashton (Chair): But it is important that we get out. This is the opportunity where the people of B.C. have direct
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contact, right? We all know that travelling is difficult for all of us at specific times of the year — specifically, this fall. New people like myself….

I do concur that cost is a consideration, but we also want to have that input. That's why also, with our peers…. Getting our peers and getting them to be able to get out into their communities and make sure that that input comes our way can make a difference.

Are there any other items of business that we need? Please, I am available. I know that Mike is available also. So please, if there are any other questions or comments….

S. Hamilton: Just one thing. When would we, then, anticipate some sort of publishing of a schedule? When can we expect, for the sake of our own calendars, to start blocking off some time?

D. Ashton (Chair): ASAP. I'll try and get Mike as early as…. Tomorrow would be better for me. I'm kind of booked all day.

D. Ashton (Chair): Tomorrow. Then we can start, with the good help of Susan and Kate, and we can kind of get a gist, but also the input from yourselves — not necessarily the destinations, but we'll start looking at the time block.

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of Committees): Both would be ideal, because what we'd like to be able to advise you of, at our earliest opportunity, is how many travel weeks we anticipate you might need. We would only know that if we knew, for example, that you wanted to go to X number of locations in the northwest or the northeast or the central Interior. Once we have a general sense of the distribution of locations, we will be able to fine-tune your schedule.

If members anticipate that they might be able to use UBCM week as a home base week in the Lower Mainland…. In the past the committee has scheduled a number of Lower Mainland hearings in conjunction with UBCM.

What that would turn on is, of course, your availability during that week. I know that members are often committed, with a number of evening functions. And there could be some meetings throughout the day. If there was a chance to use your availability in the Vancouver area, in conjunction with that event, it's probably a good strategy to do both.

D. Ashton (Chair): One of the issues many of us will have with UBCM, though, is that we're representing our constituents to the various ministers. That's one of the issues, trying to jiggle it around that.

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of Committees): If we may suggest, it might be helpful…. Once the Chair and the Deputy Chair have had a chance to put together a preliminary list, we could help them identify what a schedule would look like and then send it back to the full committee for your information and input prior to, perhaps, a telephone conference call or something to formalize the direction that we need to move things ahead.

D. Ashton (Chair): We do have a list, so please have a look at it and see, and maybe jot some…. In looking at it, there have been some alternates, like between like Dawson Creek and Fort St. John. So you can kind of pick and choose between them.

Mike, if we could get together, I'll call you a little bit later or see you a little bit later today and pick a time.

M. Farnworth (Deputy Chair): I have House duty from ten to noon tomorrow. That's a good time to do it, then.

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of Committees): If there is no further discussion on the agenda, under "Any other business" I had a piece of correspondence that I wanted to provide to members of this committee. It's dated April 17, earlier this year during the election period, from the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner.

In conjunction with the previous commitment that the Police Complaint Commissioner's office had made with this committee, it is a quarterly update of the legal expenses incurred by that office during the first three months of this calendar year. I'll just have that available here for your information.

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

Chair:	* Dan Ashton (Penticton BC Liberal)
Deputy Chair:	* Mike Farnworth (Port Coquitlam NDP)
Members:	* Mable Elmore (Vancouver-Kensington NDP)
	* Eric Foster (Vernon-Monashee BC Liberal)
	* Scott Hamilton (Delta North BC Liberal)
	* Gary Holman (Saanich North and the Islands NDP)
	* Marvin Hunt (Surrey-Panorama BC Liberal)
	* Lana Popham (Saanich South NDP)
	* Jackie Tegart (Fraser-Nicola BC Liberal)
	* John Yap (Richmond-Steveston BC Liberal)
	* denotes member present
Clerks:	Kate Ryan-Lloyd
	Susan Sourial
Committee Staff	Byron Plant (Committee Research Analyst)

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS(Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON FINANCE AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS
(Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON
FINANCE AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES