Public Accounts — Issue No. 2 — Wednesday, October 9, 2013 (HTML)

20 ICBC Salon B, Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue
580 West Hastings Street, Vancouver, B.C.

Present: Bruce Ralston, MLA (Chair); Sam Sullivan, MLA (Deputy Chair); Kathy Corrigan, MLA; Marc Dalton, MLA; David Eby, MLA; Simon Gibson, MLA; George Heyman, MLA; Vicki Huntington, MLA; Greg Kyllo, MLA; Norm Letnick, MLA; Mike Morris, MLA; Linda Reimer, MLA; Selina Robinson, MLA; Shane Simpson, MLA; Laurie Throness, MLA

2. The following witnesses appeared before the Committee and made a presentation titled Maximizing the Effectiveness of Public Accounts Committees and answered questions:

4. The Committee continued its discussion and consideration of the presentation titled Maximizing the Effectiveness of Public Accounts Committees.

5. The following witnesses appeared before the Committee and made a presentation titled Legislative Auditors’ Reports, An Explanation of the Process and answered questions:

6. The Deputy Clerk provided the Committee with a procedural overview and an outline of the role of the Parliamentary Committees Office.

7. The Committee further discussed the upcoming work and practices of the Select Standing Committee on Public Accounts.

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

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS
(Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON
PUBLIC ACCOUNTS


CONTENTS
Page
Public Accounts Committees: Best Practices and Effectiveness	6
P. Lohnes
S. Murphy
R. Jones
S. Newton
G. Dubrow
M. Gaston
Office of the Auditor General: Background and Role	36
R. Jones
M. Gaston

Parliamentary Committees Office: Procedural Overview and Role of Committees Office	42
Committee Discussion	44
S. Murphy
G. Dubrow

B. Ralston (Chair): Thanks very much to everyone for coming. We have, I think, an ambitious and interesting agenda today.

Many of the members of the committee are new. I believe nine of the 15 MLAs were actually elected for the first time in the recent election. It is a new parliament, of course, so what Sam and I thought we would like to do would be to give an orientation to this committee stressing its significance, its importance and the good work that you can do as a member of this committee and its general importance as an accountability mechanism. Some have compared it with question period in terms of its importance in general accountability for public spending.

We have a very distinguished group here to meet with us and to lead us through what I think you'll find is a fairly interesting presentation. My intention is that it will be interactive, in the sense that you can interrupt at any time. Shawn is a former Member of Parliament, and he's well accustomed to being interrupted when he's speaking. No heckling, though.

I will introduce them individually, but I first wanted to turn it over to Sam, as the Deputy Chair, to say a few things.

Bruce and I were in Regina recently, and it was a fantastic experience. I really had my eyes opened to the role of the public accounts committee. I've got to confess that I didn't really know much about the committee at all. But to see the different Auditors General and the Chairs and Deputy Chairs of different provinces was quite eye-opening and quite inspiring.

We learned a lot about the different approaches throughout the Commonwealth. We have everything from Britain, where people aspire…. It is the height of their aspirations to be on the Public Accounts Committee, and it's a very, very professional, really highly esteemed role. Then you have other parts of the Commonwealth where it's a place to get somewhere else. In one case, it was even referred to as purgatory. Or was it hell or something like that? I think it was purgatory, yeah.

So it is what we can make it. Of course, we bring our different allegiances to constituencies, to parties. But most of all, our loyalty is to the province and to the citizens. I think, with a lot of goodwill, this can be a wonderful experience. Certainly, this committee, above all, is the best learning experience to be able to see every aspect of government. It's tremendous. I'm really looking forward to that aspect of it.

Thank you, Bruce, for suggesting that we have this orientation. And thank you, gentlemen, for coming all the way from Ottawa to give us advice.

Sam has mentioned what I think our presenters will talk about, at least as one aspect of their presentation, which they dub "constructive partisanship." Certainly, we all bring our partisan points of view to this committee, but there's a way of tempering it and channelling it, perhaps, that will make this committee work more effectively. I think they will endeavour to talk a little bit about that.

Now, they are all here as members of the CCAF, which is the Canadian Comprehensive Auditing Foundation. The other part of the acronym is La Fondation canadienne pour la vérification intégrée.

Basically, the group is there to advance the concept of comprehensive value-for-money performance auditing within Canadian governments, and they promote effective audit performance and oversight of government operations. The province, through the Auditor General's office, supports, at least in part, their ongoing operation.

I want to introduce each of the three presenters, and then I'll turn it over to Paul as the president and CEO to lead off.

Paul is the president and CEO — a distinguished career. He qualified as a chartered accountant back in 1978; spent time with KPMG, both in Canada and in the Netherlands; is accountable for delivering on the foundation's strategic goals to provide capacity, development service and expertise to performance auditors, public accounts committees and other instruments of public sector oversight in Canada and also significantly in developing countries as well.

Next, I have referred a little to Shawn. He was, as I said, elected in the year 2000 to the House of Commons. Most significantly, from 2006 to 2010 he served as Chair of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Accounts. He was first elected in 2000 and didn't seek re-election the last time around. He has given presentations to a number of public accounts committees in Canadian provinces. He represented a riding in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, where he resides when he's not doing this sort of stuff.

Geoff Dubrow has appeared before nine of ten provincial public accounts committees to discuss strategies to strengthen PAC effectiveness.

The conference that Sam referred to is an annual conference of both all the Auditors General across the country and all the Chairs and vice-Chairs of the public accounts committees, so he's intimately familiar with public accounts and Auditors General across the country and recognizes, I think, the diversity of practice. I don't think he will be here to lecture us about the absolute best way to do things but more to assist us in enhancing our
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traditions and our effectiveness as a committee.

He has also spent some time training parliamentarians on parliamentary oversight in other countries. Particularly, I think he's been to a number of Caribbean and African countries, where there's keen interest in looking at how public accounts committees work here in Canadian jurisdictions.

Their biographies are, of course, more extended, and we'll circulate them through your electronic device, if you want to find out a little bit more about each of them.

P. Lohnes: Good morning, everyone, and welcome. Thank you for your kind words of introduction, Bruce, and the opening remarks of both Bruce and Sam.

It's a real pleasure to be here. I think we have a great turnout. There are how many returning PAC members in addition to you, Bruce?

B. Ralston (Chair): Shane and Kathy, who are on their way, and Norm — that's right.

P. Lohnes: The theme today is…. We're not here to lecture to you or to tell you how to do things. We're going to share best practices that we've observed and done research on in Canada and around the world and introduce them to you. We would look in particular to the members who have been at this table before in this province to share their experiences and to jump in.

There's no right and wrong way to do things. The purpose of today is to expose everybody to what are good practices and best practices. You certainly have some history of having some yourselves, and it will be important to share them.

I'm delighted to be here. The intent is that it's an interactive discussion, which mostly will be facilitated by Geoff and Shawn, who have experience and subject-matter expertise that I don't have. But I'm very interested in the day, and I will participate when I can. I've done a number of these with Geoff and with Shawn.

It was mentioned that Geoff has been in front of nine provinces. I've covered quite a few of them, as well, in my couple of years at CCAF. It's really a lot of fun. It's very important work, and we're just really, really pleased to be here and have the Auditor General and Stuart, from the comptroller general's office, here as well. I would add that Stuart is currently a member of the CCAF board, representing his constituency and this province.

Another thing I would say is that we're not the people from central Canada here to claim that we know it all or tell you what to do. In fact, although Geoff and I are in Ottawa…. Shawn has worked in Ottawa, but he's from Prince Edward Island, as you know. And I'm from Montreal, but I grew up and was born in eastern Canada, and I've had family in western Canada for 40 years and come out here every year. So I think we have a broad perspective, and we've done some recent work in western Canada, which we'll talk to you about as well. It might be particularly relevant for you people here in British Columbia.

What is CCAF? You mentioned that it was called the Canadian Comprehensive Auditing Foundation. That's been our full name that we've had. We're a foundation that has existed, soon, for 35 years. How can I characterize it? It's an independent research and educational organization, and our purpose is to promote public sector auditing, oversight and accountability in Canada and abroad. I think you used words to that effect in introducing it, but it would bear repeating.

When we're talking about oversight, we're talking particularly toda,y and in most of our work, of the oversight of government that is carried out by public accounts committees in Canada. As was mentioned, we do some work overseas as well.

Our current mandate is particularly with respect to performance audit. We have expertise and experience in the broader auditing in the public sector — what was referred to as comprehensive auditing. Under our current strategic plan and strategies it's really focused on performance audit, but we know that you as a committee will also look at other types of audits and reports, so we can certainly speak to that.

B. Ralston (Chair): Paul, perhaps you could just define, for those who are not familiar with the term, "performance audit" and perhaps distinguish that from conventional financial auditing.

P. Lohnes: Some people recently have defined performance audit as anything other than a financial audit or an attest audit. That's very broad. Performance auditing is often referred to as value-for-money auditing. It would normally involve some or all of the aspects of efficiency, effectiveness and economy in the implementation of government policies and programs.

Again, all we're talking about today…. We're not getting into the appropriateness or the correctness or not of policies but more how they are applied and whether they are applied by government effectively, efficiently and
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with economy.

Our friend Mr. Auditor General could elaborate on that if he wanted. Broadly speaking, it's the three Es that we're talking about.

We do this work in Canada and developing nations. Our role is really to emphasize…. Although it's not on the slide, it's the best-practice aspect in providing capacity development to public sector auditors, to yourselves, and helping you to work with other public officials for more accountable government.

Our role with public accounts committees…. First of all, I would say: what is CCAF? It is this foundation or this organization that does research and education. We've been around for 35 years. We are financed for our domestic activity in capacity-building and performance audit and oversight primarily by the Auditors General of Canada — half by the Auditor General of Canada. The remaining provinces share the other half of the legislative auditor funding in accordance with their relative size in terms of their budgets.

That provides, in rough terms, about 75 or 80 percent of the members of CCAF's contributions to the foundation, and roughly $1 million a year. We get about $1½ million a year from now Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada, formerly CIDA, to do our international program, which is currently in four countries — three in Africa and one in Asia: Vietnam, Ghana, Tanzania and Cameroon — and by extension, into the regions of what are called supreme audit institutions and public accounts committees or their equivalent that operate in those regions, so in English Africa, French Africa and Southeast Asia.

It says here, and we've spoken to that, a very key role and particularly relevant to this group. Thank you, Sam, for your words about the conference, and Bruce. That's a very important part of our program. Geoff has been involved in that work with ourselves at CCAF for five or six years now in a very intensive way.

Basically, what we do is we work with the Auditor General and with the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee in the host jurisdiction. It moves around the country, as you'll learn. It was in Regina this year; it will be in St. John's next year. We've already started working with the Public Accounts Committee and the Auditor General in Newfoundland to help them organize next year's conference. Hopefully, some of you will be able to go to it.

We do orientations, which is what we're doing today. We call them workshops. It's not training; it's workshops, and as I said, it's interactive.

We also do topic-specific workshops for public accounts committees in Canada. How we've evolved in the last couple of years since I've been there, which was how we were evolving over the last five or six years, is that we try to get into jurisdictions, with the support of the Auditor General, to have a meeting like this with a public accounts committee very soon after it's formed, recognizing that often the players have changed or are different. There may be a change in government, so the committee is off to, typically, a fresh start.

Our purpose, in addition to what you would get locally from your own resources, is to be able to provide some of our know-how and experiences and share them with you to help you get off to a good start.

Then we have topic-specific workshops — and we'll probably talk to it later. For instance, in Alberta recently, after their election, we had a workshop about a year ago, very similar to today's, and we came back, following on the heels of the conference in Regina, to do a more specific workshop on reporting and follow-up — whether they should be doing recommendations, how they might do that.

All of this is based on the know-how that we have developed and experience that we've gained — which is on the next slide. Not on this slide, and it should be the top bullet, is that we did a new survey — which I think, Kate, people have been provided with — in which we reported to the Regina conference on, sort of, the state of the nation in Canada of public accounts committees.

Every jurisdiction is different. Their legislation is different. Their Auditors General and their roles, the rules and requirements for public accounts committees are different across the country, but there are a lot of things that we can survey them on in terms of how they operate and how they're constituted, how they meet, recommend and so on.

That has allowed us to develop — I guess, in particular, the second and third bullets from the slide — to come up with the 12 attributes of what we see as being an effective public accounts committee — and a guide embodied in the boxed set that you have in front of you. We invite you at your leisure to break the cellophane and have a look at it.

Everything you've ever wanted to know about public accounts committees and maybe more is contained in these documents, which were last updated in a second edition in 2010 and which we will be updating in the coming year on the basis of the survey results that we got from the Canadian community this year.

The whole list of other things that we have done in recent years is really consistent with our experience in over 30 years working to promote effective oversight in this country.

In terms of our recent workshops, I mentioned Alberta. Geoff and I did a workshop in Quebec earlier this year. Geoff and Shawn have done workshops recently in Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. Shawn has done some work in his home province, Prince Edward Island. We worked in New Brunswick not so long ago, Manitoba, and we hope to do new workshops in the near future in Saskatchewan, perhaps going back to do some follow-up
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work on subject-specific areas in Manitoba.

We do have a good relationship with the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee. We'll been doing some work there in the near future. We would expect that with the election in Nova Scotia yesterday, we'll be going back — once their Public Accounts Committee is formed — and working with their AG, as we've done in this case, to be before them soon in their life as a committee.

I guess we haven't been to Ontario too recently, but we hope to. Once they get through Ornge and perhaps an election, we would be back in front of that group as well. So we kind of cover the waterfront.

We do similar work in a number of countries in Europe. These gentlemen have done work not in Europe — in Africa. They've been out there, I've been out there, and we'll be going out there later this year.

B. Ralston (Chair): And you've done some work with the Territories as well, haven't you?

P. Lohnes: We have, yes. Well, not specific work. That's a good point. We are working with Mike Ferguson, who is the Auditor General for the Territories. We have our sights set on doing something in the Yukon next year.

I think that sets the context for the day and the next few hours. With that, I will turn it over to Shawn to start, and away we go.

First of all, I want to say I'm very pleased to be here. I understand that it's nine, I think, of the 15 on this committee who are newly elected members of the Legislative Assembly, so I just want to congratulate each of you. I want to congratulate the others on your re-election. I wish you all the best in your political careers.

I know for a fact, when you announced that you were running for office or that you were campaigning, you didn't say that you were coming to Victoria to hold the government to account or to get on the Public Accounts Committee. That wasn't your first objective, right? Most people come with a policy focus, whether it's agriculture, environment, urban affairs — whatever it is. But you are on the Public Accounts Committee.

I had the pleasure of serving on the federal committee for about ten years. Probably for the first two years that I was on the committee, I didn't understand the committee. I didn't understand the significance of the committee. But at the end of it, I found it a tremendously important and fantastic committee, and it's a committee that goes right to the heart of democracy and why we're here.

My first slide. I apologize for this. I know it sounds very elementary; it sounds very juvenile. But really, to start the discussion, you have to spend…. I'll only spend 30 seconds on the role of a Member of Parliament or a Member of the Legislative Assembly.

You all have representative roles and policy roles. But basically, your constitutional role is to approve, amend or reject legislative proposals coming from the executive, from the government — to approve, amend or negate government proposals to spend money through the supply process; to approve, amend or negate proposals for taxation.

But fundamentally, it's also to hold the government to account: that they're doing things legally and they're spending money in accordance with the law and they're spending money in accordance with the way they said they were going to spend it — e.g., the estimates — and they're spending money in accordance with the principles of efficiency, economy and effectiveness.

That leads me into the second phase of that accountability role. This is a committee of accountability. That's all we are. We're holding the government accountable for the post-expenditure of taxpayers' money. We can't instruct, reward or punish the executive. All we can do is to hold them to account.

There is a fundamental distinction between pre-expenditure accountability…. That is the proposals of how they're going to spend money, which really are not part of the mandate of this committee. The budget process, the estimates, perhaps some of the government agency reports, supplemental estimates — those are proposals. The budget is a political document. That's how they're going to spend the money. That's not part of the mandate of a normal public accounts committee.

However, the mandate of a properly functioning public accounts committee is the post-expenditure of public funds, taxpayers' money. You're a resource person.

The resource person of every public accounts committee in every country of the world that has one and every province and every territory, basically, is the Auditor General and the people who work in that particular office.

Of course, that's the public accounts that the Auditor tables each year, all performance reports that are tabled each year by the Office of the Auditor General and reports of the Public Accounts Committee.

The point I want to make is that there is a fundamental difference between pre-expenditure accountability and post-expenditure, and it's the post-expenditure that we are concerned with in this particular committee.

I want to talk briefly…. I'll just give you a bird's-eye view. Again, as Paul has said, every jurisdiction is different. We all have our own traditions, our conventions and our practices. Some jurisdictions are resourced much more strongly than others, and there's no right way or wrong way as to a proper or an effective public accounts committee. People approach it differently. Some people actually use the Auditor General differently. But some of the things we're going to talk about here are general themes that you do see, just to try and get a discussion going.
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Basically, what you normally see in an effective public accounts committee is that that committee receives and reviews, on behalf of the Legislative Assembly, all of the reports of the Auditor General. That's specifically in your legislation — your mandate.

Normally, what a properly functioning public accounts committee will do is act as the interface between the Office of the Auditor General — the reports — and the Legislative Assembly. You hold public hearings on the Auditor's reports to amplify, in this case, his findings. You normally expect a PAC to call witnesses from the departments to explain the findings and the recommendations coming from the reports of the Auditor General.

In most instances the committee itself will write a report after each hearing. The point that I will make is that the Public Accounts Committee is fundamentally different than any other committee in the Legislative Assembly. All the other committees have a policy focus, whether it's your environment committee, your finance committee, your heritage committee or your children's committee. They deal with policy issues.

But the Public Accounts Committee, by its very nature…. Because you're dealing with the post-expenditure of public money, really, there isn't…. I know there's sometimes a grey area, but it's basically administration. Was the money spent economically, efficiently and prudently, and was it spent legally?

So there is a non-policy focus on the committee, and that's why, in my opinion, it does work best when partisanship does not get into it too much. Nobody ever got elected or came to Victoria with the platform of misusing, misspending or misappropriating public funds.

The committee is different, also, in that the Chair in all Commonwealth countries now comes from the official opposition. Again, as has been said before, it is, in the opinion of the vast majority of people that study these issues, the most significant committee of any parliament or Legislative Assembly.

The next recommended practice that I would…. Again, I think in this case I'm preaching to the converted. I'm extremely impressed by how things are organized, and we don't see that in other jurisdictions. We have the Auditor right with us. He's given this committee a presentation, and that's not always the case.

I'll just repeat it for the sake of repetition, but what you see in a really effective public accounts committee is a very close working relationship with not only the Auditor but the senior staff in the Auditor's department. That relationship has to be close; it has to be mutually supportive. The Chair and perhaps the vice-Chair of the committee have to be in regular contact, and that will include, I submit, regular meetings with the Auditor General.

The committee itself, I suggest, also should — and you're actually doing it today — hear from the Auditor General. You may want to come back to this after we have a couple more meetings — explore how the whole office works, how it's staffed, how it's resourced. How is risk ascertained? What goes into a performance report? What goes into the audit of the public statements of the province of British Columbia? How does the office work?

It's the job of this committee to see that the Office of the Auditor General is and remains independent. Don't ever forget that the Auditor General is appointed by, works for and reports to the Legislative Assembly and no one else. The Auditor General does not work for a ministry or the Premier. His exclusive responsibility is the Legislative Assembly, and the only way the Auditor General can interface with the Legislative Assembly is through the Public Accounts Committee.

He normally wouldn't appear before the assembly. This is the interface, and it's the job of this committee to see that the Office of the Auditor General is and remains independent from any outside influences and, secondly, that the office has sufficient resources to carry out the tasks mandated to it.

Another thing too that I suggest you consider is: don't forget that the Auditor General has a certain budget. The office has a budget of $16 million, and that office is accountable to the Legislative Assembly.

Is that through this committee, or do you have a separate committee for that? Different provinces do it differently.

Do you have anything to add, Russ, on that point? I know you were going to speak. You were going to do a presentation.

R. Jones: No. I think that in the past the relationship we've had with the Public Accounts Committee has been very good. We will continue with that in the current session and are looking forward to getting our reports looked at and discussed.

The other relationship which I urge you to consider…. I think it is extremely important. I may have my terminology wrong here, but it doesn't make any difference. It's to develop a very close working relationship with your comptroller general and other senior financial officials.

You may want to consider holding a hearing and perhaps devote two or three hours just to hear from the
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comptroller general and senior financial officials to explain to the committee what goes into the preparation of the statements of the province.

How are expenditures authorized? How are contracts entered into? How are the entire public accounts prepared? How are finances in individual departments managed? Do the Crowns report separately? It's things like that to put into the consolidated public accounts of the government.

What are the systems of internal control? What are the systems of internal audit? Does the government and the various Crown corporations and agencies have the capacity to deliver sound management comptrollership?

This is a relationship that I think has to be fostered and has to be developed. You really, if you're on this committee, have to keep that relationship. I think you have to hear from these officials. Not every jurisdiction does this — and I'm not sure if British Columbia has or not — but I would recommend that you certainly devote at least one, if not more than one, meeting each year to the public accounts themselves.

S. Murphy: Anyway, what I would recommend is that once they're tabled — that is, the public accounts are audited — this committee have a hearing on them, on how they're prepared. Are they qualified? I understand there is a qualification that B.C. wants. Why are they qualified? Is there any off–balance sheet financing?

These documents are fundamental to the whole operation of government. It is important that this committee devote some time and attention to the public accounts, in addition to the performance reports that come out, I understand, regularly.

Stuart, I talked about the comptroller general relationship. Do you have anything to say just on that issue?

S. Newton: Just to add. Different from several public accounts committees, the comptroller general sits on this committee as a resource. In relation to those items that are listed on the slide — in relation to financial or management policy — in any report that comes up, as those issues come up, those would be the kinds of questions that we provide….

We also provide an administrative role, ensuring that government witnesses come to a meeting prepared and understanding how they should be presenting. It's mostly an administrative function to make sure those witnesses know that the time is available to you to ask questions of them.

It's not their opportunity to grandstand or provide a large presentation, but something short and brief on where they've gone from what the Auditor General's office has said, how they've moved forward, and then allow you the opportunity to ask them questions to hold them to account for the results that the Auditor General had provided in his report.

R. Jones: I was just going to add one more thing for the committee's interest. We're in process right now of developing a guide for this province — and for across Canada, as well — on the financial statements. The financial statements are prepared under what we call public sector accounting standards, and what we're finding is committees such as the Public Accounts Committee and audit committees are having a bit of trouble understanding what's actually in those statements.

So we're preparing what we call a 20-questions guide, which will help committees go through public sector statements and understand them better. That should be coming out in about a month and a half.

S. Murphy: I'm going to turn it over to Geoff for a few slides. On those issues that I talked about, any…? Let's make this interactive. If anyone has any questions or comments.

M. Dalton: As far as your role, Stuart, as comptroller general, you obviously work quite closely with the Ministry of Finance. I'm just trying to differentiate the comptroller general and the Auditor General. I know that you do more examinations. If you can just highlight some of maybe the similarities, where you work together, and the differences in your mandates.

S. Newton: I can start with the role. The role of the comptroller general actually sits in the Financial Administration Act. We're responsible for how the accounts of government are kept, for providing direction to government on spending directives, appropriate financial control and those types of things. We're responsible for preparing the year-end financial statements, which the Auditor General's office reviews and audits. We also do periodic review of transactions within government to determine whether they're meeting policy or not.

I also have a policy shop that provides financial management policy out to ministries. As well, we maintain and manage what's called government's Core Policy
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Manual, which has a series of administrative policies as well as financial policies. Risk management, information management and technology policies are also loaded into that as well. That's the role within government.

Similarities. Both Russ and I would have the same need to ensure that government transactions are carried out appropriately in relation to policy. So as we do transactional work or as we note issues, chances are that very shortly, if I've got an issue, I'm going to be talking to Russ, as well, around where I'm seeing risk and what types of ways we might be able to deal with risk issues as they occur.

The junction would be…. As we're dealing with effective or efficient use of dollars or financial reporting, I would very much be in contact with Russ's office on: "Where do you see it?" We have two offices that have staff and experience. It's better to get two sets of office staff looking at a problem versus one.

We do have disagreements on very particular accounting issues, but put that aside, and I think the offices….

S. Newton: I meet with Russ every couple of weeks to talk about issues. So there's a very close working relationship that way, to be able to make sure that in the end we've got the best possible set of financial statements.

Where things need to change or improve in order to ensure we've got the most efficient or effective financial management or are meeting program needs efficiently and effectively with good economy, we are of a similar mind. It's better that we resolve issues early on than we resolve issues sometime in July, which doesn't always work as well.

B. Ralston (Chair): I guess the other thing about the appointment of the Auditor General is that he or she is selected by a legislative committee — there has to be unanimity, which is a very high standard — and is an independent officer of the Legislature. The budget is scrutinized through the Finance and Government Services Committee. So that's a bit different from the comptroller general.

Yes, they do have differences, and sometimes they can be quite entertaining here when they start debating them.

V. Huntington: I'm hoping at some point, Bruce, that we'll have an opportunity just for a fairly general discussion after the introductory comments. One of the issues that has confused me a little bit in terms of the independence of the Auditor General and the reporting out to this committee is that the reports of the Auditor General seem to go through all of the departmental officials and the comptroller general before they ever come to this committee. I've wondered: is that the normal standard?

When we get the recommendations of the Auditor General, we're also getting from the comptroller general and from the deputies what they've done about them. We're at the end of the line, and I've often been confused, then, about what the role of the committee actually is at the end.

S. Murphy: I'll speak to the way Ottawa does it. I'm not trying to say that the…. I think it's the same as B.C. The way that Ottawa would…. Again, I hate to use that word.

The draft is prepared, and to ensure the veracity of the facts and that everything is in the report, it does go to the departments as a first…. There is an interaction. Well, the departments know they're being audited.

Then the draft goes to the department to see if they have any disagreement with the findings and the facts that are there. Then the Auditor General will make recommendations. I'm not sure. I'm going to get Russ to comment. Usually right in the report you will have what is the position of the department. The department does have an interaction. They do know the report.

The actual report, the final tabled report, does not go to the Premier and all. It usually would go officially to the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly. Then it would be immediately referred to this committee for hearings.

But there is an interaction, and you're right. The departments or Crown agencies would know (a) they were being audited, (b) they would know the findings of the Auditor General, and (c) they would know the recommendations of the Auditor General. Lastly, they would know whether or not they've accepted those recommendations.

So there's no…. They know that this is coming down. Of course, that message is probably funnelled off to the Premier's office, too, I would assume.

R. Jones: You are correct. One of the things our act requires is that whenever we do put out a report, it has to go to the ministry that we are auditing ahead of time — or the Crown corporation or whatever — seven days in advance.

What we found was that it's similar to a financial statement audit as well. Getting the response of the ministry or the Crown corporation to put in the report actually gives you more information at the end of the day so that when you do discuss our reports, you've got both sides of the argument. Hopefully it informs the questions that you might want to ask and follow up on.

We do similar things in a financial audit when we put forth a management letter, with recommendations around controls and whatnot, and we ask management to respond before we go to the audit committee to discuss those things.

V. Huntington: Are those management letters avail-
[ Page 12 ]
able to the committee if we want to see them or if members want to see them? It would seem to me appropriate.

R. Jones: I would assume they could be made available. There are quite a few points in our management letters on financial statements. Most of them are circulating around financial controls that are or are not in place.

V. Huntington: But that is a process of the accountability, too, that we could examine if we wanted to.

S. Murphy: Don't ever forget, especially for the new members…. The Auditor General — the boss he works for is the Legislative Assembly. There is the fundamental difference between these two individuals. The comptroller general is part of executive, and the Auditor General is part of the Legislative Assembly.

Stuart, I believe you had said that this is one of the rare public accounts committees where the comptroller general is there as a member.

S. Newton: That's my understanding. I think either Shawn or Geoff might be able to confirm that.

S. Sullivan (Deputy Chair): It's surprising to me how the varieties and permutations of public accounts committees — when they meet, how often they meet…. I think there's a province that hasn't met for many, many years. It's very interesting to see that we have that difference.

S. Murphy: I think it's great. Federally, we wouldn't have the comptroller general. We'd have the comptroller general once a year, twice a year maybe, but no.

You've made the point that we're making: everyone's different. We don't come to this with the same traditions and conventions. Let's keep our differences but explore what others are doing too.

I'm going to pass it over to Geoff now to continue with the next slide, and I'll be back up in a few minutes.

K. Corrigan: I heard you say that the report, once the process is complete, goes to the Speaker and then would immediately go to the Public Accounts Committee. Is that correct?

K. Corrigan: Could you comment on what the proper role is of the Speaker? Is it expected that the Speaker has a responsibility to have a report go immediately, or could you see circumstances for delay?

S. Murphy: I don't know your committee or standing orders, but normally it depends whether the House is sitting. Certainly, if the House is sitting, it would go immediately. Somebody more experienced would…. Kate would know exactly what to do.

B. Ralston (Chair): We'll let Kate deal with that one. There've been some issues around that. I think that's what Kathy's referring to.

The Office of the Speaker has established a practice where they will receive reports from any of the eight independent statutory officers, including the Auditor General's office, on an ongoing basis. If the House is in session, I understand, there's generally, at minimum, a five-day turnaround to get that into the House.

The Office of the Speaker, I understand, usually likes to be informed at least about a week in advance of a pending report so that any other arrangements with the offices can be coordinated, such as a media press conference or those kinds of arrangements. But usually it's within five days' notice that the report would be received by the Office of the Speaker. The same timelines would apply in a non-sessional period.

Certainly, the Speaker, as I understand, tries to present that to the House at the earliest opportunity, in conjunction with the timeline set by the offices. There may be some variations from case to case, but that's the general approach. There have been some written communications, I understand, from the Office of the Speaker to each of the offices in conjunction, sometimes with respect to legislative provisions within an independent officer's act that are taken into account.

Usually it's a bit of a process that we try to facilitate as smoothly as we can from both ends In most instances there's not a very long delay at all.

R. Jones: I'm just going to add that I had a meeting with the Speaker last week to go through the process and make sure everybody's on the same page, because as has been mentioned, there was a bit of a hiccup a few months ago. I think you will find the process is going to move along quite smoothly. We had a really good discussion, and I think we're all on the same page now.

G. Dubrow: On that issue. Just to pick up on that, Kate, is there something in your rules of procedure that states
[ Page 13 ]
that the reports of the Auditor General stand permanently referred to the Public Accounts Committee? That's usually the type of language you would see in Canadian jurisdictions.

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of Committees): Not in the standing orders, Geoff. I believe that there is a provision in the Auditor General Act which ensures that the Speaker would lay those reports before the Legislative Assembly. The committee is created sessionally in British Columbia by motion, and through that motion those reports are directly referred to this committee.

G. Dubrow: Well, good morning, everyone. It's also nice to join Paul and Shawn in thanking the Chair and vice-Chair for having brought us out here to do this orientation.

I'm just going to pick up right from where you left off. I'll just mention that I also share the philosophy that, obviously….

I'm going to start by talking a bit about what a typical public accounts committee does, and I'll point to areas that are what I would call decision points, areas that the committee will have to take a decision as to what they'd like to do. We're not here to tell you how to do it, but we can certainly give you some experience from other parts of the country as to how that's done.

If I could pick up on Vicki's plan, I think she had an excellent question. I think this slide…. A little bit of it has been covered already.

You mentioned: is the Public Accounts Committee at the end of the line in terms of the information flow — right? You've got the Auditor General going in and conducting their audits of departments, agencies and sometimes Crown corporations. You've got the AG issuing management letters.

I should just mention that Russ is going to make a presentation after lunch on some of his audit products. He'll be telling you more about what kinds of audits he's conducting in more detail.

Then, as was also mentioned, the departments, agencies and Crowns will include their response in the report of the Auditor General.

If you look at an audit report — for example, a value-for-money, an economy, efficiency, effectiveness report — the Auditor General's findings and recommendations…. What's being discussed is that…. The departments have the opportunity to respond in writing, to say what they…. First of all, do they agree with the recommendation? And what action is being taken to deal with the recommendation?

Vicki's question, if I interpreted it correctly — I thought it was a great question — is: by the time those reports get to here, what on earth are we supposed to do with them? The Public Accounts Committee has already accepted all of the Auditor General's recommendations, which would typically be the case in most cases.

So what are you supposed to do with the reports? Why bother even looking at them if the department, agency or Crown has already responded and said: "Yeah, we agree"? So why bother looking at them?

Let me throw that back to you as a question. There's certainly an answer. Otherwise, we wouldn't be here, would we? We wouldn't have flown all the way, 3,000 kilometres, to come see you.

Anybody have a sense of what that answer might be? Why bother? The department has already responded. The recommendations are done. Why bother even convening a meeting?

G. Dubrow: Okay. What I'm hearing from you…. Either of you want to elaborate a little bit more on that?

M. Morris: Well, you can make all the recommendations you want in the world, but if nobody follows up on them and there's no process to follow up on that, then those recommendations aren't worth the paper they're printed on.

V. Huntington: Part of my interest has been on why the committee doesn't or hasn't been or can't…. Maybe that's why we haven't looked more deeply into whether the recommendations are reflecting, or the issue is reflecting a more systemic problem throughout government.

I've often been frustrated that we haven't been able to sort of sit down with the comptroller general and the Auditor General, even if it's a subcommittee, and explore: why would this have happened in the first instance, and is there a problem that ought to be corrected that's more systemic throughout the system?

That can be done, but you sense there's a partisanship that doesn't necessarily want that. But it's not a critical review of government. It's a review to ensure good governance is occurring throughout the system. At least, that's my point of view of where I feel we haven't done quite enough.
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G. Dubrow: Just on that point, Shawn mentioned the word "executive." I just want it to be very clear…. I'm sure Shawn will agree with me. When he's referring to the executive, all the government members must be saying: "Wait a minute. That's my party you're talking about. You want me to scrutinize the executive, criticize the executive? I don't think I quite signed up for that job."

So I think, going back to what Shawn said, that's why we don't have the word "executive" here. We've got "departments, agencies and Crowns." You're looking at the administration — how well the government's policies have been carried out, with due regards to economy. How economical have programs been? How efficient have they been? How effective have they been? Or is the government measuring effectiveness?

That's why, as we're going to get into discussion a little bit later…. You're talking to civil servants. You have the deputy minister appearing before the committee and not ministers. So we're talking about accountability. But it's not holding your own government to account. It's generally holding the departments to account and, as Mike and Linda mentioned, making sure that the corrective action has already been taken.

From my own observation, a very polite Canadian thing to do across the country — I think that's one thing we all have in common is that polite Canadian-ness — is for the departments to always say: "Oh sure, Auditor General. We agree with everything you've said. Great recommendations."

But as Mike and Linda mentioned, that doesn't guarantee…. Just because the department has accepted the recommendations and responded here, saying, "Thank you, Auditor General, for your recommendations. We agree with all of them, and we're going to implement them…." It's then up to the PAC to look at the extent to which those are actually being implemented.

S. Gibson: Well, I'm new here, and my understanding is really of what I've seen in the media, where I see partisan criticisms coming through of what's gone on.

My question is, I guess: as the system matures as the committee does its job, is it addressing system problems? So each time, each year that this committee sits, is the system improved incrementally? We say: "Okay, we've learned from last year. This year those folks have done it a little better, and we're happier."

Is that a part of the process — that improvements are incremental? Or do we go back from the beginning again and provide scrutiny of the various departments in the same kind of way?

G. Dubrow: That's going to be the kind of conversation that you're going to want to have with your Auditor General. I think someone at the table mentioned a full session between the committee and the Auditor General to talk about those kinds of issues. I think it's very important, because it's up to the committee to decide.

If we take the extreme case and we go to some of the developing countries in the world, the kinds of stuff that they're looking at in their reports are individual transactions — the kinds of things that we used to do, that audit offices in Canada would do in the 1960s.

You know, you had a tea party at the Lieutenant-Governor's residence, and nobody signed off on the voucher. That would be a typical audit finding. Or there was a procurement program. Let's say there was a procurement for a computer, and you're supposed to get three bids, and you didn't. Those kinds of individual transactions. Those are the kinds of things that Canadian PACs tend to avoid. Because I think you've all, rightly…. You're just right on to it.

The general desire is to look at systemic issues. You know you have good internal controls. You've got internal controls in place, so you don't need to be, as the Public Accounts Committee, looking at those issues. You're going to want to delve into the deeper issues. That's what value for money does.

But then having that conversation with your Auditor General — maybe he wants to jump in on that — about how you look at more systemic issues to make sure that things have improved over time is a very valid point.

R. Jones: Well, I was just going to say that twice a year we present a report that does a follow-up on reports we've done in the past and whether or not there have been improvements. So in the next couple of weeks you'll be getting our most recent one. It takes a look at, basically, reports after a year. So if we did a report a year ago, we will follow up on it a year afterwards.

We ask the agencies to give us a self-assessment as to whether or not, on each of our recommendations, they've done nothing in the year, whether they've done something or whether they've fully implemented. We have the ability to go and re-audit those assertions by the ministries or the agencies if we have the resources. Recently we haven't been doing a whole lot of that. We just accept what the agencies have told us. That's what you'll see in the report.

As I say, they say if it's fully implemented, that this is what they did and why it's fully implemented.

Partially implemented. They'll say: "Yeah, we've done some if it, and we still have a little bit to do." And if nothing's been done…. Well, you don't see too many of those. Whether there should be more, I don't know.

G. Dubrow: If I can just jump in on that. Am I also right, Simon, when you were asking that question, in addition to what Russ is saying…?

A couple of you mentioned systemic, that you're also
[ Page 15 ]
looking at the fact that…. Let's say there was an audit on environmental practices in the Ministry of Health, for example. Those findings might apply to other ministries that haven't been audited, and you want to know, if you're identifying a series of problems in the Ministry of Health, whether they apply across the board. I think that was part also. Is that part of the issue that you're looking at? Yeah?

S. Gibson: That sounds good. Yeah. Thank you. That's a good answer. I appreciate it.

G. Heyman: Is it a legitimate role of the Public Accounts Committee to actually question the recommendations of the Auditor General — why they took a particular form as opposed to a different form or why certain recommendations didn't flow from certain findings?

G. Dubrow: Shawn, I'll let you jump in on that. It's relatively rare for PACs in Canada to question the Auditor General's recommendations. That's not to say that there is anything wrong with doing that, but PACs tend to support, as a matter of practice, the recommendations of the Auditor General.

There are times when they might ask — particularly in camera, for example, because obviously that unity of purpose is very important — about a particular recommendation. But I haven't seen a lot of examples in Canada where the AG and the PAC have been continuously offside with regards to issuing recommendations.

S. Murphy: If I could add something. I think it's totally appropriate for anyone on this committee to question the Auditor General as to how the recommendation was formulated, what went into the recommendation. Or did they consider another recommendation? That's a very appropriate question for this committee.

G. Heyman: I wasn't suggesting offside so much as a different form of collaboration.

S. Simpson: Just as a bit of a follow-up on George's question, is it common practice for public accounts committees to supplement the recommendations of an auditor general by adding, potentially, additional recommendations that may flow from the discussion of a report and for the committee to say, "Okay, the Auditor General has suggested five things, and we as a committee think that there are a couple of other things that might have been somewhat outside the purview of the Auditor General to advance," and then to have those and add those in?

If so, how does that happen? Here, for example, our practice is to adopt the recommendations of the Auditor General, and then those proceed forward. I can't recall us as a committee ever doing supplemental recommendations over and above what the Auditor General has done.

How does that work? First of all, is it common practice in other jurisdictions? And how might it work to be able to be dealt with and, being cognizant of this partisan issue as well, to be able to make sure that they have value?

G. Dubrow: Absolutely. Good question. What I'll do is just take you through these few pieces here. Then I'll be able to delve into that answer a little bit more.

I guess the first thing is, with regards to…. We're going to talk in a few minutes about a typical Public Accounts Committee hearing and what some of the practices are around that. So we'll come back to that.

When it comes to Public Accounts Committee hearings, as we talked about, it's usually the deputy minister who is appearing before the committee and not the minister. PAC will obviously try to find out a little bit about what went wrong, in terms of troubleshooting, looking at the Auditor General's findings and recommendations and trying to better understand why things didn't work, but then also getting a sense of — in my opinion, at least — the commitment that the department has to implementing that.

You might see that from the response. If the departmental response is deliberately vague — "yes, we support it, and we'll study it and report back in due course" — that's where the PAC might apply a little bit more pressure and say: "Well, you said you were going to study it. Can you tell us a bit more about what that study is about and when you're going to complete that report?" Kind of holding their feet to the fire a little bit.

As Shawn said, generally public accounts committees, when they're finished a hearing on a particular chapter…. Let's say you've had an audit on…. What's a recent audit chapter, Russ, that you can provide an example of?

G. Dubrow: The Evergreen line. So when you've completed your hearing on the Evergreen line, some public accounts committees will immediately issue a report, and we'll talk about that. That's one of your decision-making points in terms of deciding what you do.

As Shane mentioned, sometimes those reports will just say: "We're endorsing, or supporting, the recommendations of the Auditor General." And sometimes they'll support the recommendations, but they'll also go one step further and issue their own recommendations.

If you'll allow me, I'll just go through the two other steps, and we'll come back and talk a bit more about the recommendations.

PACs will generally issue a report. Now, if you take the practice of some PACs, like the PAC of the House of Commons, at the end of each hearing…. So they've had one or two sessions, one or two two-hour meetings, on the Evergreen line or on a P3. Once they've completed that, they'll write the report. The Committee Clerk will usually start the report with some instruction from the committee, and then the committee will meet in camera to deliberate on the report.

Many jurisdictions — for example, when we were out in Alberta — are not in the practice of writing a report after every hearing. It really depends on staff capacity, because it is obviously a lot of work to write those reports. They're quite substantive. Some committees will report once or twice a year. Some committees will produce an annual report identifying all the hearings that they had and all of their recommendations.

We can certainly talk about that a little bit later in terms of which approach you might find to be the most effective for your Public Accounts Committee.

When the PAC does issue its own recommendations, that's what…. Generally, most PACs that issue recommendations will ask the government for a formal response within 120 or 150 days. That's a continuation of the dialogue.

As we say, if you're issuing your own recommendations and you're not asking for a response…. That's the problem that they face in Quebec right now, where they're issuing recommendations. But if you don't ask for a response, that would be like me asking my kids to clean their room and you don't hear them say anything. You really don't know if it's ever going to get done or not. There's really no agreement that it's going to be done.

G. Dubrow: No, the opposite, actually. It's usually passive resistance. It's more like it.

That's why, typically, within 120 or 150 days they'll be asked to respond to the recommendations that the PAC has issued, if they're issuing their own recommendations above and beyond.

Let me stop there, actually — just not to muddy the waters. We could talk about follow-up a little bit, a bit later.

Just to skip forward, if we were to talk a bit about the issue of recommendations…. Let's try slide 30. We're certainly not married to the slides individually.

There are really two types of processes that take place. Then I'm going to refer you to the PAC survey that Paul mentioned, which CCAF conducted, where we actually have the data to back up or to give you a sense of what the practice has been.

The first practice is to endorse the legislative Auditor's recommendations. My understanding was that until, maybe, several years ago that was the case here in British Columbia. We've used that as an example for others. It usually says: "The Public Accounts Committee wishes to endorse the recommendations of the Auditor General." It's sending a message to the department that this is taken seriously by the Legislature. In effect, what you are is the audit committee of the Legislature.

Now, if you take a look at the resource package that Kate has put together for you, there's a document that CCAF produced called The State of Public Accounts Committees in 2013. I'll just refer you to that.

On page 23 you'll notice that what we've said — our headline, so to speak; we've tried to make this somewhat focused on the big picture and quite clear with the headline — is that seven public accounts committees, out of Canada's 14, usually issue their own substantive recommendations. That would come into area 2, where in addition to endorsing the recommendations contained in the Auditor General's report, a PAC can also issue its own recommendations.

Let's talk a little bit about the kinds of recommendations that the Public Accounts Committee would issue, above and beyond the recommendations of the Auditor General. One example would be for the Public Accounts Committee to say, "Look, the Auditor General has made ten recommendations. We agree with all of them" — if that's the case. "However, we'd like to draw the attention of the department about our concern with regard to recommendation No. 2."

For example, let's say it was an audit on youth and family services about children at risk. Maybe there was a particular child protection facility — I'm just making this up as I go along — that was not being properly inspected by the department, and that was putting children at risk. That might be something where, as elected officials, you'd say: "Look, the whole report is good. But that finding — we're really concerned about that. We really want the department to come back to us in three months."

Maybe you've had the deputy minister there. You haven't been entirely happy with the answers. You see a real risk, and you say: "We like all the recommendations, but we really want to focus on recommendation No. 3. And we'd like the deputy minister to come back to see us again in three months and keep us updated." You're sending a very clear signal to the department that this is an issue that you're particularly concerned about.

Shane, does that make sense? It's a very long answer to a short question, but does it make sense?

S. Simpson: Yeah, it does. Maybe I'll follow up with a question with Kate afterwards.

Part of my interest is…. I know that that has not been the practice in British Columbia. The practice has been to endorse the recommendations of the Auditor General,
[ Page 17 ]
and then those move forward. That's kind of where the work of the committee — other than getting back a year later, having the Auditor General come back and say, "Here's the state of affairs from the ministry…."

In terms of the terms of reference, the mandate of the Public Accounts Committee, does it exclude our ability to do that? Has it been by terms of reference, or has it just been practice that we don't do it?

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of Committees): The practice of this committee since about the year 2010, to the best of my knowledge, has not been to formally endorse the recommendations of the audit report.

The committee had a practice previous to that time where they would formally adopt a motion endorsing the report. So although there has been general agreement in support of all audit reports that have come to the committee, the committee has declined to formalize their support by way of a motion through a formal committee decision. Prior to that time, it was the usual practice of this committee to formally move motions at the end of the consideration and discussion of an audit report.

In previous years — I'm speaking back now more than 15 years — the committee would, on occasion, make additional recommendations with respect to the findings of an audit report. But that hasn't been the practice in recent years, and there is nothing within the committee's terms of reference that would prevent it from interpreting its role in that way and discussing the merits of a different approach.

R. Jones: I was just going to add to that, Kate. About 15 years ago, when we did a report on, I think, forest revenue in the province, the Public Accounts Committee actually added two recommendations to what we had recommended — at the end of the report.

S. Sullivan (Deputy Chair): Do you recall the nature of that? I'm just trying to get a sense of….

R. Jones: I knew you were going to ask me that. I'm trying to remember. We were talking…. It was around the control over stumpage in the province. I know the committee decided that there were a couple of things that came out of a trip that we did around the province with them that they wanted added in. I can't remember what they are, but we could probably find out for you.

S. Sullivan (Deputy Chair): It's okay. I just thought if you knew, if you remembered.

G. Dubrow: Just to go back to Shane's question, again, and go back to page 23, in terms of the practice around issuing recommendations. If you just look at the text below the red lettering.

Seven jurisdictions stated in our survey that they usually issue their own substantive recommendations. Another two do so sometimes. So that's nine. Then we've got five jurisdictions left in Canada. Of those five, two said that they usually endorsed the legislative Auditor's recommendations, and another two said that they never issue their own substantive recommendations and never endorse the Auditor General's recommendations. One did not respond.

Generally, I would say it's practice across the country to do either one or the other. There are only a couple of PACs — I think now B.C. might be in that category, in terms of the change since 2010 — not endorsing or coming up with their own recommendations.

Again, that's something that your committee perhaps might want to discuss and deliberate on in the future.

P. Lohnes: It's safe to say that of the seven jurisdictions that do, that would include where Shawn was: in the House of Commons, Quebec, Ontario. Saskatchewan does, and a couple of the eastern provinces do as well.

G. Dubrow: Yeah, Alberta's now having that discussion. We were there last month. They're another jurisdiction that has not to date endorsed the legislative Auditor's recommendations or issued their own substantive recommendations. They're now having that debate amongst themselves as to what their process should be: should they be issuing their own recommendations, or should they be endorsing the legislative Auditor's recommendations?

I think their concern was that they don't want to bite off more than they can chew. I think they felt that they didn't want to start issuing a whole slew of their own recommendations. It's really that you want to start with endorsing the legislative Auditor's recommendations and maybe, in some cases, flagging a couple of key recommendations.

But Shawn can give an example of the kind of recommendations above and beyond that the public accounts meeting in Ottawa might have looked at.

Shawn, if you can just go into that memory bank of yours and pull something out….

S. Murphy: When we wrote a report, we generally did elaborate and develop some of our own recommendations. A couple of things that led to them. One, we always wanted to…. The Auditor General never really fixed time. They'd make a recommendation, but they wouldn't put a time frame. You don't put a time frame, do you, Russ?

S. Murphy: We've always put a time frame, because we'd say: "Do this by…." Also, you have to appreciate that there's usually six, eight, nine months between the audit report being tabled or, certainly, the work being done. It's quite a cycle. A lot of time can pass between the months when the Auditor was in doing the actual fieldwork and the time we're having a hearing. So there has been a passage of time.

The situation has changed, so we might want to make some ancillary recommendations regarding…. And new facts come to light as a result of hearings, so we might want to make some ancillary recommendations. But we'd always write our own report, and we'd always have our own recommendations. In most instances, these recommendations would have time frames involved.

Paul, if we can just slip back to slide 10. Just to give you maybe an overview of the…. As we go through this, I'll ask you a little bit about the operations of your committee around some of these practices.

This would be the basic criteria for an effective Public Accounts Committee. As you see, we've got a series of prerequisites. We've got the reference to what Bruce mentioned was constructive partisanship and planning. We'll go through that. Some of the strategies around holding an effective hearing, and then as, I think, Linda mentioned, the words "corrective action." That would be the fourth column.

One that doesn't get talked about a lot is communicating with the Legislature, the media and the public. We can talk briefly about that as well.

Just very quickly, in terms of prerequisites. I think a lot of these you'll be able to check off as things, or practices, that you are already doing.

Kate, I had asked about the issue about the permanent referral of Auditor General reports to the Public Accounts Committee. You mentioned that's something that tends to happen fairly quickly when the Legislature is in session. Within five days, I think you said.

Obviously, the Chair from the opposition — that's a Commonwealth standard. But the ability to call your own meetings, to convene your own meetings. Manitoba, for example, still has the House Leader. It's the only province in Canada where the House Leader needs to sign off on the meeting request. Obviously, that would be a practice that B.C. is far ahead in terms of that.

The issue of meeting with sufficient frequency. You're in an interesting situation right now. You've had, I guess, a short legislative session in July, and now you're just getting up and running. You'll have your winter session, I guess, in February. But it might be interesting for the committee to do some thinking about the frequency of its meetings. I've noticed, in jurisdictions like Manitoba, they don't have a fixed meeting schedule — that the more time they talk about meeting, the less they actually seem to meet. I call it the law of inverse proportionality.

You'll find that most other jurisdictions, many jurisdictions across Canada, will meet on a regular basis. They'll have a two-hour meeting every week. Or, in the case of Alberta, 1½ hours, I think, twice a week. Ottawa, twice a week. Ontario, three hours once a week.

So they've got a set schedule, and every member knows — especially when you've got a large committee, 15 members — when Public Accounts is. That's kind of predetermined. That seems to be a practice that works very well.

The membership for the duration of the Legislature. I think, Kate, you mentioned the fact that your membership here is sessional. We do have some findings on that. I won't refer to them, but they're on page 12 of that PAC survey. In terms of the different kinds of…. You know, some membership of PAC will be for the entire four-year or five-year term, depending on which Legislature you're talking about. There might still be some substitutions, if somebody is appointed to cabinet or there's a change of circumstance.

CCAF's Attributes of an Effective PAC, which was endorsed by the Canadian Council of Public Accounts Committees, suggests that it's worthwhile for members to be on PAC for the entire length of the Legislature — the entire term.

Vicki, you are in agreement. Any sense of what some of the merits would be of being on for the entire term?

V. Huntington: Well, I think, personally…. My point of view is that the committee could be so relatively important to the process. It's not an easy subject matter for somebody that isn't a financial guru, and it takes a while to get up to speed on some of it. I believe that consistency is a much more pertinent opportunity for good advice.

G. Dubrow: I think Shawn just mentioned that it took him about two years to get up to speed on the work of the committee. I guess the culture of the committee is also very different, being less partisan — or supposed to be less partisan — than other committees.

V. Huntington: From my perspective, of course — it's easy for me to say this — I would love to see this committee be far less partisan, not in makeup but in interest.

Sufficient budgetary resources, and then sufficient staff and technical capacity. Again, if you go to page 14 of the CCAF study, our PAC study, I think the finding was that if you look across Canada, only five public accounts committees are served by a full-time-equivalent researcher — somebody who's actually dedicated full-time to the committee or two half-time or three one-third-time and so on and so forth.
[ Page 19 ]

There are some PACs that have less than a full-time researcher, and several PACs don't have any research capacity. We can certainly get into a discussion about the role of the researcher. And you've got a new researcher, who probably hasn't had a chance to introduce himself.

I don't know if I'm putting you on the spot, Ron, but you're standing up, so you look okay with it.

R. Wall: I'm Ron Wall. I work for Kate in the research office of the Legislative Assembly.

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of Committees): If I might…. Members who have returned to the committee this parliament may know Josie Schofield, who has served as a longtime researcher and wonderful resource to this committee. Josie is hinting continuously at her plans to move on to other things in this phase of life. So with that, we've invited Ron to come today to meet with you all and to get a sense of, through this process, a bit of the scope of the work that is undertaken.

The parliamentary committees office in British Columbia tends to have sufficient resources to support all committees. Based on their level of activity, we do have support to increase research capacity if and when required. The committee doesn't have a designated full-time exclusive researcher, but we would certainly endeavour to support any initiatives that the committee wishes to undertake that require research resources.

V. Huntington: Maybe that's an understanding of the role, a potential role — the research.

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of Committees): Right. Currently we have a research team of about five. Primarily, they are shared resources — a number of teams amongst those five — for the active committees that are currently underway.

Certainly, public consultation committees take up a great deal of our office's attention and focus, particularly at this time of year. But year-round we have a dedicated researcher to at least support the work of each committee. The amount of time that's available to that person is really dependant on committee activity.

G. Dubrow: What type of task would the researcher here in British Columbia normally be asked to do by the Public Accounts Committee members or the committee?

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of Committees): The committee researchers seem to be the subject specialists in support of our parliamentary committees, whereas, in my role as Clerk, I would have sort of an oversight coordinating role of all staff resources.

The committee researcher is assigned, essentially, to review all the reports or matters referred to a parliamentary committee — in this case, the audit reports — and would provide summaries of all of the meetings in conjunction with the preparation of a draft report, which in due course would go back to the committee for their review and for their input.

The researcher is very hands-on with the substance of whatever matters are referred to a particular committee. I know in the past that a committee researcher has also undertaken assistance with the Chair and the Deputy Chair for other matters, but the primary role is related to the terms of reference, then the specific matters that members grapple with.

V. Huntington: Yes, I've seen it more as an administrative role. I didn't realize that it was considered a substantive one, so that's interesting.

G. Dubrow: Some of the research staff will write the committee reports, if there is a report, and help formulate the recommendations. Obviously, it's up to the committee to approve it, but they'll write the wording.

They can prepare briefing notes for the Public Accounts Committee in advance of…. You know, if you've got a chapter of the Auditor General's report, they can prepare a one-page summary of the key findings and recommendations. In some jurisdictions that will be the Auditor General that does that. I don't know if that's the practice here.

In other jurisdictions, like in Ottawa, it's the research staff that will perform that role. I think we can refer to some more as we go, but those are the kinds of tasks that typically the researcher will perform — so a very important part of the equation, for sure.

Partisanship — everybody's favourite topic. I saw some smiles around the room when that issue came up. We're not naive enough to think that there won't be any partisanship. We're not saying that practice is that public accounts committees be non-partisan.

Elwin Hermanson from Saskatchewan, as far as I know, coined the phrase "constructive partisanship." He was, as many of you know, a Leader of the Opposition at one point and an MLA for many years and Chair of the Public Accounts Committee. He mentioned the idea of constructive partisanship, which is: of course there are going to be tensions between parties, but as much as partisanship as possible is being left at the door.

One of the things we notice across Canada is that where there are other legislative committees operating on a regular basis — so if you've got your health committee, your education committee, your social services committee, whatever the case may be — those are usually the committees where that's what the committee does — question the success and failure of government policy.

That could also happen as part of the estimates process. The Minister of Education appears before the Education Committee with his performance report or her perform-
[ Page 20 ]
ance report, and the government says: "Minister, we've read the report, and you are just the best Minister of Education we've ever had in this province. You are absolutely brilliant." And the opposition says: "Minister, we think you're doing a terrible job. If we had been elected, we would definitely have done it differently. You have failed this province." It's pretty clear that those things fall according to partisan lines, and that's pretty much expected, sometimes in committees, as kind of an appendage to question period.

As Shawn said, PAC tends to steer clear of that, because they're not looking at the issue of policy; they're looking at the administration of policy. That's not just an attempt to be clever and kind of come up with a nuanced play on words — you know, policy. It sounds like something Sir Humphrey would say on Yes Minister. They're looking at the administration of policy, whether the policy was carried out by the bureaucracy, by the civil service, with due regards to economy, efficiency and effectiveness.

The partisan stuff is generally supposed to stay in other committees, in question period. That's where, obviously, the Chair has a big responsibility. Shawn can refer to that, and I'm sure Bruce, as Chair in the previous Legislature as well, can refer to the daunting experience of trying to keep things on track when they go off and policy issues do come in.

B. Ralston (Chair): Well, I think it can be a challenge. Certainly, some issues obviously draw more heat than others, but in recent years, I think we've been relatively successful at moving forward constructively. It does really depend on the individuals in the committee — and on both sides. I think if there's a commitment to do that…. Certainly, there are some issues where the temptation to be partisan, if I can put it that way, is stronger. I agree with you that it would be naive to think that's going to be eliminated, but I don't think you want to let it get in the way of the work overall. That's all.

There are going to be issues that are going to come up. I think we had this discussion. We typically meet with the Chair and the vice-Chair in advance of appearing before the PAC, and this discussion came up that, of course, there are going to be issues, AG reports, that are going to be more contentious — or viewed by parties as more contentious. Sponsorship in Ottawa would be a prime example.

Whenever there's an issue that is viewed by the opposition as something they can score points on and by the government as something that they've got to really protect, of course there is going to be tension within the committee. That's a normal part of the process, and that's where the Chair and vice-Chair working together can try to steer the committee through that and focus more on the findings of the Auditor General's report and good administration rather than getting into the politics and the policy.

S. Simpson: I would agree that when you're looking at kind of the administrative side of things, and that's the basis of much of the work of a report, then it kind of stays at that level: are things being done the way they should be done to fulfil these policy objectives?

We're seeing more and more discussion these days around things like value-for-money audits, those kinds of audits that start to delve more into the policy side as to whether this is a good idea, more overall, to be investing public resources here in terms of the value back to government, to the public, to taxpayers. That becomes a bit of a different discussion — a little bit — and we're seeing that here.

There's increasing discussion as the government moves forward with its core review. Much of that's based on value for money and making decisions, as the government will do its own assessments on that. This committee, I think, is potentially seeing more of that.

Is there any thought about whether…? Is that becoming a more common practice, that sort of value-for-money approach, in terms of the kinds of things that Auditors General are looking at for legislatures? And does that change that dynamic at all?

G. Dubrow: I'm going to bring Russ in on this, and I see Paul looking at me, so I suspect he wants to add something as well.

I'll just say that every Auditor General in Canada does some value-for-money audits. They vary from…. We had a presentation on this at the annual conference. I think it's something like 33 percent in some jurisdictions to two-thirds in other jurisdictions. So to have a value-for-money audit is kind of a normal fact of life for public accounts committees.

The question, I think, Russ, that it would be worth answering is how you walk that tightrope — come out with findings that programs have been administered with or without due regard to economy and efficiency without suggesting that the policy itself was a bad idea? You had — what? — 30 years of experience in the Ottawa office?

R. Jones: Yes, it is always a very difficult line to not cross over, and we try to be very, very careful about that. What we end up trying to do around the policy issue is not so much say the policy is wrong but to maybe demonstrate, through looking at whether or not value was received for the money spent, whether there might be an appetite for relooking at the policy to see if it might be implemented in a slightly different manner.
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It is a very tough road for us. It's hard sometimes not to cross over that line. We try very, very hard whenever we're dealing with our clients and with government to not cross over that line. But it really is about looking at, you know, the management of provincial programs, resources and services to see whether or not there was value received for the money spent. That's what the value-for-money audit is really about.

G. Dubrow: Stuart, did you want to add anything to that? Any perspective on that that you'd like to add?

S. Newton: No, I understand the challenge that Russ has. We have discussions around: "I think that might be too close to the line." I think it's good that we do have that dialogue, because then it's just another perspective on where the piece of work is going. I think the Auditor General's office is spending a lot more time up front on the planning of the audits with the client, to be real clear on the criteria.

That's what I tell clients if they ask me about the audits: that's where you work through what the objective or the outcome of the audit is and understand the criteria. I think you get to a better place. The recommendations may not get to a policy issue. So if both sides are looking at the criteria that way and engaged appropriately, I think you get a much better audit result. I know there's been a lot of work in that area.

G. Dubrow: That's a very good point. I sit in on a lot of public accounts committee meetings, obviously, across Canada, and I see that often — where the minute things get a little too close to the sun, somebody cries: "Policy, policy. That's policy. You can't deal with that." Everybody panics. Sometimes, when the dust is cleared, you just sort of look at that and say: "Well, I'm not really sure if it was policy." But the minute that the word "policy" is yelled…. So it's a very sensitive thing.

Government members, regardless of who is in power, tend to be quite concerned about that issue. That's something that obviously…. We've seen other PACs, the Chair and the vice-Chair, working together to make sure those lines remain demarcated. It can be very helpful.

Government commitment to the process of allowing the Public Accounts Committee to meet and issue recommendations is quite important. But another way of looking at that also is the active participation of government members. There are a lot of PACs across Canada where they're almost…. You could consider them opposition committees. The opposition members are very active and vigorous, and the government members are really there to make sure that there are no procedural games being played or that you're not trying to get into the policy area. The questions tend to be coming from the opposition members, or the government members are lobbing very soft questions.

But there are other committees where the government members are just as deep in there, because obviously their objective is to help the department get itself on track and get the recommendations they've agreed to implemented. Somebody mentioned — it might have been Sam — the U.K. PAC. It's great to watch the government and opposition members working together on a line of questioning. They blur the lines. You can't even tell sometimes who the government and opposition members are because they're working together on a particular line of questioning.

The CCAF does a very good effective questioning workshop. One of the things that we cover is what kind of questions government members can feel comfortable asking without feeling that they're being viewed as being critical of their own department or the government.

This is something that I don't think you have to worry about — no ministers as witnesses or committee members. There are only a couple of committees that have ministers sitting on the Public Accounts Committee or appearing as witnesses. That tends to be very divisive and gets into the kind of partisan stuff I was talking about earlier. But that's not the case in British Columbia. Do you ever have ministers appearing before the committee?

G. Dubrow: And then one other practice with regard to…. You know, we've got the constructive partisanship and planning all melded together. But we've got the idea of a steering committee. I believe if you look at our Attributes of an Effective PAC, we've often cited the steering committee in British Columbia as a strong practice for other jurisdictions in the country. I think traditionally it's been the Chair and the vice-Chair, with the AG and the comptroller general acting as advisers to the committee — and, obviously, the Clerk being a member.

Do you want to talk a bit about how that worked in the previous Legislature, just to enlighten your colleagues?

B. Ralston (Chair): I think it was probably not as formal as regular meetings, but certainly a very good working relationship between the Chair and the vice-Chair is really important to going forward. Sam and I are embarking on a new adventure. I think we're off to a good start. I've informally consulted the Auditor General and the comptroller general, the Auditor General generally more than the comptroller general. But it hasn't been, as frequently, a formal meeting — just really an ongoing
[ Page 22 ]
dialogue.

G. Dubrow: Okay. Shawn, maybe you can just jump in with regards to discussions that the steering committee would have around the…. You know, let's say the Auditor General comes out with a report. In the case of the AG's report on Canada, you've got eight different value-for-money audit chapters. If the steering committee discusses that, how would they come to a decision about which chapters they might want to review?

S. Murphy: Well, it's probably not that instructive, because in the Ottawa situation we had four parties, not two, and it was much more difficult to handle. So as a result, we did have weekly, one-hour formal meetings because of the nature of the beast. And just through the sheer number of performance reports, we probably could never get through them all, so we prioritized them. The practice I did was to try to reach consensus. We always did, pretty well. I'd always give each party their own choice — they'd get the first choice — and then we'd all prioritize after that. But if the Bloc Québécois wanted this chapter, we'd certainly accommodate them, and if the NDP did and the Liberals and the Conservatives. So it generally worked well.

That steering committee talked to the committee business and set the meeting dates. British Columbia has a little more of a challenge because you don't sit as regularly as the federal Parliament, and in another respect, you're a very, very big province. I was talking to one of your members. He comes 800 or 900 kilometres, so he can't come down on an hour's notice for a meeting. So it would be good to have some sort of a schedule set because British Columbia is an extremely large province. Many of you people travel long distances to get to either Vancouver or Victoria.

The steering committee talked about, in camera, the future direction and where we were heading and any problems that we were having with the committee. So I found those good discussions.

In my own experience, too, I thought it was pretty important…. Actually, pretty well the whole time I was there, Sheila Fraser was the Auditor. At least once a month we would get together for an hour, either at her office or at my office, and she would instruct me as to where the office was going, and we would talk about the committee business.

Also, there have been instances when Sheila…. I don't know if Russ has any experience, but sometimes, at least once a year, Sheila was getting push-back from the government that she could not get the information she was looking for. I don't know if you've had that experience, Russ.

S. Murphy: I will tell you what Sheila did that was extremely effective. She would call me and explain that, and I would say: "Okay, we'll have a public hearing." And she'd say: "I want a public hearing on this issue." So we would call a public hearing, about four days down the road. Then it became aware what the reason for Sheila's public hearing was. All of a sudden, the information that was being sought appeared, and the public hearing was cancelled. It worked every time. That happened on three or four occasions.

That's a trick that Sheila used very successfully. That just goes to show the mutually supportive relationship that's required between this committee and the Office of the Auditor General.

G. Dubrow: Great. Thank you, Shawn. I'll just take you through a couple more of these, because Shawn's kind of consolidating the chart with the slides that are the background of it. I'll just take you through maybe a couple of them.

B. Ralston (Chair): Geoff, we're going to break at 12, so wherever a natural breaking point occurs, maybe you can just let us know, and we'll quit then.

G. Dubrow: Okay. For sure, I can take a hint — 12 o'clock sharp. That's actually fine.

I know right now that you've got, I think… Because of the fact that you went through an election and there are obviously some reports that are starting to accumulate from the Auditor General…. Is it 16, right now, that are accumulating?

One of the questions, of course, and the steering committee can help with, is: what's going to be the criteria for looking at those reports? How are you going to prioritize those reports? Again, that's a decision your committee is going to want to make.

Certainly some strategy…. That's where, I think, obviously, the AG can provide his best advice — having been the writer, or participated in the writing of those reports — as to what the committee might choose to look at first. So that's something that the steering committee can do.

Some jurisdictions find the idea of a steering committee threatening, because they think that means that a couple of members are going to hijack the process and make the decisions on their own. But obviously, Bruce and Sam…. Those decisions, those recommendations of the steering committee, they generally come back to the whole committee for discussion. Is that the process, generally?
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G. Dubrow: Not generally? So how would you deal with something around the recommendations of the prioritizing of the reports?

B. Ralston (Chair): Well, the Chair and the vice-Chair would discuss it. He would discuss it with his members. I would discuss it with mine, and we would go forward from there — again, relatively informal. It's worked pretty effectively.

G. Dubrow: So part of that is designed to save the other members time, with not having to come in and be involved in, you know, having a meeting about a meeting, so to speak.

K. Corrigan: I believe we have dealt with every report of the Auditor General in some fashion, eventually. We get every report, and we deal with them — maybe only an hour or two hours. I know sometimes we've been concerned that because we're dealing with every report…. I think some members would have liked to have had more time on particular reports or to get back to them. But we have managed to deal with every single report.

V. Huntington: I think, as we talk a little bit further, too, that has quite a bit to do with the fact that we don't have regularly scheduled meetings. We try and crush everything into meetings. That would be something I think the committee could talk about too.

Kathy, just to go back to that issue. Some PACs, like Shawn will tell you — the House of Commons — will not necessarily deal with every single report. A PAC like Manitoba will want to get through every single report and hold a hearing on it, no matter how many reports. They had a significant backlog.

There are some tricks for dealing with issues like that. The Ontario PAC, for example, will ask for…. Shawn's going to talk a bit about action plans. In the case of Ontario, what they do is…. As Bruce said, it's sort of the…. There are three parties, so each party goes off and decides what its priority reports are, and then they will put together a schedule. But even the departments that are not being called….

Let's say you choose not to call the Ministry of Health on that audit on health care standards. Probably you would, but anyway, just making up something, right? The PAC would still ask for a status update, a written status update from the department on what has been achieved. It's a way of saying: "We're not going to call you, but we still would like to know what you've done."

That status update, obviously…. Let's say there were ten reports and you only had time to deal with six or seven. Let's say six. So you dealt with the six, and you've got four others that you don't…. You've decided as a committee you're not going to be able to deal with everything. Some things are going to fall by the wayside. Maybe there are less salient findings than others. So for those four, the committee could still ask the department for a status update and say: "Could you please update us on what action you've taken to implement the recommendations of the Auditor General?" Shawn is going to talk specifically about how status updates look.

One of the practices would be, then, for the researcher to review those action plans or status reports, and if one was particularly weak, they might flag that to the steering committee and say: "Look, I know that the committee is not calling the department of health, but their action plan is saying nothing. It's very unclear what they're actually doing. The committee might choose to consider calling that department."

So the departments know that even if they're not being called, they're still not off the hook, so to speak. There's still that dialogue between the Public Accounts Committee. That can be a very effective practice for the committee.

Obviously, this is something you'll want to discuss in future deliberations, but what are the feelings about the pressure of dealing with 16 reports at this point? Is there a feeling of "Oh gosh, we got to get through all of them," or how are members feeling about that?

L. Reimer: Well, it's kind of tough for us new people to know whether or not…. I mean, the thought of 16 doesn't bother me, but it really depends on what those 16 reports are. Not having been around the table before makes that very difficult.

As a newbie, I'd like to see all 16, because I think it will be more things to see and more experience to gain.

S. Sullivan (Deputy Chair): My concern is a bit bigger than that because my understanding is there are ten additional reports about to be dropped on us very soon, so we're actually looking at 26 reports. It would be nice to see them all, but you know, I think prioritization also would be useful.

G. Dubrow: Is there a list available that the committee could view with regard to seeing which reports are outstanding? I know when Manitoba had a big backlog — these things do happen — it was very helpful for them to see the whole list of when each report came out, what the subject matter was. I guess that's something that's in the pipeline and might be helpful.

But just something for the committee to think about going forward would be what you want to accomplish
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from the review of those reports. Is the goal to get through each one? I don't mean that facetiously. If that's your goal, that's fine. We're not here to judge or influence that. Or is it to find out which reports the AG is most concerned about and deal with those and maybe one or two that you're most concerned about? It's just something to think about in terms of the process going forward.

S. Gibson: I guess for those of us who have spent our life reading reports, there's the executive summary which has that two- or three-page capsule. I kind of agree with Linda. As someone new here, my preference would be to have access to all of the reports. Maybe the committee will decide that we'll read through the executive summary of a third of them, but for two-thirds, we'll get into them in more detail. I'd rather do that, I think, than, say, leave a third off the table and not ever look at them, or do it in an extremely cursory manner.

That's just me. I'm not sure whether that's helpful or not, but that would be my predilection, I guess.

B. Ralston (Chair): All the reports that we're talking about are public. They've been released publicly, and they're on the Auditor General's website. The ones that haven't been considered by the committee — we can very quickly give you a list of those. Any time you feel like diving in, Simon, you're more than welcome.

G. Dubrow: I should just clarify that I guess it's the difference between having access to the reports, which are now a matter of public record, and holding a hearing on the reports. I think at the public accounts committee in Scotland…. When we did that study back in 2010, we went to the U.K. and Scotland, and we looked at their practices. They will meet as a committee and decide which reports we want to hold a hearing on, which reports we perhaps just need to write a letter to the department and ask for an update, and which reports we are just going to let go by the wayside.

Usually, of course, each party will have an opportunity to select some of those reports.

G. Kyllo: I was just wondering. Are the recommendations identified as major or minor? If the recommendations are all fairly minor in nature, then that may be something that we don't necessarily need to spend a bunch of time on.

No, we don't sort of put them in an order of the worst to the not so worst. What we try and do is make sure that the recommendations that are in those reports are pretty much all of equal status. I mean, there might be some that are slightly less important, but we consider them all important.

G. Dubrow: Just in conclusion, because I know we're going to be breaking for lunch, if I could just go back to Linda.

I think the fact that you've taken five hours to have this meeting is a fantastic step that you all should be congratulated on, because what does happen very often…. As Shawn said, members don't usually say: "I'm going to Victoria, or my capital, to be on Public Accounts. They get appointed to Public Accounts, and they say: "Okay, what are we supposed to be doing?"

You've taken the time now to start having a discussion. You've got some choices that you can make around how you want it to operate, rather than just jumping in and saying: "Well, let's just do what every other PAC or our PAC did previously." I think it's great that you're asking those questions.

S. Gibson: Notwithstanding the partisanship that we're going to expect to some extent, is it important at the conclusion of the process that there's unanimity about what we did? Do you know what I mean? Not the value, because we're all here. We know that. But is it important at the conclusion that there's unanimity about the success of what we did, notwithstanding the partisan environment? That's my question.

G. Dubrow: I'm going to ask Shawn to comment on that. I'll just say very quickly that, obviously, a hallmark of a successful PAC is that reports are unanimous.

S. Murphy: From my experience, most reports…. The consensus has been reached on the report coming from the Public Accounts Committee. There is probably once a year that there is a minority report written. Again, we did have four parties, so sometimes there was one issue that one of the parties, for different reasons, didn't agree on the main committee find. That happens now and then. It's not that regular. But there's nothing wrong with it. One party may come at it with a different approach and say: "No, we don't really agree with that, and we're going to write a minority report."

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of Committees): No, not in British Columbia, unless it was specifically provided for in the terms of reference, which happens only very rarely in British Columbia. The premise is that the committee's report will reflect the views of all committee members. Failing that, it would reflect, in essence, the view of the majority of members.

S. Murphy: I guess that would probably rule out most instances of a minority report, so it would be majority rule on the reports.

B. Ralston (Chair): We are going to continue with the presentation. I believe Shawn is continuing on behalf of the group. Go ahead.

The phase that I'm going to talk about now…. I'm going to start the whole process in action plans and follow-up. The action plans have been a somewhat recent development in the last ten years with public accounts committees in various jurisdictions.

What was happening in a lot of jurisdictions was that the Auditor would write the report, the Auditor would make recommendations, and the recommendations would be accepted by the government of the day. The Public Accounts Committee would have a hearing. They might or might not make their own recommendations. But what was happening too often was that when things were looked at two years or 2½ years down the road, nothing happened. They didn't do what they said they were going to do.

I don't know the situation in British Columbia, but I know in the federal jurisdiction they churn their deputies fairly quickly. I think the average tenure of a deputy is about two or three years. In some departments it's more than that. Ministers churn fairly regularly.

So when it came back, it was a different deputy, different minister and sometimes a different government, and the continuity was lost. What was developed — and I thought it proved out to be reasonably effective — is for the Public Accounts Committee…. On all performance reports tabled by the Auditor General, the staff of the Public Accounts Committee would ask for an action plan.

This would be an action plan only for the recommendations that were accepted, because we can never forget we're a committee of accountability. We cannot instruct what the government is to do; we cannot reward them; we cannot punish them. But they've accepted that. The Auditor has done the recommendations. They said: "We agree with them." Okay, now that you've agreed, tell us how, what means and when you're going to do it." It's pretty simple. It's not rocket science.

We would ask for that within a certain time frame, and that would be on the website of the Public Accounts Committee. So then you have them in your crosshairs, and that starts the process. Usually if the deputy has done that and has committed in writing to do that, most times they do follow up and complete the action plan. It's a process.

In any government you've got to appreciate these deputies — B.C., federally, Alberta, wherever — are busy. They've got 100 different things to deal with every day, and sometimes they forget what they told the Public Accounts Committee nine months ago. But you have it reduced to an action plan. It's on the website; it's part of the public domain. So that certainly starts the process.

Whether it's the Office of the Auditor General…. I think, in that case, it might be right now. There's a certain effectiveness in having the Public Accounts Committee do it — it is the Legislative Assembly — in following up on the action plan every six months, saying: "Well, can you give us a status update as to how you're making out on your action plan?"

Then, if you see things slide, there's nothing wrong with having a half-hour meeting. Bring in the Auditor. It's always nice to have the Auditor there, too, who did the original report. But mainly, bring in the deputy, and just put it in the public record. "You agreed to do this. It's 18 months or 24 months down the road, and you haven't done it. Can you explain why you haven't done it?" Once you get into that habit, I think you'll see that there will be a little more priority given.

I'm not sure what the situation is in British Columbia, but in most other jurisdictions there are a certain number that do slip and slide because other priorities get in the way. I think that's something you may want to think about. I know the Auditor does some self-assessment, but it's always nice to have that action plan up there in the public domain. I think there's a certain effectiveness to that.
[ Page 26 ]

On the next slide we just provide the sample action plan. I won't get into that. If you want to get into more elaborate, fuller action plans, they're on the federal website. There are other public accounts committees that follow the same procedure.

The next issue. I think Geoff covered it briefly, but I'm just going to spend a minute on it. I believe I talked to Bruce. I don't think this is an issue at all in British Columbia, but it is an issue in other jurisdictions. I'll just reinforce it.

Generally speaking, the committee is most effective when you have the senior person…. That's generally the deputy minister from the department, or the president or the chief executive officer if you're talking of a Crown corporation or agency. That person, if he can bring whoever he or she wants to, within reason — two or three if you want…. With technical issues or financial issues, they certainly want to bring somebody with them.

That person — the deputy — is the chief administrative spokesman for that department. Certainly, the weight of the undertaking is there. So I think it's important. You know, you are a committee of the Legislative Assembly. I know my experience was that when we started that, there was push-back, and we've had push-back from different deputies.

Actually, I think one time we tried to get the Clerk of the Privy Council, and there was a big push-back, during Kevin's days. But we insisted: "This committee has made a decision, and you're the witness we want." Everyone fully knows that this committee has the power to subpoena. You don't threaten that, but you have to be firm that you are the master of your own proceedings. You will set your own agenda, and you call your own witnesses. It's important that you have the appropriate witness before you.

On witnesses. I think — again, I'm speaking to the converted here — it's good to have the Auditor with the deputy. A little bit of repetition going in here, but one of the principles of an effective hearing is that you stick to the findings and the report recommendations of the Auditor General.

I was a politician once. You know, you come and you have a deputy there in front of you. Let's say you're from a riding and you've got the Deputy Minister of Highways. You've been trying to get this road paved for ten years, the deputy won't return your calls, and you've done everything you can think of. Here you've got him right in front of you in a committee, and you really want to put this question: "Why the hell can't you pave that road that we've been looking for, for ten years?" But that's not appropriate. It's not part of the Auditor's report.

You have to use discipline and stick to the Auditor's findings and recommendations. Stick to the administration issues, not policy. You always want to ask that question. If you were an environmentalist, if you really have an agricultural background, if you're interested in some of these issues and you have the deputy, you'd love to go have a slugfest on that particular issue that concerns you deeply. But that's really not part of the mandate of the Public Accounts Committee.

Again, I suggest all committees be treated…. This is a legislative committee. All witnesses are treated professionally, with respect. But on the other hand, I've seen this on many, many occasions: witnesses will come to the committee not really wanting to answer too many questions. On occasion you have to be firm, and you have to ask the assistance of the Chair to tell the witness to answer the question.

Don't forget: these deputies are individuals who are highly educated. They're skilled, and sometimes they really don't want to talk about the Auditor's findings. They like to — kind of what we call rag the puck — go on for five minutes talking about everything else but what's in the Auditor's report. So on some occasions you have to be firm. The Chair has to be firm.

Some witnesses are notorious for that. Deputies are good at it. Don't forget: they've been around Victoria a lot longer than you have. They know the files better than you do, and they've been before many committees, so you have to be aware of that. You have to be firm in some instances to make sure that…. You are an elected member of the Legislative Assembly. You have a legitimate question, and you should be getting an answer. And of course, the Chair has to be there to assist you on that particular issue.

S. Gibson: Are witnesses obliged to appear before this committee? Is there a statutory requirement that they must come when they're requested? That's my first question.

S. Murphy: Kate may have to correct me, but my understanding is that you, the committee, has the power to call anyone but another Member of the Legislative Assembly. That's an exemption? There are some exemptions but not very many.

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of Committees): Yeah, not very many. We haven't had an experience where we've tested the boundaries of it, but the committee is provided with some formal powers under the Constitution Act. That is reinforced by a motion in the House, including your terms of reference, that you have, as a committee, the power to call for both individuals — witnesses, persons — or documents and other evidence.

S. Murphy: So this committee has very broad powers
[ Page 27 ]
to call for persons and papers. There are a very few exceptions. I think maybe the Lieutenant-Governor and other members of the Legislative Assembly. I don't know the provincial situation. But they're very limited.

The answer to your question is yes. You have the power to call. Also, you have the power to ask for papers, any documents. There are some exceptions, cabinet confidence being one of them. But there are not that many exceptions, either, for paper. Sometimes you have to be firm in asking for information.

S. Gibson: Can we also ask for specific individuals, rather than just saying, for example, B.C. Hydro senior people — specific by name?

S. Murphy: Definitely. Absolutely. The committee decides who appears before it. B.C. Hydro does not decide that. You decide it.

S. Gibson: My only other question is…. Again, I'm coming at this as a new person, so I may be out of order. It would seem to be productive, if we knew that somebody was coming before us, to send ahead of time half a dozen questions that we're going to be asking when they get here, so they can be prepared rather than them coming and saying: "Well, I don't have that information available."

Is that something…? Is that helpful, that they have a heads-up as to what questions they're going to be asked in anticipation of being present here?

S. Murphy: I'm not sure it is. They're coming to answer what's in the Auditor's report. So they know. These people are experienced. They've read the Auditor's report. They really should be knowledgable. If you're bringing the president of B.C. Hydro, that person will bring other people with them, too, normally. So they know what's in the report.

What's unfair to the witness is if you throw a lob ball and ask him or her some question that's not related to the report.

G. Dubrow: Simon, I just want to…. A couple of things to supplement Shawn's responses on those. With regards to the questions, there are jurisdictions — I know Manitoba does this and Alberta does this — where the researchers prepare suggested questions for the members. So they're non-partisan questions, right? Those questions can be furnished to the witnesses who are going to be appearing before the committee, as well, just so they have a basic idea of what kinds of questions could come their way. That increases the expectation that they should be able to answer the questions.

With regard to the issue of calling witnesses about the…. Shawn correctly said that, obviously, you have the right to decide who you want to call. But even as a matter of more regular practice, when arranging your hearing….

Let's say you're looking at a particular chapter of the Auditor General's report, right? I don't know if, as a matter of practice now, the Committee Clerk is in touch with the Auditor General's office to get advice on who they should specifically be requesting. But obviously, the AG is going to have a bird's-eye view of who the players are in that department, and they're going to say: "No, no. You don't want to leave it up to them. There's this particular subgroup. You really need to hear from them. They're the ones who know everything." The AG is in the position to provide your Clerk with that information, so that when requesting the witnesses, they can make that request.

S. Murphy: One other trick that I've seen used — not a trick, but it's an effective strategy — is if the witness is there and you can see that the witness is not really being totally fulsome and you, obviously, are going to run out of time and only have one or two questions, there's nothing wrong with asking the witness, just saying to the witness, "I would like you, with the Chair's authorization, to give us a written summary" on a certain aspect of what he's talking about and have it filed with the Clerk of the committee.

Of course, once the Clerk gets it, she circulates it to all the members. Usually the Chair will set a timeline of two weeks or three weeks.

So if you can see you're getting into a complicated issue and you can see you're not going to get an answer, I would normally go and ask for a written undertaking from that witness to present the details in writing so that it can be — and it doesn't come to you; it goes to the Clerk — circulated to all members of the committee.

Once the witnesses see you doing that a couple times, they're going to be less…. They know that they're not going to get away with…. Most witnesses come to the committee and answer the questions on a fulsome basis, but I'm sure there are exceptions, like everywhere else in the world.

The next slide. Again, a lot of this is common sense. Asking questions, as Bruce knows, is 90 percent preparation and 10 percent execution. I've chaired many committees, and I can see right from the get-go who has read the report and who has not read the reports. When they start asking questions and they haven't read the report, you can pretty well see they're not getting that far. So you really have to be prepared. There has to be a certain amount of preparation on this process. You have to, again, focus on the key findings, recommendations of the Auditor General, government's response.

A lot of times you will have to do some homework if you want to pursue…. Maybe you don't want to ask any
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questions. But if you do, I think it's incumbent upon you to do some homework and really know what you're…. And I don't know the procedure — if you have time allocations or question limitations. But it's always nice to have one or two follow-up questions, supplemental questions, because sometimes you don't really get the answer in that first attempt.

V. Huntington: Can I ask: what is your experience in terms of members asking questions? Do you hold them to one or two? Is enough time given to the committee to delve into a report? What is your general experience?

S. Murphy: Well, my experience is probably not totally satisfactory. I can tell you what we do. In the standing orders of the federal committee we have time allocation. What will happen is we'll have a round of about, I think, five questions, and they have eight minutes. So sometimes the question will preamble for five, and then the other…. There will be one question — some answers, 20 questions. But it's eight minutes. Usually the Chair is relatively firm on the time allocation. Other committees — and I believe you people are the same — you might get one or two questions.

There's no perfect answer. You try and be fair to all the parties. You try and be fair to witnesses. You try and be fair to everyone. I don't have the answer to that question. My experience has been time allocation.

The big drawback in that, Vicki, that I've seen on too many occasions is that somebody will be there for eight minutes, and they're just almost at the nub of the issue — almost. I have to cut them off. We go to the other political party — maybe it's government — and a totally different tangent. We may never get back to this individual at all. So you can see there's a cat-and-mouse game going on.

There's no perfect answer. But then you can't just have it open-ended and allow one person to monopolize the committee. So a lot of it's up to the Chair and the committee members themselves.

S. Murphy: Yeah. And fair. But again, it's a matter of doing your homework and trying to amplify and get to the bottom of the Auditor's reports. Basically, you're trying to find out systemically what caused the problem, if corrective action has been taken, if procedures have been put in place that this probably will not ever happen again.

S. Sullivan (Deputy Chair): I'd like to ask different people: what is our practice, Mr. Chair or others? Do we give time limits to questions?

B. Ralston (Chair): Generally, when I was on in the previous term, the rule was essentially one question, which I found very unsatisfactory. So generally, what I will allow is a question, a supplementary and, if you're making some progress, maybe a further supplementary. But if you're not, probably not. It's a bit of a judgment call, I think. And I appreciate the comment. I don't always get compliments. We don't have strict time allocations. I think basically three, probably, providing they're good.

Shawn did a good job there of explaining some of the different practices — i.e., time allocation versus sort of just more of an informal speakers list.

Nova Scotia has an interesting practice that might be worth thinking about, which is that they actually divide up the questioning by caucus. The caucuses will get together in advance and sort of say: "What's our line of questioning here? Where do we want to take this?" There's some strategy behind the questioning.

Then each caucus will have — bearing in mind they have three parties, three recognized parties — 20 minutes each. And they'll actually go through a fairly intense series of questions, which allows them to really drill down. Now, whether 20 minutes is the magic number, or it's less, it's something to think about — that there are other ways to divide things up so that you don't feel, as Shawn said, like questions are going off in all directions. There's more of a general line of inquiry.

K. Corrigan: I've sat on the Public Accounts Committee for a little over four years now, and I've always felt, with Bruce as the Chair, that everybody seems to have gotten to most of their questions if they want to. You would go through a line of questions and then have follow-up, but other people would then get a chance, and then, if there was time, we'd get back again. So I felt, on some of the important reports, that we've really had a chance to ask just about every question that we wanted to ask.

I know there have been a few times Vicki and I talked and said, "Oh, I wish we could have spent more time on that," but for the most part, we get a pretty good chance to delve into the important issues. And that's dependent upon all the members being prepared. I mean, I do think that's really important. The members need to be prepared, because if they've done that, a lot of the questions could be avoided.

I'm just going to spend five minutes talking about committees that really have become ineffective. It's generally, from my experience, for one of three reasons. One is lack of commitment on the part of the members. I certain-
[ Page 29 ]
ly don't think that's going to ever be the case in British Columbia, but it has happened in other jurisdictions.

But two other areas that do…. And I will mention it. I don't think it has happened recently in British Columbia, but I'm going to mention it anyway, because the risk is always there. These are always…. As a member of this committee, if you're on it long enough, you will probably be put in a difficult situation. Vicki, you may be the exception. You won't be put in a difficult situation, if you follow where I'm going.

S. Murphy: Two issues arise in the committee that I've seen over and over. That is executive control — trying to control the activities of this committee from the Premier's office or the Prime Minister's Office or a senior minister's office — or opposition members coming to the committee with issues that really have no business coming before the committee. They're not within the mandate. They're pure politics. And that causes problems also.

At some point in your career, if you're on this committee long enough, you will probably have a difficult conversation with somebody. That somebody may perceive themselves to be superior to you, although they're not.

Let me give you a few examples, and I'm going to pick on some people here. I'm just going to play some roles. Sam, I'm going to pick on you. You're new to the Legislature, but you've got a very distinguished political career. You're well known across Canada.

S. Sullivan (Deputy Chair): I'm just going to answer my e-mail here right now. [Laughter.]

S. Murphy: Okay, so who's the chief of staff to Christy Clark? What's his or her name?

S. Murphy: Dan Doyle calls you. "Sam, we have a real problem. First, of all, I've just come out of a two-hour meeting with Premier Clark. We have a real problem. I want to meet you this afternoon at four o'clock. The Auditor General is coming out with a report tomorrow at ten o'clock, and it is ugly. One of our ministers is involved to his head. There are a couple of our senior political staff involved, and this is going to get really bad. The Premier didn't know anything about it.

"We want to get a handle on it, and we need your cooperation. We want you to shut that committee down. We cannot have any hearings on this particular chapter. Tell Bruce you're busy. Don't return his phone calls, and if you have to have a committee meeting, study the ferry rates or something else. But whatever you do, we do not want you, under any circumstances, to study this report."

That's a very difficult situation, but that happens in the life of a Public Accounts Committee. You won't get that exact call, but you probably will get something similar, if you're on this committee long enough. I just want to bring it as an example, because that has happened in other jurisdictions.

There's one group of people that I find do not understand the functions and the importance of this committee — that is, staffers in senior offices, senior ministers, the Premier or the Leader of the Opposition. I think that's one…. You're all subject to being in these difficult circumstances.

S. Murphy: Stephen Howard calls you. He says: "I got out of a meeting with the leader" — whoever that person is when the call comes. "We have a rumour up in Prince George that one of the Liberal ministers is in a…. His wife has got some government contract. We did some research on it, and we've no facts to justify it. But they're still talking about it. What we'd like you to do, Kathy, is we've got a resolution to come to the committee tomorrow to bring in the minister and his wife and perhaps even the Premier to talk about this contract."

You might say: "Well, that's really…. We can't do that now. The Auditor has never looked at it." "Well, no. We've got the resolution. All we need is you to put it to the committee. Then the Liberals, obviously, will vote it down, but then we're going to allege cover-up once they vote it down."

Those are difficult conversations, but that's an example of someone trying to do something outside of the mandate of this committee that's more to do with politics than it has to do with the true function of a Public Accounts Committee.

These are just examples. But you're all going to be subject to it, and I just wanted to bring it to your attention because I know nine of you are new. But there's always going to be that pull and tug on this committee.
[ Page 30 ]

If you stick to the Auditor's report, try and just basically find out why things went wrong. If corrective action has been taken and if a system has been put in place, this probably will not happen again.

One other comment I would make, too, is that when I look back in my career, a lot of times…. What's the total budget of B.C.? How many billion dollars do we go through a year?

S. Murphy: No, the budget. I take it there's less coming in than going out. Is that what you're saying, Bruce?

S. Murphy: So 43 coming in and 45 going out. Okay, when you take in $43 billion and you put out $45 billion…

…there's bound to be problems. Anybody that's been in business or running a large operation or organization or NGO — you know when you're dealing with that kind of money, there's definitely going to be problems. And mistakes happen. Members of the committee have to have a certain level of maturity and say: "Well, everything is not a scandal."

There was a problem. But as long as they corrected it…. It's our job to make sure that corrective action has been taken. I think the most important thing is that people acknowledge the mistake, correct the mistake, make sure that corrective action is taken and move on. That sometimes is important.

Where problems develop, in my opinion, is when the political…. The senior bureaucrats are too closely aligned with the political party of the government of the day sometimes. Don't forget that we've seen enough movies, and we know now that always the cover-up is worse than the crime — always. That has been proven over and over and over again.

Any questions on those sort of general comments? I'm going to turn it back to Geoff, if I'm not hearing anybody.

S. Sullivan (Deputy Chair): How often do you…? I'm new here. I know our guy, Dan Doyle, is a pretty professional guy. He comes from the private sector, engineer type and seems to be…. I don't expect that kind of call from him. Maybe from a minister or ministers' assistants or things like that? Would it be that kind of thing?

S. Murphy: I have no idea what B.C., the structure…. But certainly, there will be people at some level — maybe not Mr. Doyle — that will try and steer the direction of this committee in ways that they want it steered.

Again, you've got to be reasonable on the whole thing. The opposition may come: "Yeah. We have a very damaging report. We're going to have a hearing." It deserves the attention it deserves. But sometimes the opposition will come: "We want to get to the bottom…. We've got 140 witnesses you'll want to call."

There's a balance here that you've got to approach it too, but you've got to stick to the mandate of the committee.

L. Throness: Are public accounts committees generally less prone to be manipulated politically? Do legislatures regard them as sort of non-partisan and special in that regard?

S. Murphy: I would have to say no. I think a lot of times my experience is that senior people…. All committees are treated as instruments of politics. It's an actual phenomenon. If you've got, let's say, an ugly report, the less media attention that comes, the better off it is. That's human nature.

G. Dubrow: Often, even when the…. I've seen examples where the committee could be working very well. But that doesn't mean that Joe or Mary in the minister's office or the Premier's office is aware of that and doesn't realize that, hey, these guys are doing really good non-partisan work. They're just seeing a lot of fastballs coming at them. Something comes up in public accounts, and it's just another fastball. They don't realize that this is an issue that the PAC could deal with in a non-partisan way.

So I think one of the threats is a lack of awareness about…. I think, Shawn, you mentioned political staff, House Leaders, Whips. Often they just don't have the background on the nature of the PAC and its role. That's something that the committee can communicate or members can communicate to those individuals that's probably very helpful.

K. Corrigan: Usually by the time we see the reports, they have been public, often for several months. So I think a lot of the political side of it has already been somewhat dealt with previously. Then by the time it gets to us, No. 1, there could have been corrective action, and No. 2, it's been dealt with somewhat in the media. I think it takes away some of the partisanship.

S. Murphy: Yeah. That's the nature of the beast. You get the report. By the time you schedule a meeting and schedule your witnesses…. But it is important to have that public meeting on whatever report comes your way.
[ Page 31 ]

I think you people do that. We're not suggesting…. This is one of the jurisdictions where you do that. But there'll always be… I think there will be situations.

S. Sullivan (Deputy Chair): I just wanted to go to the topic just before, on the issue of questions and how to allocate. My concern right now is these 26 reports. You do have to set time limits to certain issues. I now hear about another meeting that we might be having — recommended, I guess — with the Auditor General to talk about the future. Is that…? You're recommending that occasionally we get together and discuss…?

S. Sullivan (Deputy Chair): Yeah. But formally as a committee, you would like us to get together with you not just to deal with reports but to deal with…. I didn't actually quite write it down, but wasn't there some other issue — generally, where we're going in the future or where you're going in the future?

R. Jones: Oh, right. Our financial statement audit coverage plan, which is normal. It's just part of the reports that you'll be dealing with.

So the issue of how to allocate questions within what has to be some sort of restriction on time….

S. Murphy: Sam, I really don't have anything to add. I think that's something for you and Bruce to have a discussion about.

I gave you the federal system. It's not a perfect system. In fact, there are a number of different systems. It sounds to me as if Bruce has a working system right now. People seem to be generally pleased. The federal system is not…. I wouldn't recommend it.

Nova Scotia has a system where caucuses are given 40 minutes, something like that. That might work. It might not work. I haven't seen it in action. There are different systems available. The fundamental thing is to be fair, and that's all you can do.

S. Simpson: Just on that, I think we'll find also — in my experience in my years on the committee — that there are a number of those 26 reports where you'll find two or three members of the committee will have some questions, but the majority of the committee is not going to entertain or ask questions. It'll be a smaller number of members of the committee on both sides who will have a few questions to ask.

So it's not like every member of the committee is going to feel compelled to use their questions. And then on other issues, there'll be much more engagement on both sides.

I think for lots of those reports you may get through and have much less than full participation, because people just don't find the need to. They're satisfied with the recommendations. Two or three people will ask questions, and those questions will get to the meat of what people are interested in, in the responses. Often it goes a little quicker than that.

G. Dubrow: I'm just going to take a few minutes. I'm not going cover everything, because I think the level of discussion is so advanced that a lot of this would be redundant. I just want to flip back for a second to one or two issues related to an effective hearing and preparing for it. Maybe if you could just flip to slide 14 for a moment.

One of the practices that seems to work in a number of jurisdictions — I know Alberta has just adopted this, and it's something that Manitoba does as well, and a couple of other jurisdictions — is an in-camera briefing with the Auditor General prior to the hearing into the Auditor General's report. This is something that can often happen either a day before or….

For example, the case of Manitoba. They meet from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Wednesdays, and the six o'clock to seven o'clock hour — you could arguably get through it in half an hour — is an in-camera briefing. The Auditor General basically briefs the Public Accounts Committee on the issues that they're going to hear about in the report. Is that something that has been current practice or something that…?

G. Dubrow: Well, it's useful in the sense that members might not always have a chance to read the full report or might have the intention of doing so but, you know, be delayed with a constituency meeting or be driving in from their riding and not have a chance to fully read the report.

This is a chance for the AG to say: "Okay, for the next two hours we have a hearing on this particular issue. Let me just remind you of the issue." You might have been at the AG's briefing six months ago when the report was tabled or whatever, but this is right in advance to give you a chance to get your head around the issue, and you're reminded of what the key issues are.

It's a practice that seems to work well. The other ad-
[ Page 32 ]
vantage of that is…. I know, because I was an adviser to the PAC in Manitoba for a couple of years in my role as a consultant. One of the things that they would…. So I'd sit in on those in-camera meetings.

The deputy minister would be allowed to sit in, but more just to observe, sitting at the back of the room — a feeling of, you know: "We're not here to conspire against the deputy. We're just preparing." And the AG would give the briefing. But if there was anything contentious that, you know, maybe the opposition and government hadn't agreed on, sometimes there was a little chance — because these were in-camera meetings — to blow off a little bit of steam before the actual meeting.

So the meetings tended to be very civilized. The actual Hansard meetings tended to be very civilized, even when, during the in-camera session, maybe there was a little bit of horns butting or whatever the right expression is — head butting, horn butting, horn hitting, horn whatever.

That's something to keep in mind as a practice. I think it tends to ensure that members are better prepared for their hearings.

B. Ralston (Chair): Geoff, isn't that really sort of sanctioning not preparing, then? I mean, it's based on the assumption that people haven't read the report. Then you're saying there really isn't an obligation to read the report. Just come and you'll be spoon-fed. You'll be given a few questions. I prefer to think that people were a little bit more self-reliant. You know, people would…. Not everyone, but each side would be responsible for making sure that at least some people were prepared and ready to go.

I see your point, and it may be a more practical one. Maybe I'm a little too idealistic. I know there are a lot of pressures on members' time. I know that. It just seems to me that you're really not engaging if you don't at least read some of the reports, particularly the ones you're interested in and the ones that you were asked to read.

G. Dubrow: Absolutely, and I find in preparing for a hearing, members tend to read — I think someone mentioned — the executive summary. They'll look at the recommendations. They'll look at the government's response to the recommendations. That's a good way, if they don't have time to read the whole report. Of course, in a perfect world they should be reading the report. I'm sure that's always the case here in the B.C. PAC, but a lot of jurisdictions….

Shawn, you may have mentioned this too. You find that they come to the meetings unprepared, and that's why, I guess…. Yes, the assumption is that the report should be read, but that briefing is just there and designed to make sure everyone is on the same page. But I totally take your point on that.

V. Huntington: Geoff, could I just make a couple of comments in that regard to Bruce?

Where I would find it quite helpful would be if the Auditor General had…. Well, obviously, we'll have quite a bit of information behind each of the recommendations and much more information than you would find in the text of the report.

If there were a particular recommendation that was fairly serious, I think it would be really useful to have an in-camera briefing ahead of time, but maybe at the instance of the Auditor General wanting to bring something specific to the attention of the committee that isn't apparent in the report or can't be covered because of its public nature. I'm sure there must be a lot of that.

The other times that I've noticed is during questions — I think it's happened three or four times, I guess — the Auditor General would say: "Well, we could get into that, but it would have to be an in-camera discussion." We seem to forget that and glide past the issue. But obviously, if he's going to say that, it's a pretty specific and important issue, and sometimes…. I'd like to know how committees generally handle that, whether they stop things and ever go into in camera to discuss it, or whether they hold a second meeting to discuss the issue and follow up on it.

I don't recollect ever having sort of stopped and gotten into the issue, which I would think would be an important point if the Auditor General has said that in the first place.

S. Murphy: Well, in my own experience, in my ten years, it only happened twice. We went in camera once; we were dealing with a criminal file. We actually had the file from the police department. Another case involved the Royal LePage tendering issue. The tenders were due within days of our hearing, and I felt it might impair the tender process if we had the meeting in public, so we went in camera for an hour. They were the only two times.

It's a very unusual circumstance that a committee would have to go in camera, because this is the Legislative Assembly, and certainly…. And that's not the call of the Auditor; that's the call of the Chair of the committee too. The Auditor can ask to have it in camera, but it's the committee that makes that final decision. You have to bear that in mind too.

You go in camera when it's a very…. You think there's going to be damage done to somebody's reputation or some impairment to a commercial transaction. There are a number of reasons, but they're not normally…. Normally, once the Auditor has reported and it's out there, pretty well things are mostly in the public domain by that time.

G. Dubrow: Maybe just deal with the issue of the ac-
[ Page 33 ]
tion plans again, just to pick it up very, very quickly, on page 16. Shawn has already covered this slide. But this might be something worth having a little bit more of a look at in terms of…. This was a big issue, as Bruce and Sam and, I think, Shane…. You were there, as well, in Regina?

G. Dubrow: For a bit. This was a big issue, as you'll recall — the issue of the action plans. This was an issue that the PAC members from across the country started to raise.

We're seeing this more and more as a trend. Again, when we had our workshop in Alberta, the PAC was very fixated or focused on this issue of trying to get these action plans in advance of hearings.

They can be used as questioning tools — right? — as a way to reduce the partisanship as well, to be able to actually ask questions on the action plan and use it as a tool. I'm just pulling something out of the air here, but you say that with regards to, for example, OAG recommendation so-and-so, processing times have been reduced.

Selina, you were mentioning that you were interested in performance indicators. So you might ask a question like: "Well, can you explain to us how that's been done? How have you managed to do that, and what are your indicators that demonstrate that?" Just because it's written on paper doesn't mean that it's been done. It's worth checking and probing a little bit more.

When you're focused on the action plans, the kinds of questions don't tend to be very partisan. They tend to be more focused on making sure that what the department has promised to do is actually being done and on getting a sense of the level of commitment. So just something to think about. I thought I'd mention it particularly, because Alberta was also very interested in it.

Just one other issue that I think is important we cover before I pass it back to Shawn for one last issue that he's going to talk about. On slide 28 we didn't get to the issue of follow-up. That's something that I think we should cover before we move on. I know that Russ, when he makes his presentation, is going to talk about the follow-up process here in B.C. and, I think, some possibilities or some suggestions that he'd like the committee to consider.

Really, there are two follow-up processes that you tend to see across Canada. One is that you'll have the PACs actually holding a dedicated hearing into the AG's status report. For example, some AGs will produce a report that says: "This is the AG's annual follow-up report." As part of the workplan of the PAC, not only will they be looking at value-for-money audits, but they might slot in a meeting to look at the AG's follow-up report or status report, looking back at the recommendations that haven't been implemented.

In that case, you might look at the list and see that there are eight departments in which they've got bad marks because they haven't implemented a bulk of the recommendations. The steering committee, in consultation with the AG, might recommend that the worst offenders, so to speak, are A, B and C. You might call in those departments and just say: "What's going on? You guys have said you were going to implement the recommendations, and you haven't." That's really what they call a sort of dedicated follow-up hearing into the AG's follow-up report.

The other way that some PACs do it — this is what you'd find in Saskatchewan, for example — would be the next time you call that auditee…. Bearing in mind that they do a lot of financial statement audits, the next time the Ministry of Health comes in, you say: "By the way, last time you were in you told us you were going to do X, Y and Z. You're now looking at a different issue, but could you update us on what you've done since?"

Those are kind of the two models. I don't know if that second one made sense. In my personal opinion, the first one tends to be more effective because members are completely focused on follow-up and not implementation. But that's a decision that the committee would want to make, and I think the rest of you have a lot of thoughts on the follow-up process that you'll be sharing with the committee. Maybe I'll leave it at that unless there are any questions. But those would be some of the issues around follow-up.

S. Sullivan (Deputy Chair): Could you give those two models again? What are the two models?

G. Dubrow: Absolutely. The first one is actually a follow-up report. There would actually be a title on the report saying "Auditor General's Follow-Up Report." Or, if the Auditor General had an annual report, one of the chapters could be called "Follow-up." And the committee would dedicate individual time — let's say a block of time, a couple of hours — to exclusively look at the Auditor General's follow-up report.

They would, presumably, select departments which were not doing a very good job of implementing the recommendations. They'd call them in and say: "What's going on? How can we get you towards the direction of implementing these recommendations?" That would be the first.

The second would be like you would see in Saskatchewan or, I think, even Prince Edward Island, if I'm not mistaken. Every year the Auditor General produces an annual report. They'll do a financial statement audit of the Ministry of Health, for example, and there'll be some recommendations. The next year there'll be another audit of the Ministry of Health, and there'll be more recommendations.

So the next time the Health department comes around,
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they'll again say: "Oh, by the way, could you tell us what you did last…? You know, last year we had a discussion about implementing some recommendations." That's not a follow-up audit. That's just a new audit. The next time that department is called in, they're asked to explain what they've done in the subsequent audit.

That's different from a dedicated follow-up audit that is specifically called a follow-up. It's there to look specifically and to report back to the Legislature and to the PAC on what actions have been taken by the government to implement the recommendations from the previous audit.

B. Ralston (Chair): Maybe Russ could say what the follow-up process is now, just so that we could….

R. Jones: Currently the follow-up process that's in place, as I mentioned earlier, is that after a year we…. For Pacific Carbon Trust, which is one that we would follow up on, we had two recommendations. We would send the recommendations back to management at Pacific Carbon Trust and say: "Okay, tell us, in your view, how far you've gotten on these two recommendations."

They usually write back and say either they've done nothing or they've partially implemented or they've fully implemented. Then we produce a report every October and April that accumulates all of these follow-ups that we've done. We put in that report the self-assessment by the agency.

That's usually where we leave it. We don't usually follow up on any of those self-assessments, so what you're getting is their self-assessment. It does get tabled with the committee, so you do get a chance to look at it. You do get a chance, if you want to, to discuss it with the agencies. So it is a possibility.

I was mentioning to Greg at the break that, in a couple of cases, B.C. Hydro…. We did a report a few months ago on rate-regulated accounting. We are doing a more fulsome follow-up on that and are going to release a new report. The same with working capital. Even though we've followed up — you know, we've done the self-assessments — we thought it was time to do a more fulsome report on that.

Something that I'd rather see us doing is taking a look at some of these follow-ups and the self-assessments when we get them back and say, "You know, there hasn't been a lot of progress here; we'd better go back in and relook at this," and then hold the agency to account. I think it would give this committee better information as well.

G. Dubrow: Do you just want to maybe, for the…? Members might ask about the difference between sort of a voluntary survey and a follow-up audit — the difference in the level of assurance.

R. Jones: Well, yeah. The problem is that we put out our follow-up report. I think it may provide you guys and the public with a false sense of assurance around what those agencies are saying, because we really haven't done anything other than get their self-assessment.

When I was reading the most recent follow-up report that's going to be tabled fairly soon, I thought: "This is sort of letting people think that we've done more than we actually have done, but we really haven't done anything." We talk about it in the front part of the report — the various things we could be doing — but the only thing we've really done is gotten a self-assessment back.

It might be a good conversation that we could have with this committee to see if you have an appetite for us to be a little more vigorous in our follow-ups.

It is also a question, as you can well imagine, around resourcing it. It would mean that we would have to probably not do some other things we're currently doing in order to do some follow-ups. But if it's important enough, it should be done anyway.

M. Morris: Do you practise a risk management process at all when you're looking at all of your areas of responsibility?

R. Jones: We do. We were going to touch on that a little later, but yes, we base all of the audits that we pick to do on a risk basis. There are about five or six criteria we go through — risk, of course, being one of the key ones. We don't do anything unless we think there is a need to do something.

K. Corrigan: I think it would be useful — just to get the government awake a little bit on follow-ups — if there was an audit chosen, to look at the follow-up and whether or not there actually had been follow-up and comparing it with what the government said it had done. Even doing one or two would be worthwhile. Then government as a whole would understand that this might happen to them, so they'd better be a little more honest — or honest. I'm not saying more honest. They may be perfectly honest about what they're saying in terms of their progress.

R. Jones: Exactly. I think you'll find that with these too. We will probably have them to you — I'd better watch when I say a timeline here — by January.

V. Huntington: From an independent perspective here, when we talk about non-partisanship within the committee, even the language is important. It's not the government. It's a ministry and the administration of a ministry. It isn't the government that you're holding to account here. Even language can be really important in
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creating a more collegial atmosphere at the table, I think.

M. Gaston: Just to give you a bit more information, when we get the self-assessments, they usually go to the team that carried out the original audit, and they'll have a look at it. They might go back with some questions, and they may have some information that they're aware of from other work they're doing. But there is no specific work to go back and check. They may read through the self-assessment wording and say: "Does this line up with the self-assessment that's been made?" But it's really not much more than that. So just to add a bit more to that.

Now, in our follow-up report — I think it was a year ago — we did a sort of pilot piece of work with a couple of reports, where we actually went back in and looked at the self-assessments and to what extent we felt they were a fair reflection. We didn't find any where the self-assessment wasn't true. I think we did find a bit of a disconnect between the wording that had been provided and how they had rated themselves — in other words, whether it was fully implemented, substantially implemented, partially or not implemented. Some things didn't always match up.

K. Corrigan: Okay, and just one more question on that. We get those reports, and they're fairly brief. Do you get more in your office than you pass on to us? Or is it the same, and you're passing on essentially…?

M. Gaston: Normally, no. I think if the team had a question, they might go back and ask for something. But that's less usual than usual, I would say.

R. Jones: Just so everyone knows, this is Malcolm Gaston. He's my Deputy Auditor General.

B. Ralston (Chair): We're at about 1:45. This is where we said we would finish, so perhaps you'd like to conclude, and then maybe we can take any final questions. We do have the hour when we're going to hear from the Auditor General, and then there is some time allocated for further questions. All these folks will be around. I just don't want to cut the Auditor General short.

S. Murphy: I was just going to speak for one minute on communications. I think this is an important part of the Public Accounts Committee, and it's a very challenging issue. It does require a media strategy.

It's again up to the committee, but they're certainly doing a lot now with Facebook. Maybe you can consider press releases, media outreach. It's difficult to get the media interested in committee business unless you have a scandal in front of you. Again, this is a staff function, too, to try and outreach and inform the media as to what the committee is doing. Certainly, you'd want your schedules up on the website out there. But again, it's a strategy. It's an outreach.

Certainly, at the end of the day, all we are is a committee of accountability, and we do need the media. Of course, the Auditor needs the media too, and I assume they have their own communications department and a media outreach strategy. But this committee needs one also.

That's the only final comment that I will make, and we'll certainly continue the discussion with the Auditor.

B. Ralston (Chair): If I might, I do recall when we were at the Quebec annual conference, Jeffrey Simpson was invited to address the audit committee members. I think the topic he'd been given to consider was: why isn't all the good work of audit committees publicized by the media? He didn't quite scoff at it but came very close.

I mean, simply, media resources are extremely limited and diminishing. Rarely in any provincial legislature are there people who follow it full-time. It's an increasingly rare assignment. Generally, people's interest in news value is not in positive news but negative news. For all those reasons, often the full and radiant accomplishments of the committees are not given the publicity that members thought they deserved.

S. Murphy: Well, let me comment. You've identified the challenge. The resources are diminishing. The interest is in scandal, not in what the committee is actually doing.

Again, I don't think you can give up the challenge. There has to be an outreach strategy. Do your best, and certainly try and outreach to the media and develop an interest and perhaps even call them and say: "This is a very interesting topic. It may not be scandalous, but it's fundamental to the government and perhaps something that you should consider." They probably won't, but I think it's something you've got to continue to do.

G. Dubrow: If I could just throw in one very quick thing on that. By nature of the fact that this is my full-time occupation — strengthening public accounts committees, I do a Google Alerts search every week that comes automatically to me for any public accounts activity anywhere in the world. Obviously, every Commonwealth country has a public accounts committee. What I find shocking — and I think I was mentioning this yesterday — is that when it comes to Canadian public accounts committees, there's almost never anything in the news about them that would be captured in a Google search.

However, when it comes to the public accounts committees in the U.K., Ireland, Malta, Tanzania, Ghana and Belize, there is constantly stuff in the news on a weekly
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basis — Malaysia, Hong Kong, any country that had at any time any interaction with the British system. There are many, many examples of media coverage of public accounts committees. I always kind of go, "Oh my god, where's Canada on this?" — Canada being 14 PACs. I wouldn't give up on the idea that there can be press coverage of public accounts committees. Hopefully, that'll get covered in the next Google search.

S. Robinson: If I can just add some thoughts to that, this idea that we have to rely on traditional media, I think, is a bit dated. I think there is enough social media out there, opportunities to capitalize on, if the media is not responding in what we think is an appropriate way. Perhaps thinking outside the box might be something for consideration.

N. Letnick: I'd like to agree with that. At ten o'clock I actually tweeted out a message and put it on Facebook that I was here all day with you at a public accounts meeting.

G. Dubrow: I know that our time is way over, but just on that survey again, pages 29 and 30, a lot of those issues are covered in terms of who uses Twitter and all kinds of stuff like that.

We'll turn it over to Russ to lead a discussion on, it looks like, legislative auditors reports.

R. Jones: Yes, thank you, Chair, vice-Chair, Members, for allowing us to come and have a chat with you today. It's always a privilege and a pleasure. We're not going to be taking too, too long. There's an outline up here. We're just going to talk a little bit about our office and then the types of audits that we do and what you can expect to get from us and sort of the process that we go through. We would like to share that with you, and we'll take you through it.

Our office was established, for those that don't know, in 1977. We've been around a long time. Right now I've got about 115 people working in the office. We conduct both financial audits and performance audits, and we train CPA students. They used to be CA students; now they're CPA students. It's a new world out there for students.

When we get into financial audits, one of the first things that we need to get approved by this committee is what we call a financial statement audit coverage plan. That financial statement audit coverage plan will set out for you for the next three years the financial audits that we plan to do in-house, in our office, and then the number that are done by outside firms, such as PwC, KPMG — all of the big firms and some of the smaller firms.

It sets out the degree or the level of work we put into each of the financial audits. Some of them we do directly ourselves, others we oversee, and others we just wait for the financial audit opinions to come in from the smaller firms.

It is risk-based, and you will see that in the report you should be getting in about a week and a half, I think. We look forward to discussing that report with you at the meeting, because one of the things we need from this committee is approval of that report. I have to take that to the Finance and Government Services Committee to support the budget that I'm asking for, so it's rather important to get it approved.

We look at organizations' financial statements to see if they're presented fairly and whether there are any major errors in there. You will probably have noted in the last year's summary financial statements for the province that we had a rather large qualification, and I look forward to discussing that at a further meeting as well, I hope.

R. Jones: I'm glad. We will have a spirited discussion. We both come with slightly different opinions on my opinions.

There are over 174 financial statements that are looked at in the province, so it's a fairly big undertaking. It's probably the largest — in fact, it is the largest — audit in British Columbia.

M. Gaston: Yes, performance audits or value-for-money audits, as they are sometimes called — this is the other big side of the work we do. When they're called an audit, it's the same standards that apply as apply to our financial statement audits. So we're providing the same level of assurance, though it's a different type of audit. But we have to collect the same standard of evidence to be able to deliver these reports to you.

Somebody asked the question earlier about: is our work risk-based? Absolutely. Again, because we comply with standards, then our work is risk-based. We're looking at risks right across the provincial public sector. Basically, your provincial government delivers a whole range of different services, and anything that's covered within the government reporting entity is covered by the mandate of the Auditor General.
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M. Gaston: We would look out at what's happening across the public sector, where the money is being spent, whether there are new programs in place, any work we've done already that has picked up issues that we're aware of or any issues coming to us from other sources. We do detailed planning sector by sector, and we're looking for areas of risk.

Using that, then we pull together a three-year plan looking at our performance audit work out over three years. The first year is obviously a lot firmer, and then we've got ideas as to what we would like to go into in years two and three. But at least each year we would be coming back to that, reassessing what we see as the risks and refining the work we're going to be doing in the next year or two years out.

I've already mentioned some of the factors that feed into that risk assessment. So we would be looking at the impact that the programs have, the amount of money that's being spent and, as I say, whether it's a new program or there's a change taking place. Some of these factors, as well, feed into the timing of when we do our work.

We may have identified an area as relatively high risk. We'd like to do work there, but we know that the way it's being delivered has just changed. We might wait for a year for that to bed in so that we can go in and have a look at how it's actually working out. There's a whole range of factors that come into the areas that we pick to do our performance audit work and the timing of that work.

Obviously, we have a finite amount of resource available to us in terms of staff and dollars. That comes out of our risk assessment as well. We're also looking, as far as possible, to have a good coverage across government. We could easily spend all of our money looking at health or education as the two big spend areas. But we have to recognize, as well, that there are other areas of activity for government and there are other areas that you as legislators and the public are interested in as well. We're trying to balance a lot of competing priorities as part of that exercise.

The topics come from…. I just talked about the kind of process that we go through. We do seriously look for suggestions from you, as legislators, and from the public. We get lots of suggestions from different sources. Russ and I have met with some people around this table recently and had conversations.

I'm sure one question that we've asked as part of those discussions is: are there any areas that you think the office should be looking at? That doesn't in any way undermine the independence of the office. At the end of the day, the performance audit work that's carried out is decided by the Auditor General, but we genuinely look for suggestions as to where you think we can add value in the work that we do.

R. Jones: I just want to emphasize, as well, that it's sort of a dynamic interaction between our financial audits and our performance audits. While our financial staff are out there looking at things — for instance, public-private partnerships — from a financial standpoint, it also raises questions around business plans and how things like that are put into place from a value-for-money point of view as well. They both sort of inform each other. The offices work together quite well.

Types of publications. We have assurance work which we've talked a little bit about in terms of our traditional public reports, which you'll be seeing, that come to the Public Accounts Committee. Those are our most common ones. We also have the overall audit opinion, of course, on the summary financial statements, which is another piece of work. We have a number of management letters that we put out throughout the year, both in terms of our financial audits and our performance audits.

Greg asked the question previously about recommendations. We have one report that you're going to be dealing with on the JUSTIN system, which is an IT system in the province. I'm not sure exactly how many recommendations are in there, maybe nine or ten, but it comes from about 80 different management letter points that we issued to the organization outside of that. We brought them all together into condensed recommendations in the overall report.

That is one report we had that might be a good one for in camera, because there were a few items in that audit that we could not put in the public report because of IT concerns, in terms of if the public knew about them. It might be something to discuss in camera. Just to say.

Then we have some summary reports that we issue where we may have started a value-for-money audit, but for whatever reason, we found that it just wasn't worth the time and effort to continue with it. But we do have a couple of points that came out of it, which we thought we should put in a summary report. That'll be usually three or four audits that we may not have continued on. Then we have what we call compendium reports, which may be three or four different issues in, say, the IT area that we're going to bring together and put in one report. So you'll see some of that as well.

We have non-assurance work that we do. We don't perform those to audit standards, but we have done a number of examinations around governance — for instance, in school districts, universities, colleges — where we issue a report. But it's not an audit report. We find that the organizations find these fairly useful. Even though they're not audit-based, they do have a lot of really good recommendations on how to carry out better governance in school districts or whatever.

Then we have the follow-up reports that we have talked
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about that come to you guys.

We have information pieces. I don't know if anybody noticed the one we put out last week, I believe, on B.C. Transit. We didn't actually do an audit, but during our audit of B.C. Transit in other areas, we accumulated a lot of information and thought: "This would be really good to get out to the public — some information about transit in the province."

What we did in this case is we've put the report out. It's web-based. It's fairly easy to read, I think, but has a lot of really good information in it. At the back we put close to 20 questions, I think, that we thought government, B.C. Transit and the municipalities should consider, going forward, when they're talking about transit in the province.

That one we did table. I think it is going to come to this committee. Hopefully, you'll get a chance to talk about it. Even though it's not an audit, I think it could be of interest in terms of generating questions.

As I mentioned, we've put out one on model financial statements. We're also coming out with one which we're going to call "Twenty Questions You Should Ask Around Public Sector Financial Statements." That will, I think, be tabled and come to this committee. Whether you wish to do anything with it is another matter, but I think you'll find it useful if you're trying to look at the summary financial statements of the province. It'll give you some good questions to ask.

S. Gibson: Who decides what's in camera, and is there an approval process for that?

S. Gibson: So the committee decides what's in camera. You make a recommendation. However….

B. Ralston (Chair): Probably, yeah. As I think Shawn said earlier, it probably would take the lead from the Chair. That's something we'll discuss.

R. Jones: There aren't very many of our reports that might require something like that. The IT area is maybe the one where there might be.

B. Ralston (Chair): In fact, I think in the case of a couple of IT reports — I think the language they used is "the back door was open" — these would be provided as confidential recommendations to the agency. There would be no release of the report at all until the identified security breaches or potential security breaches were corrected, and only then would the report be released. I can think of one in the health sector where that was the case.

Obviously, the committee is not going to put people's personal information or the security of agencies or personnel at risk by prematurely or inadvertently publishing that kind of information.

M. Gaston: We obviously make recommendations. I mean, it's almost the end point of the work that we do: to identify issues; as far as possible, what the underlying causes are; and then make recommendations as to how we think those issues can most effectively be addressed.

Some considerations here, a reasonable number of recommendations. I don't suppose you want to get our report that has 100 recommendations in it. It's kind of hard to work out what's really important.

As Russ has already mentioned, in areas where maybe we do pick up a lot of individual issues, we'll tend to report the detail back to the organization through a management letter and even roll up some of the recommendations that we're coming up with into higher-level recommendations for the report that is published and comes to you for discussion.

Obviously, as far as possible, we direct the recommendations to who we have identified is going to be most effective at addressing the issues that have been picked up.

We provide some flexibility around how changes are implemented. Ultimately, at the end of the day, management is responsible for the delivery of services, and management is responsible for addressing issues that have been raised.

We can make a recommendation, but we're not going to get so specific as to tell them exactly what to do. That also starts to get into an issue for us when it comes to independence as well. If we then go back to do follow-up work or to re-audit an area, if we've told them exactly what to do, that kind of compromises our independence, so we don't do that.

Obviously, we're looking for recommendations that are reasonable, can be achieved, are practical and the wording of the recommendation is as clear as possible in terms of addressing the issue that's been identified. We do consider cost-effectiveness, so we avoid making recommendations that are obviously going to cost more to implement than they would save, for example.

I think one test we're becoming increasingly conscious of just now, as well, when we draft a recommendation is then to stand back and look at it and say: how easy would it be to follow up on this recommendation? If the wording is such that it would be hard to come back in and check whether it has been done properly, then it has not been written well, so we'll check our wording through that and make sure that it's appropriate.

I've mentioned that we do seek to look at the root cause of a problem and, therefore, hopefully, get to the under-
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lying issue and make sure that's addressed. In general, we try not to provide too many recommendations in a report, bearing in mind, as well, that your time is limited.

In terms of examples of recommendations, we've just got a couple of slides with some examples. There's a big variety. Russ mentioned a security system. The JUSTIN report, which has been published but has yet to come to the committee, is probably a good one: an example of several smaller recommendations being rolled up into a higher-level recommendation.

On to the next page. The second one there is probably a good example of maybe more specific recommendations coming out.

There was a more general aspect in relation to school district board governance: the ministry needed to provide better communication of expectations on school board governance practices. From the three school districts that we looked at as part of that examination, we had picked up some specific areas where we could see a recurring theme coming around and around: risk management; the assessment of board competency; and assessing, also, the board's performance and the performance of the superintendent of the school district. Just some examples there of the recommendations that we produced.

R. Jones: In terms of our reports, we do try and get them to you on a timely basis, and it would be nice to get them reviewed on a timely basis. I think we'll be getting there with these four days. We'll get caught up.

R. Jones: Yeah. One of the reasons there is a bit of slippage, too, is that we're fairly unique in this province, I think, in a lot of cases. As you know, at the federal level, they have three reporting dates a year. Here in B.C. we release reports as we get the audits done. There could be 20 of them over the year, and it could be two a month. It's not like you get them all at once.

As Sam mentioned, there are probably ten that we'll be releasing by mid-January — ten more than what are currently out there — and, I think, some that will pique your interest substantially.

We're finally going to get something out on the special indemnity process here in the province and the Basi-Virk case, in the end of November — and, as I mentioned, the two follow-ups that we're doing. Then in January we're also looking at releasing an audit around physician funding, looking at fee-for-service and the alternative payment programs. Those are four that might pique your interest.

A timely review of those would be welcomed. The length of time to review the report, as the Chair has pointed out, will be based on the number of people interested and the number of questions that come up. We look forward to whatever time it takes.

One of the things that we do for the committee at the beginning of each one of the sessions, if we have a report that we're going to discuss, is we do a five- to ten-minute PowerPoint presentation that does an overview or a review of what's in the report for you. Then the witnesses also do a similar thing so that you get both sides before you get into asking us questions. A little bit of a briefing around it, but it's not as good as reading what we've done.

As I say, I think I've talked about most of these other things that are up there — the follow-up report that comes to you and other things.

We'll move on to getting your endorsement. We discussed this a little bit earlier. In previous years there was an appetite for…. I think the report going to the Legislative Assembly actually said that you endorsed our recommendations. I'd love to see that again. I think it is a good practice to do that, but we shall leave that entirely up to the committee to decide whether to change that practice or not.

Then, the impact of our reports. I think a number of people throughout the day have said it elevates the profile of this committee and the committee members in understanding what's going on in government. There are a lot of really interesting subjects that you're going to be dealing with. I know you don't all have time to be as involved in them as we are, but I think from these reports it'll increase your knowledge and allow you to understand some of these subjects better.

For instance, I would say the whole public-private-partnership environment is one that, hopefully, by the time you've looked at the three reports we've got in the hopper at the moment, will give you a better feel for some of the things that are going on in that area.

It also allows you to meet with some of the senior members from some of the ministries and Crown corporations, which you may not always get a chance to do. They're very nice people. We get along well with them anyway.

Then, contribute to improvements in the public sector. We're all here to do that. It may also help in your caucus discussions. So there are a number of good benefits.

M. Gaston: I think we've probably covered a lot of what's on the slate in relation to the follow-up process. Maybe just again to highlight some areas that you might want to consider as part of your own discussions.

First of all, around the level of work that we're doing, bearing Russ's comment in mind, earlier, that the more work we do on follow-up, the less time we have to devote to new pieces of work. But at the same time, we want to
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make sure that we are adding value and that recommendations are being implemented. So it's the balance of the work there, in terms of following up and the level of resource to commit to that. But also the role of this committee in ensuring that there is effective follow-up as well.

There's no doubt that in the system…. If the system knows that the committee, as well, is very focused on follow-up and the fact that recommendations have been endorsed, hopefully, as to whether those are actually being implemented and change is happening or not….

S. Simpson: A comment in regard to that, because I do think that's a pretty critical piece. We all know that issues around transparency and accountability continue to grow for all of us as elected people — and the public and the media and the pundits are all looking at that — whether it's around what we do ourselves as elected people or what government does broadly and what ministries do. So I think that's a growing area. The more that we can deal with transparency and accountability…. It just tends to take questions off the table as much as anything, to deal with that.

I think that this is an issue, this self-assessment issue, in terms of getting at that. It's not that anybody's playing fast and loose with that. It's that people expect some kind of accountability that's at a different level than that.

I'd be very interested in looking at how we can improve that process without being overly onerous, in terms of what it means in terms of cost to do that or time — either costs for you or for the auditees — and how to do that.

I would find it worthwhile, actually, if your office could turn your head a little bit to the question of approaches that we might be able to take or endorse as a committee, for you to pursue, that will just provide a little bit better level of accountability and ensure that there are more eyes on these assessments, maybe, than the current practice allows. That would be helpful.

Just to close. Please contact us if there is anything that you'd like us to look at.

S. Gibson: I once had a boss who told me: "I won't talk to you if I'm happy with what you're doing." Right? His philosophy was kind of the reverse of traditional HR management.

My optics of this committee are strictly anecdotal, as someone who has observed the occasional acrimony or criticism of the government. Fair enough. My question is: do we also have a role in terms of affirming good practice, good work? Much of what we'll be talking about — and I understand the partisan point of view — will be to find issues that are of concern, things that haven't gone quite the way the plan has been constructed.

Maybe this is a question to you, Mr. Chairman. Do we also have a role to say: "Hey, you know what? Great job. Way to go. You guys have done a good job"? Is that also a part of our mandate? I haven't heard that.

B. Ralston (Chair): I think there are occasions when we do express real satisfaction and congratulations. Generally, those aren't the topics that attract the interest that leads to an audit in the first place. But there are some where, I think, they come back with a pretty clean view.

The other thing that I would just caution against is that if something is in the audit and there are some problems, it's not necessarily — and I think the point that people are attempting to make here — for you as committee members to feel that somehow that reflects upon the political leadership. It's simply an administrative problem sometimes, which you have as much interest in correcting as do members of the opposition just for good public administration and fiscal accountability.

I think that was the caution that was being issued there. You shouldn't always necessarily…. And I think I understand the apprehension. But I don't think you should always feel that any report that's critical of an area of government operation is an indictment of the government; although, on our side perhaps, there may be an overeager tendency to interpret it that way.

I think what we're trying to do is work out some kind of working relationship where we can get at problems and solve them. And to some extent, if there are political points to be made, they can be made outside the committee by others. Sometimes that's the way to deal with it too.

I think, Simon, that often when you do hear criticisms of a report that's come out from the Auditor General, as I said earlier, it's often at the time the report is released. We get precious little coverage in the media of the work that we actually do. I mean, really. I'm trying to remember the last time we had a story. I think it may be that some of those things that you're recalling that you've heard about have been other politicians around the report as opposed to what was actually happening in this committee.

M. Gaston: If I could just add, I think the risk-based nature of our work probably does mean that we tend to concentrate on where there are issues. But then I suppose we're trying to maximize the value that we add to the provincial public sector. So if we can help to improve something that's not working particularly well, where we can find improvements…. But we report what we find. So if we find examples of good practice or we go in to do an audit and we find that things have been done well, that's exactly what we will report.

In fact, in some of the work that we do — and I think the governance examinations are a particular example of that — we are actively looking for…. We're looking to improve governance practices across different sectors.
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We are looking for examples of good practice; where we find those, we'll highlight those in the report as well as opportunities for improvement.

L. Throness: I'm just wondering about the timeliness. We're going to be looking at 26 audits, I think. I'm wondering when we might receive them prior to our consideration of them in November. Also, in what format? Will we receive a brick of paper, or could we get them on our iPads? What's the format?

B. Ralston (Chair): Well, if I might, Sam and I will have some discussion about prospective agendas and grouping and how we'll time it. They're all on the website now. Once they're released through the Speaker's office, you can read them any time, except for the ones that, of course, have not or are going to be released.

I doubt we'll be dealing with those in this block of time; although we'll see, given it's some time away. So yes, you will get them. You'll get them electronically. You'll get them in advance. And if you're keen, we can probably circulate the total list of outstanding ones, without any grouping or without being in a timetable just yet.

B. Ralston (Chair): If you've looked at some of the audits of the reading capacity of some of the population, not everyone can say that, unfortunately.

V. Huntington: Could I ask, perhaps Kate…? Originally, we used to get nice glossy-covered copies of reports. Now we're expected to print them out, and it's messy. Do you not have copies of reports available anymore?

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of Committees): We do. We'd be happy to provide members with print copies of reports. I appreciate the topic coming up for discussion this afternoon, because one of our office's roles is to facilitate and support the work of your committee, including the receipt of meeting materials.

In terms of the timeliness of your receipt of reports, there are a number of options that you can consider. When the audit office releases a report, I understand that there is a distribution system that is coordinated through the Office of the Speaker, which we can also support and perhaps amplify through direct contact with each of you as committee members on the day a report is actually released for the first time and in the public domain.

What you would likely expect as the weeks unfold is…. When your committee turns its mind to having one of those reports on your agenda, I will be following up yet again with another, electronic version of that report and any other support materials, as was done for today's meeting.

If you prefer to have print copies of those reports provided to your office, we'd be happy to facilitate that. If you just want to use the electronic version until the day of the meeting, rest assured that we always bring paper copies of all meeting materials to each committee meeting, so you don't have to carry what in some cases can be a heavy collection of documents for a lengthy Public Accounts meeting.

We haven't yet been able to embark, at the assembly, on an electronic distribution system similar to what I know the cabinet committees use: an iPad system. It would be my preference to get us there, but I have some challenges internally to convince everyone that we need to go in that direction.

What I'd like to do is be able to provide everybody with the same electronic documents on the same platform. Because we don't yet, as an assembly, have the same tablet device in everyone's hands, that's a challenge I've yet to overcome. Please let me know your thoughts as we move ahead.

G. Kyllo: I'd encourage us to get iPads for everybody here and go to an electronic model. It would just save a ton of time and energy over the course of the next four years. So I'd really encourage us to do that.

B. Ralston (Chair): I think the government members have iPads. We don't. Yet another difference.

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of Committees): I would be happy, Greg, to see this initiative move ahead. Again, our goal in our office is to provide full support to all members of the committee — government and opposition.

We had a report — just by way of background information — that made a recommendation to a member's IT committee at the end of the last parliament. One of the recommendations on that that has been held up for further consideration was the provision of iPads to all members of the House. I'm still hoping that that will be resolved shortly. If it is, then we are prepared to move ahead with a system similar to the one that you may be familiar with.

G. Kyllo: Yeah, I'm sure that running a quick cost-benefit analysis, with the amount of paper that'll be produced, we could probably prove up the case it would be
[ Page 42 ]
cost-effective for us to do that.

B. Ralston (Chair): I won't pass that on to any of the pulp mills in British Columbia.

I think the next item… If we're finished, then, with Russ — thank you. Kate was next on the agenda. She had a few comments. And then we have some further time for general discussion. After Kate finishes, we can decide to what extent members want to pursue that.

Parliamentary Committees Office:
Procedural Overview and
Role of Committees Office

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of Committees): Thank you for an opportunity — which I'll only use, I think, a few minutes of your long day — to touch on a few matters of background, in essence, with a particular focus on the British Columbia practice. I think we've had an excellent overview from the CCAF today of best practices across the country. I wanted to, if I could, just for a moment, highlight some of the uniqueness of the British Columbia experience and some of the history of your committee.

In your package today we had a couple of documents at the end of your meeting materials, including a sort of summary document which highlights a bit of background, some sort of FAQs on the work of the Public Accounts Committee in British Columbia and a copy of your terms of reference.

By way of history, I thought it was interesting in noting earlier today the recognition of this Public Accounts Committee and others as being amongst the most senior of all parliamentary committees. That would certainly be the case in British Columbia. This committee has, in fact, a history going back to the year 1874. It is the second-oldest parliamentary committee in British Columbia and has had, since that time, of course, an evolution of different focuses and practices that it has adopted and changed over many years.

It's interesting that although it was formed in 1877 — I was having a look at the records — in 1899 it took a hiatus of 17 years, only to return with a special investigation in the year 1917 with a review of special warrants of the province, which is always an interesting topic, as well as an inquiry into the construction of the Legislative Library, which was then a new wing at the Parliament Buildings.

Nonetheless, the committee has had an ongoing presence at the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia. It has taken on, from time to time — as was mentioned earlier, I think, by Geoff — an investigation into certain specific payments. It's moved away from that kind of practice in recent years.

For many, many decades it had looked at the public accounts of the province as a whole and issued sessional reports on findings related to members' discussion and inquiries with respect to the public accounts. It even took on responsibility in the 1940s related to government printing.

It's interesting, because one of the unique responsibilities of your committee, even today, comes to you not only through the terms of reference as really the primary focus of your work, but through something called the Document Disposal Act.

From time to time you will meet with the provincial archivist, Mr. Gary Mitchell, who will be providing to you a list of government records that have been recommended for either retention or disposal. This is a carryover of a very longstanding practice in this province with respect to government printing.

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of Committees): Something to look forward to in due course, but I think it is a unique feature of the British Columbia PAC that it continues to have this focus on government printing from time to time.

S. Sullivan (Deputy Chair): Can I ask…? You said 1874. But I heard that the office was 1977.

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of Committees): Yes. The current Office of the Auditor General was established in 1977. But in fact, there were a number of early Auditors General, which I think took us up to about the turn of the century. But the independent Office of the Auditor General, having been appointed on recommendation of a committee of your Legislature, came into being in the 1970s.

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of Committees): It's actually an excellent question, Marc. Any guesses? It's actually the committee that continues today to be known by a very long title: Parliamentary Reform, Ethical Conduct, Standing Orders and Private Bills. It was a committee that looked at both petitions and private bills before the
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Legislature.

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of Committees): Well, I have a lot of comments on the history, but I know in the interests of time, we'll just touch on a couple of the highlights.

But I will mention that by the 1980s and '90s, a lot of committee practices did change. We added in the late 1980s the Office of the Clerk of Committees. Our parliamentary committees office was established, which gave this committee full-time resourcing, a collection of legislative staff that will provide you with service on a non-partisan basis to support your work. Cabinet ministers were no longer on the committee since that time.

In the 1990s through to the year 2002 there was a practice of issuing these separate reports that have been referred to by our colleagues from the CCAF. So as the committee would undertake its inquiry, reviewing a particular audit report, they would issue an individual, stand-alone report on the findings, both summarizing the audit report and the work that the committee had undertaken.

This resulted in about ten separate reports, for example, in the fourth session of the 36th parliament, the year 2000, and 14 — a record 14 — reports in 2002.

V. Huntington: Could we see some of those sometime? Just a few. Just to get an idea.

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of Committees): Yes. We have those in our office and would be happy to send you some examples. They are relatively brief, focused reports.

But what we have nowadays has moved towards developing a report in support of the committee that looks somewhat like this.

This report would be drafted by a committee research team in our office. Essentially, it will summarize all of the work of your committee, should you continue to use this model, going ahead, both the audit reports that have come to you and what we described as the committee inquiry — the committee inquiry being, in essence, the discussion that will take place between committee members and witnesses before the committee with respect to any particular audit discussions.

This report is drafted by research staff in our office. We would share a copy of the draft report with the Chair and the Deputy Chair of your committee to seek input. It will, in time, then come — once it meets with their approval and support — to your full committee for discussion and review.

So the content of this report is very much in your hands, and we would look very much to your input and direction to help you shape it the way that you wish.

When the House is in session, your committee Chair, Mr. Ralston, will present this report to the Legislative Assembly by way of a motion to the House. The motion to present a report is often twofold.

One simply is to have the report taken as read and received. If there is an interest and time available in House proceedings to have a more fulsome discussion, you can have a motion to adopt a report, which is a debatable motion. All members of the committee can participate in that debate, and even all members of the Legislature.

I don't mention it to dwell on it today, but it is another opportunity, perhaps, in terms of highlighting the work of the committee and some of the substantive matters that you may have considered in due course that can be discussed in the chamber as well.

The mandate of the committee. I've included a copy of your terms of reference in the materials before you. It is, as you know, primarily focused on the reports of the audit office that have been formally referred to you, which have been tabled by the Speaker of the Legislature. In addition, on the back of the page there are a number of references to other responsibilities that flow from the Auditor General Act. Those include some provisions with respect to, perhaps, an unexpected, say, vacancy in the position of the Auditor General, if that were to occur.

As a footnote, I'll just mention that you probably are aware there's also a Special Committee to Appoint an Auditor General, which is another parliamentary committee which is currently looking at the appointment of a permanent Auditor General.

The terms of reference also include a reference to a number of powers previously conferred on this committee. Those would be powers that are confirmed at the opening of a legislative session to all parliamentary committees and flow from the provincial Constitution Act. They essentially relate to the powers that we touched on earlier today, the powers for this committee to call for evidence — to call for persons, papers and documents.

Within the scope of your mandate, as provided to you by the Legislative Assembly, your committee has a very broad-reaching authority and independence to exercise these powers, as has been delegated to you by the Legislature. You can interpret that mandate as broadly or as narrowly as you see fit.

In respect to any other procedural considerations you may want to keep in mind. As you know, by this juncture the operation of parliamentary committees is, of course, much less formal and much more flexible than proceedings in the House.

We are guided to some degree by the standing orders. There are a number of them that apply specifically to parliamentary committees — Standing Orders 68 through
[ Page 44 ]
72. But beyond that, what really shapes, I think, the dynamic at any parliamentary committee is the practices that the committee members themselves have adopted over the years. Certainly, this committee, with its rich history, has a number of practices that it will draw upon.

Most of the discussions and business — which is well facilitated, I think, through the committee setting — work very well due to a collegiality that forms within the committee environment. Committees tend to work very cooperatively much of the time. In order to facilitate the business of the committee, the Chair and the Deputy Chair will meet regularly, as has been discussed, to set agendas and to prepare sort of a business plan for the committee.

In terms of formal business at a committee hearing, if there was an intention to move a motion by any member of the committee, I would ask that we comply with the rules — simply that that would be in writing and signed by the mover of the motion.

If you feel that you would like to have a motion well received by members, I always recommend that notice be given of motions. It's not required in a committee setting. But certainly, in terms of moving forward in a collaborative manner, it's helpful for your colleagues to know in advance, perhaps, if you have an intent to provide a formal notice of motion to the committee in terms of a matter that you may be contemplating moving ahead with.

That being said, I just wanted to close with a brief description of the work of the parliamentary committees office. We have a wonderful team of staff there who work very diligently on behalf of all active committees.

We currently have about five active committees at the Legislature. The Finance Committee is out on the road now, so a number of staff resources are focused on that endeavour.

But if in the course of the discussions today you would like to have more information with respect to any of the services that we're able to facilitate or if you have any questions about past practice, please don't hesitate to contact myself, Ron Wall or any member of our team. We'd be delighted to assist in any way we can.

B. Ralston (Chair): Okay. We were proposing to adjourn at three. There's time for further questions. I think we've had a pretty good exchange here, unless there are further questions.

Sam, did you want to say…? Do you have anything further you wanted to say in terms of concluding remarks?

S. Sullivan (Deputy Chair): You talked about in camera, and I got two different opinions. One was that your federal committee didn't really have them or had it a couple of times and then….

S. Murphy: I can just explain the federal committee, and this kind of leads into what Vicki was saying too. I'll give you what the federal committee does, and it's kind of a hybrid.

It's a little different, because he only reports three times a year. But what they do is have an in-camera briefing. I think it goes from 11 o'clock to one. The Auditor is there, and he goes through all the chapters. Usually there are eight or nine chapters.

That's an embargoed hearing. A Member of Parliament can go in and out, but they cannot talk about the report. The staffers — if they go in, they've got to stay there till two o'clock.

At two o'clock — this kind of relates to what Kathy was getting at earlier too — the report is tabled with the Speaker, and at that time, anyone can talk about it. They do talk about it at two o'clock. The Auditor then makes himself available for a media scrum, usually at two o'clock. And of course, you know what the news is that night. That's how it works in the federal system.

British Columbia is a little different, because you table individual reports. It's not as dramatic, and it would be difficult to have ten different in-camera sessions. It's a little different system, but that's just the federal system.

But in the individual meetings we don't have in-camera briefings before. Other jurisdictions do. Again, this comes back to…. Every jurisdiction is different. We didn't do it in the federal. You had that one, and that would happen about three times a year.

G. Dubrow: Yeah, I was just going add that generally, the actual…. You know, Shawn mentioned that it's a rarity to go in camera. The actual hearing, when the PAC is calling witnesses, generally takes place in public. It's very rare for that portion to be held in camera.

For the in-camera briefing, that's the situation which the…. It's just the Auditor General coming in and providing an overview of the key aspects of the audit.

Having that session in camera…. The witnesses are not testifying before the committee. But it does also provide members a chance to say — I hear this a lot during in-camera meetings — "I know this is a stupid question, but I don't understand this," which members might not want to put on the record.

It's unfortunate, because it is hard sometimes. There
[ Page 45 ]
might be legitimate questions. They're just a bit more comfortable asking those questions in camera.

I guess the other part, Shawn, that you would have done in camera would have been the writing of the…. The discussion of the committee report would have been held in camera.

S. Murphy: Committee deliberations. Yes, that would always be in camera when we're writing a report in camera. But I was referring to the hearing of witnesses. It would be an exception.

Russ has made some good points there on the…. If it's an IT issue that's going to affect the security of some government hospital or operation, that would be a logical case. The Chair made mention of that — that you would go in camera.

We never dealt with IT issues. Perhaps should have, but we didn't. But we had two instances that I can recall that we did go in camera for very, very legitimate reasons.

G. Kyllo: I just thought today was very informative. I would really appreciate it, if we have future meetings — as I mentioned to you earlier, Bruce, when we were speaking — if we can condense those meetings together.

I don't know. I've got tons of different meetings. If we can reduce the amount of travel by hitting it, you know, four days in a row to try and get through as much as possible, I'd certainly appreciate that.

B. Ralston (Chair): Well, we are going to do four days in a row. I'm a little apprehensive, but we've agreed on that. It's just that these meetings can be fairly intense, so you may find it fairly draining to go at it for four days. We'll also have to be on our best behaviour by day 4 too. We'll see how it goes.

Before I ask Paul and Shawn and Geoff if there are any concluding remarks, there is an evaluation. I guess it's a non-assurance audit. If you could fill that out before you go, that would be helpful. That will determine, I think, how we maybe proceed in these kinds of workshops in the future.

S. Robinson: I have a question, and maybe it comes out of my professional training and background as a family therapist and a group therapist. I noticed, just in our seating arrangements, that we're clearly divided the way we are in the House. If that's practice, good practice, something that….

You know, here we are, supposed to be non-partisan. We're divided partisan, and then we have Vicki sitting here sort of at the edge.

It's just a question around if that's just practice. Or are there better practices? I mean, it structurally can set a tone.

B. Ralston (Chair): Generally, it's practice to line up in the way that we do in the House.

B. Ralston (Chair): Well, we can talk about it. I don't have a dogmatic view on that, but I think I have a fairly firm view. Let's put it that way.

V. Huntington: I think this is a question that the committee will have to discuss.

S. Murphy: Perhaps I'll start. I just want to say it's been a real pleasure to be here, and I've enjoyed it tremendously.

The only thing I would like to highlight in my closing comments is…. This is, you will find, a very interesting committee. It's a very important committee. It really goes to the whole concept of accountability, which people are starting to take very, very seriously — and the role of a Member of the Legislative Assembly in our system of responsible government.

Again, as you heard many times, every jurisdiction is different, B.C. being no exception. Certainly, from what I've heard, I'm very impressed with the British Columbia committee. I think you're going to do a tremendous job, and I just wish you all the best.

G. Dubrow: I'm great. I just want to thank you all for the opportunity to come out here. This is a beautiful province. I haven't had a chance to be here for about four years now, and my heart just always opens up when I get to B.C. It's a gorgeous place.

I really do hope this has been useful and we will have a chance to provide you with more support in the future,
[ Page 46 ]
should that be something that the committee would like to undertake.

P. Lohnes: I'll just echo that it's been a pleasure to be here. I commend you for coming together for this purpose and for your openness to learn and exchange. It was gratifying to see people jumping in and showing interest and making suggestions and asks. That's what the process is — to improve accountability in government and your role in doing so.

Thank you, Kate, for all of the material you put together and for the warm invitation, and to Bruce and Sam for having us. It's been great.

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of Committees): Yes, I just want to advise the members, particularly new members who might have an interest in the work of parliamentary committees, that our office has produced a new members' guide to parliamentary committees in British Columbia. It is an overview, a general document that applies to all committees but includes the practices of this committee to some degree. If anyone has an interest, I have a few copies here this afternoon.

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:	* Bruce Ralston (Surrey-Whalley NDP)
Deputy Chair:	* Sam Sullivan (Vancouver–False Creek BC Liberal)
Members:	* Kathy Corrigan (Burnaby–Deer Lake NDP)
	* Marc Dalton (Maple Ridge–Mission BC Liberal)
	* David Eby (Vancouver–Point Grey NDP)
	* Simon Gibson (Abbotsford-Mission BC Liberal)
	* George Heyman (Vancouver-Fairview NDP)
	* Vicki Huntington (Delta South Ind.)
	* Greg Kyllo (Shuswap BC Liberal)
	* Norm Letnick (Kelowna–Lake Country BC Liberal)
	* Mike Morris (Prince George–Mackenzie BC Liberal)
	* Linda Reimer (Port Moody–Coquitlam BC Liberal)
	* Selina Robinson (Coquitlam-Maillardville NDP)
	* Shane Simpson (Vancouver-Hastings NDP)
	* Laurie Throness (Chilliwack-Hope BC Liberal)
	* denotes member present
Clerk:	Kate Ryan-Lloyd
Committee Staff:	Ron Wall (Committee Researcher)

Witnesses:	Geoff Dubrow (CCAF-FCVI Inc.)
	Malcolm Gaston (Deputy Auditor General)
	Russ Jones (Acting Auditor General)
	Paul Lohnes (President and CEO, CCAF-FCVI Inc.)
	Shawn Murphy (CCAF-FCVI Inc.)
	Stuart Newton (Comptroller General)

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS(Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC ACCOUNTS

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS
(Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON
PUBLIC ACCOUNTS