Local Elections Expense Limits — Issue No. 1 — Wednesday, October 15, 2014 (HTML)

Room 307, Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue
580 West Hastings Street, Vancouver, B.C.

Present: Jackie Tegart, MLA (Chair); Selina Robinson, MLA (Deputy Chair); Mike Bernier, MLA; Marvin Hunt, MLA; Jenny Wai Ching Kwan, MLA; Linda Reimer, MLA; Sam Sullivan, MLA

1. There not yet being a Chair elected to serve the Committee, the meeting was called to order at 2:34 p.m. by the Deputy Clerk and Clerk of Committees.

2. Resolved, that Jackie Tegart, MLA, be elected Chair of the Special Committee on Local Elections Expense Limits. (Linda Reimer, MLA)

3. Resolved, that Selina Robinson, MLA, be elected Deputy Chair of the Special Committee on Local Elections Expense Limits. (Jenny Wai Ching Kwan, MLA)

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

7. The Committee discussed and reviewed its meeting schedule and consultation plans.

8. It was agreed that the Chair and Deputy Chair will work with Members to invite their input on key stakeholders to be invited to participate in the work of the Committee, the identification of any required additional information and the further refinement of the current meeting schedule.

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

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS
(Hansard)

SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON
LOCAL ELECTIONS EXPENSE LIMITS


CONTENTS
Page
Election of Chair and Deputy Chair	1
Committee Terms of Reference	2
Briefing: Local Elections Expense Limits and Financing	2
H. Brazier
A. van Leeuwen
L. Scowcroft
Committee Meeting Schedule	11
H. Brazier
L. Scowcroft

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Deputy Clerk and Clerk of Committees): Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the first meeting of the Special Committee on Local Elections Expense Limits. As there has not yet been a Chair elected to serve the committee in this session, I would like to first open the floor for nominations to that position.

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of Committees): I think I heard from Linda Reimer a nomination for Jackie Tegart. Is that correct?

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of Committees): I’ll ask Jackie: does she accept nomination?

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of Committees): Are there any further nominations? Any further nominations? Any further nominations?

Now we will have the election of the Deputy Chair. I’ll open the floor for nominations for Deputy Chair.

Any further nominations? For a second time, any further nominations? For a third time?

Good afternoon. My name is Jackie Tegart. I’m the member for Fraser-Nicola, and I’m pleased to have been elected this afternoon as the Chair of this Special Committee on Local Elections Expense Limits.

The committee was appointed by the Legislative Assembly on October 9, and it’s a two-part mandate on local election expense limits. The first part is to examine and make recommendations to the Legislative Assembly by November 27 on principles for the relationship between elector organizations and their endorsed candidates with respect to expense limits and principles for establishing expense limits for third-party advertising.

The second part will be to examine and make recommendations to the Legislative Assembly by June 12, 2015, on expense limit amounts for candidates.

We have a tight deadline for completing the first part of our mandate this fall, and I’m very pleased that committee members have made themselves available on short notice for today’s meeting and others to follow in the upcoming weeks.

This afternoon we’ll receive an initial briefing from the Ministry of Community, Sport and Cultural Development. At the end of the meeting there’ll be an opportunity for members to begin to discuss how to proceed with hearings from stakeholders and other interested British Columbians on issues related to the first part of our mandate.

I would now ask for other committee members to introduce themselves, starting with the Deputy Chair to my left.

S. Robinson (Deputy Chair): I’m Selina Robinson. I’m the MLA for Coquitlam-Maillardville and spent five years in local government. I was elected twice in Coquitlam. I’m very excited to be here and to finally be taking a look at how to manage election finances.

L. Reimer: Linda Reimer, MLA for Port Moody–Coquitlam. MLA Robinson and myself worked together. I was first elected to Coquitlam council in 2008 and then again in 2011. I’m pleased to be here.

M. Bernier: Mike Bernier. I’m the MLA for Peace River South — eight, nine years local government, former mayor of the city of Dawson Creek, where I left before I came here.

M. Hunt: Marvin Hunt, Surrey-Panorama — 1984, school trustee; 1987, council in the city of Surrey.

J. Tegart (Chair): We’re very pleased to have support staff here today. Kate Ryan-Lloyd is the Deputy Clerk and Clerk of Committees, Helen Morrison is our committee research analyst, and Michael Baer is from Hansard. Thank you all very much for being here.

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of Committees): Thank you, Madam Chair, and good afternoon again, committee members.

As members know, the Legislative Assembly adopted the motion that forms the terms of reference for the work of your special committee just last week, on October 9. Copies of it have been provided to each of you I think last week, in conjunction with that adoption by the House, and then also in your packages today.

In terms of the work that the committee has been asked to do, you will note that there are two phases of work that have been laid out within the terms of reference. The first phase, on relatively quick timelines and hence the meeting scheduled, was circulated for your consideration last week. Phase 2 follows with a reporting deadline by June 2. I know that we are going to be discussing the details in some depth at today’s meeting, but I would just draw your attention to the bottom of the terms of reference on page 2, which is a summary of the powers of the select standing committee.

Its procedural powers are, in essence, similar to that of select standing committees, but I would just draw your attention to the ability for the committee to sit while the House is adjourned, during the recess after prorogation or during any sitting of the House, should that be convenient to members.

Also, the committee is empowered to conduct consultations by any means the committee considers appropriate. That would include, in addition to meetings such as this one, public meetings, public hearings. A call for written submissions would be an option. A call for on-line submissions and input is also something that our office has had experience with and would be pleased to assist with.

The other aspects of those itemized bullets there on the bottom of page 2. “Adjourn from place to place as may be convenient” allows the committee to meet not only in Victoria but in Vancouver or other venues as might suit the needs of the committee at any time.

As the Chair mentioned, we’re assisted at this committee by a new research analyst in our office. I just wanted to ensure that everybody is aware that Helen Morrison is here to assist you with any research services that you might require during the course of your committee’s work.

With that, I certainly welcome any questions you might have but, certainly, turn it back to the Chair for continuing discussion on the terms of reference.

M. Hunt: On the terms of reference, after item 2 it starts with, “For both phases, the special committee shall undertake the above examinations with due regard,” and then there are five bullets. The fourth bullet, at the top of the second page, deals with an expense model that was approved, it says here, by government in July 2014. For all the rest of it, it’s dealing with a cut-off line at 10,000 people.

My questions are: (1) is that a legislated number; and (2) can this committee, depending on what we hear across this process, recommend a change to that number?

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of Committees): Actually, I think that the officials from the ministry who are present here today may be the best source of background information with respect to the decision by government that is described in that element of the terms of reference, so I might defer to their provision of further information for you.

It’s my understanding that the committee has been asked to make recommendations as outlined in both phases 1 and 2. I think, as per the notation in the terms of reference, it’d be helpful for the committee to take into account those resources that have been itemized, including that decision. But I would defer to the insight of the ministry with respect to some background on that material.

J. Tegart (Chair): I will assume that that will be forthcoming in the presentation today or at a later date.

Any other questions or comments? Seeing none, the briefing in regard to the local election expense limits and financing from the Ministry of Community, Sport and Cultural Development.

H. Brazier: Thank you, Members, for the opportunity to brief you today about expense limits for local government elections. I’m Heather Brazier. I’m the executive lead in the Ministry of Community, Sport and Cultural Development. I have with me today Alayna van Leeuwen, who is a manager of policy and legislation in the ministry, and Lesley Scowcroft, who is a senior policy analyst.

Alayna has quite a bit of history and experience with local elections campaign finance issues. She was actually one of the staff members who supported the joint UBCM–provincial government task force back in 2009-2010. Lesley was very much involved in the policy work and the legislative work to put together the Local Elections Campaign Financing Act that was passed this spring.

H. Brazier: In terms of the presentation, our goal today is to provide you with some information that will assist you in carrying out your mandate. We’ll go through a bit of an overview about local elections, and then we’ll get into the Local Elections Campaign Financing Act in particular — or, as we fondly call it, LECFA.

Then Alayna will take the reins, and she’ll go into some more information about expense limits. We’ll close by going back to touch base on the terms of reference and how phase 1 and phase 2 of the committee’s terms of reference link together.

We do want to note that in our remarks today we’ll primarily be focusing on municipal and regional district elections.

School board elections piggyback on local government elections, both in practice and in terms of a legislative basis. But we’re not the experts on those elections. If the committee does wish to hear from the Ministry of Education and/or the B.C. School Trustees Association, they would be much more able than we are to comment on school board elections. The Ministry of Education will also be providing you with a background paper that speaks to some of the issues around school board elections.

I do want to recognize today that in making this presentation, we’re speaking to a group of people who all have experience as local elected officials, so I hope there’s not going to be too much of us telling you things that you already know and have experienced. In addition, some of the members of the committee also have more than a passing knowledge about LECFA, having been involved in various ways with the development and passage of LECFA.

In terms of local elections generally, if we have a key message from this part of the presentation, I think it’s that we just would like the committee to take note of the differences between local elections and provincial elections. You’ve all been candidates in both local elections and provincial elections, so you know about those differences.

Local elections are large scale. There are over 1,600 elected positions on over 250 government bodies. Provincially, there are candidates from all over the province who are running to form one government in a single election.

There is a common element in terms of Elections B.C.’s role, but there’s also a difference in terms of Elections B.C.’s role. Provincially, Elections B.C. is administering the entire process. With local government elections, as of the 2014 local elections, Elections B.C. has a role in campaign finance, but they do not administer local elections. As you know, that is done at the local level by local governments themselves.

Local elections are also conducted under the same rules regardless of the locality. While the city of Vancouver, for example, has its election rules in the Vancouver Charter, those rules essentially mirror the rules in the Local Government Act. “Local government” applies to municipal elections, regional district electoral area elections, the Islands Trust, park boards and some special local government bodies as well.

Within that framework, we’re dealing with community sizes from 115 — Zeballos — to 600,000 with the city of Vancouver. Having one set of rules that has to account for all of those variations is one of the challenges with local elections legislation and, I think you’ll find, is one of the challenges in coming up with recommendations on expense limits that work for all of that variation in communities and in the type of body whose elections are being covered.

Campaigns also vary. In many rural areas it’s a very small-scale campaign. It might be signage or going door to door, whereas in more urban centres there can be very sophisticated campaigns, including sophisticated media campaigns.

This is a bit of a process slide before we get into more of the content. Really, it takes us through how did we get to the point we’re at now with expense limits.

As you’re all well aware, in 2009 at the Union of B.C. Municipalities convention Premier Campbell convened the joint UBCM–provincial government task force on local elections. The task force reported out in spring of 2010 and made a number of recommendations about local elections campaign finance. It’s important to note that the committee felt that local elections were generally very well run. The focus was on campaign finance and creating some more rigour in that area.

In 2013 the provincial government made a decision to implement the task force recommendations in two phases. The first phase dealt with accountability, transparency, compliance and enforcement, and education and advice — basically, all of the task force recommendations except those related to expense limits.

The ministry produced a white paper in the fall of 2013 which included a draft of LECFA. Some changes were made to the legislation as a result of that process, and in spring 2014 LECFA was tabled in the Legislative Assembly and subsequently passed along with its companion bill, the Local Elections Statutes Amendment Act.

Now we’re in phase 2, which is looking at expense limits. That essentially links back to the task force’s recommendations around accessibility. The feeling is that by having limits on what candidates and elector organizations can spend, it levels the playing level and better enables participants to be part of the democratic process.

Our minister’s current mandate letter refers specifically to legislation around expense limits. You’ve been given your terms of reference, in terms of the two phases that are part of your task. The intent is that expense limits will be in place for the 2018 local elections. I should note that the vehicle for doing that will be through legis-
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lation and, we also anticipate, through regulations as well.

In terms of the guiding principles for local elections reform, the task force used these principles in their deliberations. I think it’s fair to say that they were really a touchstone for the task force. They often needed to balance the principles against one another.

For example, in looking at accountability and transparency, there was a need to balance those things with flexibility and efficiency. If you tilted too much one way or the other, you wouldn’t achieve a balance. You would sacrifice one for the other. For example, the benefits of consistency with federal and provincial elections legislation in the area of campaign finance had to be weighed against balancing the diversity of communities in B.C.

We’ve also got, at the bottom of this slide, a short summary of some of the significant milestones in campaign finance in B.C. from a local elections perspective. In 1993 there was a major modernization that included both elections administration and campaign finance changes. In 1999 the campaign finance system was strengthened. That was when the requirement to open a campaign finance bank account was implemented, along with more detailed reporting of campaign financing.

In 2008 there was a new category of regulated participants created, called campaign organizers. Unfortunately, that created some confusion and non-compliance and was actually one of the factors that led to the creation of the UBCM–provincial government task force in 2009. Then of course, in the spring of 2014 the adoption of LECFA was a major milestone and a significant change to local elections campaign finance.

In terms of the legislation governing local elections, the Local Government Act — with the parallel provisions in the Vancouver act — essentially governs the administration of local elections.

Prior to the passage of LECFA, a number of campaign finance provisions were in the Local Government Act. Those have now been pulled out and put into LECFA. As per the task force’s recommendation, LECFA is now a stand-alone piece of legislation that includes all of the campaign finance rules. The goal was that that would be a go-to place for campaign finance information and that all of the rules would be consolidated in one piece of legislation.

In terms of local elections participants that are regulated, you’ll all be familiar with this. Candidates, obviously, are regulated, and they conduct their campaigns with the goal of being elected to office. Some do so independently, and some do so with the endorsement of an elector organization.

Elector organizations are sometimes referred to as civic political parties. That’s a very loose comparison — as I’m sure you’re all aware, having been members of provincial political parties. Elector organizations undertake campaigns to support their endorsed candidates. Their names are actually shown on the ballot next to the candidates’ names, and there is a formal endorsement process.

Committee members who are from the Lower Mainland will be well aware of elector organizations, and some of you have run with the endorsement of elector organizations. But one thing to remember is that in the vast majority of jurisdictions there are no elector organizations, and the vast majority of candidates actually do run independently.

Then we have third-party advertisers, which could be individuals or organizations that undertake election advertising — which might be to promote candidates, or it might be to opine on specific issues. Third-party advertisers have to be independent of candidates and independent of elector organizations. They can be large, formal organizations — for example, unions — or they can be small, community-oriented groups, like the Greater Victoria Cycling Coalition.

I’ll just go very briefly through some of the key features of LECFA. The next two slides are organized according to the themes from the task force.

In terms of accountability, LECFA requires that third parties register with Elections B.C. This is a new requirement. It has existed provincially for some time.

I’m sure that you’re aware of the media interest recently in terms of Kinder Morgan’s advertising campaign that’s underway right now. The question has come up: should they have actually registered with Elections B.C. as a third-party advertiser? Third-party advertisers are required to record and disclose information about the money that they take in and the money that they spend. Generally, the approach is consistent with the provincial Election Act.

Another feature in terms of greater accountability is an enhanced solemn declaration. Candidates and elector organization principal officials have to sign a solemn declaration that they have made themselves aware of the new campaign finance rules in LECFA.

In terms of transparency, the timeline to file disclosure statements has been shortened from 120 days to 90 days, which is consistent with the provincial approach. Sponsorship information is now required on election advertising, which is the advertising that takes place during the elections proceedings period. So whether it’s a third-party advertiser or whether it’s a candidate or elector organization, they have to have information about who they are and where they can be contacted.

In terms of compliance and enforcement, this is really where Elections B.C.’s new role comes in. Elections B.C. puts a real emphasis on educating elections participants. They don’t want participants to be out of compliance. Together with support from this ministry and others, they’ve really been going all out in terms of an education effort that I know Parliamentary Secretary Reimer has also been spearheading.
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The offences framework has also been updated. For example, the timeline for starting prosecutions for anyone who does go offside is now 12 months — which, again, is consistent with the provincial approach.

Finally, in terms of education and advice, in addition to the outreach that’s been taking place to inform folks about the new rules, there is a technical advisory committee that includes representatives from Community, Sport and Cultural Development; Education; Justice; UBCM; Elections B.C.; LGMA; B.C. School Trustees Association. Those individuals all work collaboratively to identify any issues and come up with ways to iron them out.

In LECFA there are some key features that are relevant to the work of this committee, to developing principles for expense limits for elector organizations and third-party advertisers and to developing recommendations for the expense limits amount.

From January 1 to general voting day is referred to as the campaign period. During that time candidates and elector organizations need to keep track of their election expenses. That information actually gets filed on the disclosure statement. Contributions received by candidates are actually horizonless, so they have to be reported and disclosed regardless of when they were received — before, during or after that campaign period.

The election proceedings period is the 46-day period prior to general voting day. It starts at the beginning of the nomination process and, obviously, ends on general voting day. During that time the rules about election advertising are in effect. That’s when the sponsorship information needs to be on advertising. That’s when third-party advertisers need to be registered with Elections B.C.

Finally, after general voting day there is a 90-day period, as I mentioned earlier, in which candidates can file their disclosure statements. There’s also an additional 30-day late-filing period, where they can file disclosure statements late, upon payment of a $500 late-filing fee.

This is the final slide in terms of the overview about local elections. It really links back to the comments I made at the outset. In terms of similarities between provincial elections and local elections, they’re based on similar principles: transparency, accountability. A lot of the rules are very similar in terms of campaign accounts, financial agents, keeping records, disclosure.

There are some key differences in terms of provincial elections and the legislation being party-centred, whereas in local elections the legislation in the actual administration of elections accommodates elector organizations. But it’s not built on the supposition that there are elector organizations for all local elections.

As I mentioned earlier, provincially, candidates from all over the province are elected to form a single government, whereas locally, separate elections are conducted by each local government for many different local bodies. So there are many different elections, as opposed to a single election.

Of course, the final key difference is that right now there are expense limits provincially and there are not yet for local elections. Hence, your task.

With that, I’ll turn it over to Alayna to provide a bit more commentary about expense limits specifically.

Thank you, everyone, as well. I’m sure none of what Heather went through is particularly newsworthy to expert committee members such as yourselves. But hopefully, having that read into the public record will be of assistance, too, to those interested and passionate members of the public that we know will be scrutinizing our materials and deliberations carefully.

In terms of what may be sort of the more newsworthy part of trying to set the context for your work in terms of building on the LECFA platform and understanding how scope and scale from a system-design perspective affect how the committee might make their recommendations, we’ll now talk a little bit more specifically about expense limits.

We have a little chart here with a sample of spending from 2011 elections. It is a fairly limited sample, because it’s driven primarily by those local governments at the time that actually posted their campaign finance disclosure statements on line. Consequently, it’s not very well regionally balanced. It’s a little bit tilted towards the Lower Mainland.

Then another limitation of the data presented in this chart would be that in the jurisdictions where spending was undertaken by elector organizations for analysis, the spending reported by the elector organizations has been split equally amongst the endorsed candidates — that is, the candidates who were endorsed by particular elector organizations — and then added together with the reported spending by the individual endorsed candidates. Obviously, that may well not very accurately reflect spending by council candidates as such.

In any case, what I think this chart does, despite those limitations, is hopefully paint an overall picture, a sort of snapshot of campaign finance spending as we presently know it. The chart shows expense data taken from campaign finance disclosure statements. Illustrated in red, the little, blobby triangles are 71 mayoral candidates. In dark blue diamond shapes are 475 councillor candidates, and in green, 46 electoral area director candidates.

Now, because we wanted to show on this chart a snapshot of spending for the entire province, the axis of the chart is very compressed in order to get everybody from Zeballos to Vancouver represented on the chart. It is a little hard, obviously, to see the detail there.

What I think that picture might help point to is that particular cluster in the bottom left-hand corner of over-
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lapping spending. What that basically says is that, you know, overall, in the majority of communities spending is pretty low. You can look in the sort of zero-to-10,000 population range and see it’s basically clustered together, with the majority well under $2,000 in reported spending.

M. Hunt: Before you shift off of that, I want to go back and get you to repeat something, okay?

M. Hunt: The numbers of dots that are there — can you give that to me one more time? I failed to write that down. I’m sorry.

A. van Leeuwen: The numbers. Yeah, 71 mayoral candidates are represented in the sample, along with 475 councillor candidates and 46 electoral area director candidates.

Okay, if the committee is comfortable with me proceeding, picking up on the one theme or trend appearing to be that overall spending is fairly low, another trend that you can see visually from the chart is that there are outliers in spending. That might be a particular candidate or candidates, any particular community spending much more than their competitors, or it might be a particular community seeing generally high spending relative to what you might expect in communities of a similar or comparable size. We could call that the outlier trend, I suppose, for short.

Another thing evident from this would be that in terms of differences between candidates for mayor and for other positions, you’ll see that, generally, mayoral candidates spend more than candidates for council, and candidates for council generally spend more than candidates for school trustee or regional district electoral area or parks board candidates.

If you look, as well, to the cluster of the medium-sized municipalities — sort of in the 50,000-to-120,000 range — you’ll see that in that area mayoral candidates spent considerably more than candidates for other positions in communities of those sizes. We could call this a sort of bulge in mayoral candidate spending. That’s basically the purple sprinkling around the 50,000-to-120,000 population range.

Another trend of note is related to elector organizations. Elector organizations are not at play in most communities in the province — in past elections, at least. Probably about ten municipalities and eight school districts in 2011 had elector organizations. However, where they were involved, there is a correlation between the existence of elector organizations and fairly high spending levels.

Obviously, we can’t say what the driver is there, because, again, a lot of those communities that had elector organizations are highly urbanized areas where the campaigning realities are quite different — for example, demanding mass-media campaigns. A simple door-knocking campaign is untenable, probably, in larger communities.

A. van Leeuwen: Okay, I will retract that. It’s not untenable. It’s hard work getting into condominiums.

In a very general sense, this graph we produced on our little sample of 2011 spending looked pretty similar to one that we produced on 2008 spending, in terms of there being the sort of blob of lower spending at the lower end and there being outliers. Naturally, who was who and who fit where changed from 2008 to 2011. In general, when looking at this data, it can be difficult to say whether there is a particular trend in campaign spending between the elections other than the sort of low spending in general and the outlier phenomenon.

Spending is obviously driven by a number of factors — individual choice and ability to raise contributions being a major one. But additionally, hot races — very competitive elections either with particularly strong or well-known candidates or a large field of candidates, or both — can obviously drive up spending in communities of any size, creating outlier communities where more might be spent than in a community of a similar size.

Basically, circumstances in different communities can vary enormously from election to election. There were certainly examples in our campaign spending samples where spending actually went down in the 2011 election relative to the 2008, perhaps because the mayor wasn’t challenged, or something like that.

Basically, just trying to say here that it can be a little bit idiosyncratic and very much driven by local circumstances, with the exception, I suppose you could say, of an apparent trend towards increasing spending in Vancouver from election to election.

Another finding to point out from looking at disclosure statements from past elections is that a significant amount of self-financing appears to happen in local elections. We didn’t investigate this in a very data-rigorous kind of way. It was just an observation that we came to in combing through the disclosure statements. In any case, candidate contributions to their own campaigns of anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars are not at all uncommon.

I raise this mainly because the method of financing campaigns may not be directly relevant to how you set the limits, other than to say that if candidates feel, for
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various reasons, that they need to fund their own campaigns, accessibility of running for office and the role that expense limits might play in promoting accessibility may be considered particularly important by candidates and other stakeholders that you might hear from.

Going forward, the second paper, which I believe committee members have received, is the background paper on expense limits prepared by CSCD. It does have an appendix in it with an additional little bit of number crunching and some trends — basically, what I just relayed to you verbally.

In phase 2 of the committee’s work, after the campaign finance disclosure deadlines in February and March, there will be, for the first time, a really complete, really comprehensive set of spending data that will be centrally located with Elections B.C. and, additionally, verified for compliance by Elections B.C. Accordingly, we will be able to provide more clarity on campaign spending, certainly in terms of the 2014 election, including spending by third-party advertisers, which are a newly regulated entity under the local elections legislation. For now, this graph provides a general indication of what campaign spending looked like in 2011.

To talk a little bit now about another one of the touchstones that’s guided the work on LECFA and the work that we’ve done subsequently around expense limits, it is, of course, the task force recommendation. It was the task force that recommended expense limits as part of their package of comprehensive campaign finance reforms. The task force believe, and articulated in their final report, that expense limits could increase accessibility and fairness by levelling the playing field amongst candidates, encouraging candidate participation and potentially reducing the need for large contributions to fund expensive campaigns.

In fact, the task force…. I don’t believe expense limits were explicitly in their mandate as an item that they were tasked to consider, but, rather, the public essentially put it on the task force’s agenda. They heard significant public support for expense limits and acted on it by making a recommendation in that realm.

In recommending expense limits, the task force was quite clear that they felt it was important that they apply to candidates, elector organizations and third-party advertisers. They additionally provided a bit more guidance, too, in terms of how they might be set.

For example, as touched on in the slide there, the task force wanted expense limits to be high enough to allow reasonable campaigns but not so high as to allow a few participants to dominate. They thought it was very important that expense limits work and are meaningful and effective in different-sized communities and that they have a neutral effect on candidates’ decisions to run independently or to create or join elector organizations.

The task force — beyond providing that guidance, though, of course — didn’t say what the actual numbers should be, although they did say that setting them in a way that reflects population size would be a good way to make limits effective and fair in all communities. Their embedded assumption in their recommendation was that a formula approach would be used. I say that because the task force report specifically said that they didn’t feel a straight per-capita formula, such as a dollar per capita, would work in small communities. That would generate a spending limit of $115, say, in Zeballos, and it might, in fact, produce spending limits that would be too high to be meaningful in Vancouver, with its population of more than 600,000 people.

The task force pointed to the need for some kind of a base amount to accommodate small communities in particular. The task force also didn’t specify whether different offices should have different limits — that is, mayor versus council or versus trustee or anyone else. They didn’t say how third-party advertising limits should be set, although they said that they felt their party limits were important to ensure that candidate limits would be meaningful — that is, that people wouldn’t start using third-party advertisers essentially as a way to circumvent their candidate spending limit.

Regarding elector organizations, they felt it was important that the limits design shouldn’t advantage or disadvantage elector organizations. They imagined a scenario where, if the expense limits design wasn’t done correctly or sensitively, perhaps inadvertently incentives would be created to join elector organizations, to split up existing elector organizations, simply to tap into higher spending room.

In deciding to implement the task force recommendations in two phases, government undertook some additional consultation or stakeholder engagement on expense limits specifically. The purpose of this stakeholder engagement was to seek views on issues and approaches to consider in designing expense limits.

The Minister of Community, Sport and Cultural Development issued a public discussion paper in November of 2013. In addition to reviewing feedback provided in written submissions from members of the public and other interested groups, the minister also met in person with the Union of B.C. Municipalities executive, the boards of the UBCM’s five area associations and also a meeting with representatives of elector organizations.

Basically, the consultation was geared toward making sure that a variety of approaches to setting expense limits were considered before any government decisions were made. Generally, as with the task force’s consultation in 2009 and ’10, strong support for expense limits was again evident. For example, representatives of all elector organizations who were in attendance at the minister’s meeting were unanimously in support of expense limits, although details of how the limits should be set or how
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elector organizations should be treated under such a system weren’t discussed in particular.

Basically, this slide and the background paper on expense limits that CSCD prepared for the committee’s information summarize in more detail some of the key themes coming from that consultation.

Subsequent to the end of the formal expense limits engagement period in January of 2014, some direct consultation was also undertaken by Community, Sport and Cultural Development with the Union of B.C. Municipalities and with the B.C. School Trustees Association executive. That was more to the specific question on the model of setting expense limits.

At that time both indicated that they didn’t favour any approaches that would involve local government setting a limit by bylaw. They did prefer that the province set the expense limits. Both organizations again emphasized that one-size-fits-all approaches would not be effective. But again, they didn’t provide a lot of specific detail on how they thought the expense limits should be set, other than to highlight those kinds of principles.

In terms of the expense limits model, hopefully we’ll address MLA Hunt’s question on this point when I cover this slide. Based on the trends that we could see in local campaign finance spending, informed by the task force’s direction and also by subsequent consultations during the expense limits engagement period, government selected an expense limits model, a basic structure for how expense limits could be set.

This is not legislated. Nothing around the expense limits model itself is legislated yet, although it would need to be…. That is, as Heather mentioned, we will need amendments to the Local Elections Campaign Financing Act to establish expense limits. Some regulations might also be needed, as well, under that act.

The model basically is meant to achieve simplicity and flexibility. The notion would be that for communities under 10,000, where generally spending is fairly low, a simple flat-rate formula could be established that would act as sort of an upper limit, kind of a ceiling for candidates in those smaller jurisdictions. Communities and jurisdictions over 10,000 people would be set in a population- or a formula-driven manner, the idea behind that being that we have a very large spectrum of community sizes to try to accommodate in designing an effective limit.

Provincially, all electoral districts have the same limit, but again, as stakeholders told us, government wanted to avoid one-size-fits-all approaches and also avoid unnecessary complexity, particularly for candidates in the smaller communities, who basically said: “Don’t overregulate us. Don’t make running for office so difficult that I can’t even comply with the rules.”

It’s meant, basically, to be a positive compromise between the notion of, again, going to balancing principles and not sort of causing too much complexity or compliance problems, but also recognizing the public appetite, amongst candidates as well, for meaningful expense limits.

In terms of third-party advertising, the idea is that a limit would be a percentage of the limit of a candidate in the jurisdiction where the third party is advertising. The intent there would be to make third-party limits proportional to candidate limits so that third-party advertisers’ limits are also connected to population. Basically, if you were to tie the third-party limit to a candidate limit, you’re achieving a sort of a proxy for tying third-party limits to the population if the candidate limits themselves are population-driven — again, basically just trying to balance simplicity with flexibility.

In terms of trying to explain how the committee’s work might relate to the work that has already been done to date, it might be helpful to imagine expense limits as a sort of a structure with interrelated parts. Because government chose to do campaign finance reform in two phases, with expense limits as the second phase after the 2014 elections, the Local Elections Campaign Financing Act was drafted with consideration for adding limits in later. That means there are some existing core concepts in the act that can serve as a foundation for expense limits.

As one example, as explained earlier on slide 11 with the time periods illustration, the 46-day election proceedings period would probably be a logical time period for the expense limits to be in effect. It’s already a defined concept in the Local Elections Campaign Financing Act.

When we talk more in depth about third-party advertisers in subsequent discussions, more of those core concepts that are already regulated or legislated in LECFA will be explained in further depth.

Government’s direction on the model for expense limits is also an important part of the framework for expense limits, so basically to take it up a notch and build on the core concepts. That would provide a general structure for how to set limits.

Then further, the committee’s recommendations on elector organizations and on third-party advertising, as referenced in the phase 1 component of your terms of reference, represent significant components of the framework rules for expense limits.

Now, by framework here, we’re basically trying to say the sort of trappings of the system that make expense limits work, that tell candidates and elector organizations how to work together and how to administer the rules; to close loopholes and that basically just make an effective system.

Direction on key issues around elector organizations and third-party advertising will materially impact how the additional supporting rules for expense limits would work. As an example, rules for how elector organizations and endorsed candidates share responsibility for not overspending a limit would be part of the framework
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rules, as we’re characterizing them. But what those rules need to look like, again, will be strongly affected by the committee’s recommendation on how to treat elector organizations under an expense limits system.

Expense limits — by that, I mean the actual numbers themselves, the limits amounts — are probably primarily a question for phase 2 of the committee’s work, although your recommendations on phase 1 issues could very much influence the way you approach the phase 2 issues — sort of the nature and scope of questions that you’re dealing with in phase 2.

While government does have a chosen general model for setting expense limits — that’s the flat rate for jurisdictions under 10,000 and a formula-based approach for those over 10,000 — it should be noted that government hasn’t made determinations on questions such as whether candidates for different offices should have different expense limits or what the limits themselves should be.

Just as an example, mayors’ races, as we saw in the earlier chart, tend to see higher spending. In jurisdictions where they do have local elections expense limits, it’s fairly typical for mayoral candidates to have a higher spending limit, although how much higher that is than a council candidate in the community may vary.

Questions of that nature — the relationship between limits for different offices — would be relevant parts of phase 2 considerations around recommending actual expense limits numbers.

Again, to just pick up a little more on the previous slide and talk more about how phase 1 and phase 2 might connect together. Papers prepared by the ministry on elector organizations and third-party advertisers — and, as well, additional presentations that CSCD has prepared, if the committee chooses to be briefed on them — will provide more detailed context and more focused considerations that might be relevant to making recommendations on the principles for elector organizations and third-party advertisers.

Basically, we do have additional material and context that might be of interest to the committee around those particular policy issues.

Direction on the principles and desired objectives around those two very crucial and very complex types of participants in the local elections system can assist in informing both the development of framework rules — and the drafting of legislation to put those framework rules into legal language — and also informing the second phase of the committee’s work in dealing with the actual numbers.

Just to summarize that, I would say phase 1 recommendations will have, to some degree, an impact on what policy issues end up being part of your phase 2 deliberations. I will close it with that and turn it back to the Chair.

M. Hunt: My ears are hearing two different sets of timelines, and I’d like to be clear on what timelines were theoretical. Or is that, again, part of the deliberations of this committee?

If we go to the first presentation, where we deal with the LECFA timelines, the LECFA timelines start in January. If my memory serves me correctly, you said that from January 1 till the election day — which was November 15 this year — is called election expenses. Then you said there was the election proceedings period, which is the 46 days which you referred to as advertising issues, that sort of stuff.

Now when we come to election expenses, all of a sudden we’re only talking about…. From the second presentation, it tells me 46 days, election proceedings. Is this committee going to determine what’s actually going to be covered in the timeline? Is that something that we’re supposed to be making a recommendation on? Or are you telling us that one of those two is what we’re supposed to be dealing with?

I see them as very, very different issues and very different stuff. If all we’re dealing with is the little red circle, the red section of the EPP, I can guarantee you that the numbers are going to be completely different from what you showed on your delightful graph of the 2011 election. The numbers will be totally, absolutely different.

H. Brazier: In terms of what is disclosed now…. Lesley, can you speak to the time period that’s covered?

L. Scowcroft: In the campaign period, as you mentioned, election expenses, primarily, are tracked and disclosed from January 1 to general voting day. That time period hadn’t changed from the Local Government Act, from what was previously there. It was just basically given a name and put on there.

The election proceedings period was meant to kind of reflect, I think, if I’m going to make a comparison, the campaign period in the Election Act, where rules about third-party advertising kick in.

If a third-party advertiser wants to undertake election advertising during that time period, they need to register with Elections B.C. For third-party advertisers it’s the same. For contributions, there’s no time horizon, like candidates and elector organizations. If they receive a contribution for third-party advertising outside of that period, it also has to be recorded and disclosed.

Again, their advertising costs undertaken during that time period are disclosed on their disclosure statement. That’s also the time period when sponsorship information kicks in, much like for third-party advertising at the provincial level during that campaign period.

I think, in looking at LECFA, that period kind of lends itself to a time within which expense limits could be con-
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sidered for candidates, elector organizations and third-party advertisers — again, the comparison being that campaign period at the provincial level — so that the disclosure actually takes place throughout that whole year for candidates and EOs in terms of their expenses. But the expense limits could potentially apply just during that 46-day election proceedings period.

L. Scowcroft: Yes, absolutely. That’s right, and that is a difference between the…. There’s the campaign period and the pre-campaign period.

M. Hunt: Yes. You have exactly the same thing in municipal. It’s the real world.

L. Scowcroft: The reason is that the 46-day period, the election proceedings period, mirrors the local government elections kind of administration. That’s the start of the nomination period for candidates. This year it was September 30 when you start and file your nomination documents. That runs till October 10, and then it ends. That’s kind of the idea of the heightened campaigning occurring during that time.

That’s also when the 46 days before general voting day…. The start of the nomination period is also when elector organizations file their endorsement documents.

The systems are different. To tie it to what made sense within the local government system that exists, LECFA does have that period right now as the time period within which third-party advertising is regulated. So right now we’re in that election proceedings period for the general local election, and a third-party advertiser would need to register. Right now sponsorship information is required.

But there was no kind of…. That’s, I guess, a difference between provincial and local systems. It is kind of laid out, in terms of administration, a bit differently. For the local elections context, that’s what was decided upon for what’s in the legislation at the moment.

M. Hunt: So for an electoral organization, per se, they’re going to be submitting two sets of forms then. They’re going to send one set of forms, which is their election expenses, which is January to the voting day. Then, as far as we’re concerned, or this committee is concerned, they’ll be submitting a second report that actually deals with what are election expense limits — because that’s the period of time we’re talking about — versus their real election expenses.

L. Scowcroft: Right now, in the election proceedings period, there are actually election proceedings period expenses. They’re a subset of your election expense, and that was kind of, again, due to that heightened campaigning.

The disclosure statements right now that an EO or a candidate would need to fill in will have your campaign period expenses, which are your January 1 to general voting day, and then there’s also a subset of those expenses that capture your expenses during the election proceedings period.

L. Scowcroft: On the disclosure statement right now, they are kind of broken into two sets. Just to note, those are overlapping periods at the moment in the Local Elections Campaign Financing Act in that you will be recording election expenses for that 46-day period and then recording your election proceedings period expenses.

S. Robinson (Deputy Chair): Just following up on MLA Hunt’s question and making sure that I, too, understand the context. Much like in provincial elections, where we have the pre-campaign and campaign period…. I mean, we’re changing language all the time, but really there’s pre-election and election. We have what here we call the election proceedings period, but really it’s the election period versus the pre-election.

When we consider expense limits, we could do it in that framework as well. There could be expense limits in the pre-campaign period and the campaign period, much like we have provincially. That would be something that we should turn our minds to as we think about this. Is that how I’m understanding it?

J. Kwan: I’m wondering. Do we have any information comparing what we do here in British Columbia versus other jurisdictions in terms of spending limits or requirements?

H. Brazier: We do, and I believe some of that information is in one of the background papers. Did we include…?

A. van Leeuwen: Yes, we did. The background paper No. 2, excitingly entitled “Expense Limits in B.C. Local Elections,” has an appendix which provides a very brief summary of those other jurisdiction in Canada that have local elections expense limits — how they’re set, what the formula is. But it is, again, preceded by some caveats
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around comparability around the limits amounts. That is largely driven by the fact that many other provinces use ward systems, so it can be hard to say what Ontario’s limit would look like here.

M. Hunt: Just to confirm — back on slide 17 — the 10,000 number is not a legislated number, so it’s a number that this committee can in fact deal with or make recommendations to the Legislature concerning.

Secondly, when you talked about it working well for third-party advertisement, the words were used as a percent of a candidate. But this committee also would have the ability to change that and make that a percent of an organization.

That’s all within our purview to decide what we think. If it’s going to be done as a formula of a something, we get to choose or make recommendations as to what that something is.

H. Brazier: I guess the way I would put it…. This will be something of a bureaucratic response. This is the current direction from government, and I believe it’s an issue for the committee if it wishes to make recommendations which suggest a different path.

I note that Alayna mentioned there was further information if the committee so wished. We certainly will take that into consideration. Through Kate, we’ll be looking at that and letting you know as quickly as possible.

We’ll take a short, five-minute break, and then we’ll come back together — a recess.

J. Tegart (Chair): I’d like to acknowledge that MLA Sullivan has joined us. Welcome.

J. Tegart (Chair): The next item on the agenda is the proposed schedule of meetings and consultations.

Kate and I met last week just to talk about what meeting schedules might look like and just to kind of rough out a list of groups that we might want to invite to present to the committee. By no means is that an exhaustive list or are we trying to set a schedule that’s set in stone, but at this time we’d like to perhaps take a look at the draft workplan and then talk about further information requests, who we think should be invited to present to the committee, keeping in mind our very tight timeline of the end of November for phase 1 of our work to be completed.

In essence, the committee’s meeting schedule that was discussed and agreed to by e-mail — I think it was just late last week — lays out a series of six meetings between now and November 19. Certainly, we recognize that those are challenging for members to accommodate with your busy schedules. I guess what we were trying to assess is providing you with a number of opportunities to meet with other ministries who may have expertise to contribute to your deliberations — including other ministries.

In addition, there have been a number of key stakeholders, obviously, who have already participated in various aspects of this process to date that you will also want to hear from. Some of those would include the Union of B.C. Municipalities and, I’m sure, the B.C. School Trustees Association. You may have an interest in hearing directly from electoral organizations. There would be a number of those that are also very active and busy at this time of year doing other things, but should you have an interest, we can certainly extend an invitation to them to participate.

You may also wish to consider contacting any number of third-party advertising sponsors, organizations that have been active on that front. There are also, of course, a number of public interest advocacy–type groups and even an academic expert, perhaps, for your consideration.

But at this point, just given the tight timelines ahead of the committee, I’d certainly welcome any thoughts that you might have in terms of how you would like to use the meeting time available, recognizing that probably by the House break week in November, ideally, we would want to have had you collect all the information that you might be requiring at that point in time to enable us to assist you with the preparation of a draft report — which, as you know, is required to be presented to the Legislature no later than November 27, pursuant to the terms of reference.

Just some general, I guess, outlines there with respect to some of the elements of consultation that you might be undertaking. We certainly welcome your input and advice along the way.

S. Robinson (Deputy Chair): One of the things that I’d be interested in…. We have a bit of background from other provinces about how they set limits, but I would hate to just limit ourselves to a handful of other provinces. I’d be very interested in other places around the world,
[ Page 12 ]
like Australia or Great Britain, and how they manage expense limits, rather than just limiting ourselves. We don’t have a lot of choice, given just a handful of provinces, so why limit ourselves? If we could get a bit of information, that would be helpful.

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of Committees): I’m certain that the ministry would perhaps have some resources to be able to assist us with that. In our office, through Helen, we’ll be able to provide any research that the committee members require, but we’d certainly look to the ministry to see if they could help us with some cross-jurisdictional comparisons of that kind.

H. Brazier: Sure. We’d be happy to connect with the Clerk’s office in terms of putting some information together.

M. Hunt: My understanding is that in the first phase we’re dealing with basically the framework rules or principles, and then we actually deal with numbers in the second set. Again, sort of rolling off the two presentations of today, we’ve got a set of guiding principles, which is sheet 6, which were the guiding principles of local election reform, which was consistency, efficiency — all those good things. Then on 15 we had task force direction on expense limits — being reasonable, workable and neutral.

Are those part of what were actually asked going…? What is the question we’re asking the stakeholders, I guess? For phase 1, what are the questions we’re asking the stakeholders?

I would find that an interesting one, particularly the potential discussion of the “neutral” concept, which I find impossible — absolutely, totally impossible. This was written by someone that either hasn’t been involved in local elections or comes from a smaller community. In larger communities there’s no such animal as neutrality in the amount of money that’s being spent as to whether you’re going to run as an independent or you’re going to run with a group. The size of your community determines that, to a great degree.

I’m wondering about these concepts. Is it during this process that we should be asking those questions of the stakeholders because that’s then going to determine what we’re going to do as far as the numbers are concerned?

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of Committees): If I might, just subject to the direction of the committee, my recommendation would be to contact any groups, including electoral organizations, which you may want to consult with directly in terms of phase 1, third-party advertisers. I would probably, as a starting point, use the language of your terms of reference as that primary outreach to them to invite their input and also ask them to comment further on any other principles that they may wish to recommend for the consideration of the committee.

The committee can supplement its work here that it’s been tasked to do. If there are other principles that you want to build into that initial contact with interested stakeholders, we’d be delighted to incorporate those into an invitation for them to participate in your process. But I would use the terms of reference as a starting point for that discussion.

M. Hunt: Okay. I just see a one-week turnaround being a really short time for electoral organizations that are all just getting themselves geared up and into the election. “Whew, we just got the nomination day over, and now we’re working on the advertising. We’re working on the signs. We’re working on the brochures. We’re working on the door-knocking.” Yes, door-knocking in large communities does actually happen. But anyhow, they’re focused on that, and to sort of give them one week that says, “Hey, a week from now we’re having a meeting,” is going to be tight for them.

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of Committees): If I might, I would suggest that the committee turn its mind to establishing, perhaps, a deadline for receiving input. You can consider, for example, opportunities to meet face to face with key organizations in the weeks ahead and to ask them questions on the record through a discussion of these matters.

Perhaps it would be helpful to identify that week of the Remembrance Day sitting-break week as one of the opportunities to close out the call for submissions. On your proposed schedule I think we have Thursday, November 13, as the final face-to-face meeting. Perhaps that Friday, November 14, becomes the deadline, where you actually close out your call for input. There would be a provision of an opportunity, then, for more time to be available for some groups.

M. Hunt: If I compare that to your draft workplan, that’s already after the deliberations. So we’ve deliberated, and we haven’t even heard from them.

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of Committees): That was a preliminary document that presumed that we would be starting earlier than we have. I do admit that the dates on here are not necessarily what would guide our discussion this afternoon but rather the various steps of your workplan and how you’d like to see those unfold. It’s very much in your hands at this time.

M. Hunt: I would expect that most of the electoral organizations are here on the Lower Mainland, so they’re relatively easy to communicate with back and forth. But I would be very interested to find out how many more electoral organizations there are outside the Lower Mainland. I’m simply unaware.
[ Page 13 ]

S. Sullivan: Regarding a comparison with different jurisdictions, I would be more interested in seeing west coast U.S. cities. Generally, east coast North America does ward systems, west coast does at large, so we would be better off for electoral assistance.

S. Robinson (Deputy Chair): I think MLA Hunt raises a very important point around timing. Here we are in the heart of election season for local governments, and we’re saying we want to hear from them. We want to hear from electoral organizations and want to hear from stakeholders, who are all very focused on elections. I actually worry that we’re not going to hear from them. If I were involved in an electoral organization in trying to get my candidates elected, I wouldn’t pay any attention to this committee right now. I’d be focused on there.

I want to know what capacity we have in terms of this deadline — which is the 27th, but it’s right after the election — about possibly stretching it out so we could have time to receive that information from people who could actually give us a proper assessment and share with us their thoughts.

J. Tegart (Chair): As someone who doesn’t work with electoral organizations, my understanding was that many are not active after the election period is over for local elections. But we know the timeline is really tight. Is it the wish of the committee to look at the end date and request?

At this point November 27 is the date, and our hope was that we could give enough notice that they would have time to either prepare something in writing or come and present to the committee while they’re very active.

L. Reimer: The feedback that was received from the minister’s consultation with elector organizations — I don’t see that in these documents. Now, I may have missed it, but we got those elector organizations from the previous 2011 election, right? There are a number of new electoral organizations that will crop up in this election that we’re having in 2014. I would like to see some of that actual documented feedback other than just the summary, if we have it. Do we have it?

H. Brazier: Minutes were not taken at the meetings that were done as part of the minister’s consultation process. In a summary fashion, the themes and main points that came out of those meetings are reflected in the document that you have called Summary Report on Expense Limits Engagement.

If you wish to have us present on elector organizations, we can provide you with a sense of what was discussed during the minister’s meeting with the elector organizations.

L. Reimer: That’s one piece of information I’d like have before we talk about what to do about any deadlines and that sort of thing.

J. Tegart (Chair): Just for clarification, I think at this point we’re talking…. We have a deadline that we have to meet at this point. Our planning should reflect that we’re working from that deadline to get our work done.

If the ministry has information that they can share with us during one of these scheduled meetings in regards to electoral organizations, that would be very helpful to this group. As MLA Reimer said earlier, there was some consultation done previously, and it would be helpful to know what the response was during that time.

M. Bernier: I just wanted to remind…. I guess this is just phase 1 as well, right? So I’m trying to understand this as well. We’ve got these timelines. We try to put the call out for submissions, the call out for communications. But looking at phase 1 under the terms of reference, we’re establishing the principles of establishing expense limits and the principles of the relationship, which in my opinion kind of leaves it open a little bit for further communication in phase 2. I’m not sure if I’m correct in that.

I mean, obviously, we have a timeline. We want to follow that. We have the deadline that we have for November 27. Instead of assuming that we’re not going to get submissions, let’s follow this, and if we don’t get them, then we’ve got some previous work that’s been done. Possibly we have the opportunities through phase 2, because we’re not setting any direction around expenses until phase 2 anyway, or the actual numbers around that until phase 2. Am I correct with that?

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of Committees): That’s generally my understanding, although I would ask the minister, perhaps, if they haven’t already done so earlier today. My understanding of the phase 1 referral was to support the development of legislation, which would be anticipated on a very tight timeline required for spring 2015 — hence the November 27 date. Is that correct?

H. Brazier: The general thinking is that there’s a lot of policy work. There’s a lot of legislative drafting that needs to go into the amendments to LECFA to implement expense limits. In order to get on with that, the committee’s time frame is, unfortunately, very short for phase 1. It’s really trying to — we’ll use that word again — balance the work of the committee and its ability to connect with key stakeholders and make recommendations, and then the work that has to go on internal to ministries and with legislative counsel to take the committee’s recommendations and turn them into policy and legislation.

M. Bernier: Okay. So if I can, on that…. I’m trying to understand the November 27. If we’re trying to get….
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What are we trying to get in? I guess your bureaucratic answer will be: “What are we trying to get in through legislation in the spring?” Because at phase 2 we have June 12 as a deadline, which has nothing to do with the spring session.

H. Brazier: The idea is that the legislative framework for expense limits won’t actually include the expense limits numbers. Those would be set by regulation.

H. Brazier: That’s a pretty typical approach in British Columbia. Expense limits numbers, depending on the approach that’s taken, may well need to change from time to time, and it’s a lot easier to change them if they’re in regulation.

J. Kwan: I’m wondering whether or not this falls within the scope of the terms of reference for the committee. I understand that we are to go about doing phase 1’s work in getting the principles laid out around spending limits and undertaking that work with the proviso and some understanding that there’s flexibility.

As we continue to embark on this work and as we set out to do phase 2 in terms of the actual numbers, which will also come with the November 2014 election data, that could also change things as well. If the picture shows something completely different on an assumption that we might have made to set out these principles, then there ought to be some flexibility to say: “Gee, things have shifted, and the reality is not what we had imagined it to be.”

Therefore, we may very well come back as a committee, even in phase 2, to say: “Sorry, those recommendations that we may have made, in terms of the policy and principles that were laid out for consideration, could shift, right?” If there is room to allow for that to take place, then I would assume that we can go about doing phase 1 to the best of our ability that we can, given the limitation in the scope.

It is strange to me, I have to admit, that the timeline…. All of the timeline is odd, in this sense. The minister is not at the table, so it’s not really your decision. I get that.

All of the thing is odd, because you’re not meeting the election deadline for this election. Then you’re talking about four years from now, and then somehow the deadline has to be within this year, within almost a 12-month calendar, to get it all in. In reality, you actually have a lot more time than that. If the idea is to get it in for the next election, you have some more time to actually do this work and do it properly without rushing it in. At a time when it’s an election phase, people are very busy, very focused with a whole lot of other stuff that they’re doing.

I get that Lower Mainland electoral districts are different than those of the smaller communities, and that might be different. We should actually understand those differences to better consider what even those principles and policies might look like because of the different nature of the makeup of the community and the size of the community and so on.

But with the limited time and our ability to actually hear all of the communities’ input, the only way to really do this work effectively, in my view, is that there be flexibility to allow for potential changes to the original set of recommendations that we would put forward. Otherwise, we’re kind of just stuck in a box that says: “Well, meet this agenda. Meet this timeline. Meet these terms of reference. Get the work done. It might all be meaningless, but do it anyway.”

I just want to flag that. If we understand it and if the committee accepts this as our goal, then we may want to go back and reflect that to the minister and to the House Leaders respectively so that they understand — right? — the frame that we’re working within and what it might mean in terms of the work that we’re going to conduct to try to meet the terms of reference.

H. Brazier: Just a couple of comments on that issue. I guess one is that the hope is that principles would withstand variations from one election to another in terms of what you see in actual spending from candidates, elector organizations and third-party advertising. That was part of the idea behind focusing on principles in phase 1 and actual amounts in phase 2. The principles would be robust enough to actually apply regardless of what happens on the ground in terms of actual spending.

That said, I think if the committee felt that whatever did come out of the 2014 elections in terms of actual spending — if the principles that you developed were, you felt, affronted by the actual data that came out — then that would be an issue for the committee to consider in phase 2. Then you might be in a position of having to say: “Well, based on what actually happened, we don’t think that principle A and principle B withstand the test of time, but principles C, D, E and F do.”

M. Hunt: I’m finding Jenny’s comments really interesting. I’m sitting here looking at the seven of us that are here, and six out of the seven are brand-new MLAs. So I’m sitting here looking at this, and just as you finished saying, I’m sitting here going: “Okay, we’re in this mad rush to get this legislation ready for four years from now, and we just finished passing, in the spring, the legislation for the Campaign Financing Act.” Well, that was just before the election, but that was okay. Now we’ve got to have this done four years early because we’re dealing only with the little, tiny 30- or 43-day period.

Anyhow, what I think is critical at this time, though, is that input, because at least the organizations are alive and well. I know the ones in Surrey, if I go to our Surrey
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history…. Unlike the two or three big organizations that you have here in Vancouver, in Surrey ours basically go into hibernation.

Once the documents are filed X number of days after the election — they’re filed in there — the thing just goes to sleep. You have maybe one or two people that are the token organization across the next X number of years until the next election. That’s why I think it is important for us to try to get the information somewhere close to this period of time.

My question is: instead of the face-to-face, as you said, Madam Chair, can we have it as phone-in? I think it may be easier to get 15 minutes out of some of these organizations to just give us a phone call at a set time and talk to them for 15 minutes rather than them…. Well, I’ll pick on Surrey for the sake of argument. We have an hour driving in for 15 minutes and an hour driving back out. You’ve just taken at least two, three hours of their time, and this is a time when their time is extremely valuable.

S. Sullivan: Yeah, I was going to bring up some of those points. Now they are fully staffed up and they’re thinking about it, and their mind is put toward the issues of election, so it is a convenient time to actually talk to them now.

The other point is that there appears to be maybe a continuum of electoral organizations, where you’ll have this classic almost party structure where they’re running full slates and such. Then there are others that are almost like cooperatives or coalitions of smaller groups. They may not have the same longevity, or they may. But there seems to be a continuum along the way, and I think you’ll get different responses from the different organizations.

L. Reimer: I just want a clarification with respect to this calendar. For instance, the week of October 20 you’ve said meetings with stakeholders and experts. So that’s in Victoria, correct? That’s the week that the House is sitting. So we’re talking about Victoria here, right? We’re in Victoria?

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of Committees): Right. Two meeting dates are set for Vancouver, on November 12 and 13. Currently the rest of the time would be scheduled in Victoria. The Douglas Fir Committee Room is equipped with a telephone conference call system and a video conference option. So pursuant to decisions made by the committee, we could certainly extend an invitation to any interested individuals to appear in person or use one of those other options.

J. Kwan: At this point the Legislature has given us a mandate, and this is what we’re going to go with. We’ll see what we can get out of it, whether or not we can meet the requirements. It’s usually not done, although there is the possibility of going back to say: “Look, this is just not possible. We haven’t received enough input, and therefore we request an extension.” I think in all my years that’s only happened one time.

That said, we don’t need to worry about that until we know at the end of the outcome whether or not people would be able to participate during an election period. It would be entirely up to them. It’s true while they are very focused, this might not be a top priority for them. That’s, I think, the real issue at hand.

Even if it’s after the period…. While it’s true that, I think, a lot of groups may well disperse, we also know our communities well enough to know who are the lead folks that have worked on these things. You’d be able to contact them in some way to invite input. But we’ll leave that for now instead of arguing about it, because it’s not going to make any difference for us.

If the committee — I think, generally, we’re all in the same space — would share these concerns around timeline and the pressure of trying to meet it all, in terms of the deadline, then we can deal with it once we get there.

On the question, though, around the November 15 week — the week of November 10, I guess — you’ve got Remembrance Day in there. And that’s the week of the election. I don’t know about anybody else, but particularly, I think, for the members who are not in the Lower Mainland, for them to take the time to spend two days here on that week might be a very difficult thing.

I’ll leave that up to the people from outside of the Lower Mainland to figure that out. I do think that could be a challenging period, just because that is election week.

I’ll leave it at that. Whether or not we can actually conduct that work is something that perhaps the respective members would want to sort of have a discussion about, and then we can finalize that date.

Finally, in terms of the meetings, all the meetings are in Victoria. I guess phone calls or call-ins are an option. Maybe that’s the only way to do it, because we’re all in the House while the House is sitting. But I also find, having sat on these committees, that it’s very difficult, actually, to have a real dialogue with people over the phone if you want to get into any in-depth discussion about anything. It just is very difficult in that kind of environment.

I’ll just flag that. Maybe that’s the only way we can do it, and we can get around it. I’ll leave it at that.

J. Tegart (Chair): Thank you. I can assure you that when Kate and I looked at the timelines, we looked at the opportunities for input, trying to provide enough time so that once we look at that list of people we would like to hear from, we have enough time to do that.
[ Page 16 ]

M. Hunt: You’re really not going to get them on a Saturday. That’s their prime day for door-knocking. Sorry about that, but it is.

J. Tegart (Chair): The reason we did the afternoon of the 12th and the morning of the 13th is to give people time to travel and to get home with one night. We know it’s tight. We are trying very hard to make it as meaningful as we possibly can, based on the tight timeline.

I think it might be worth our while at this point to take a look at who we would like to hear from. Who would we like to invite in? Kate and I did a preliminary list of people, of groups, that may want to make a presentation. We would love to hear from the committee if there are others that you think should be invited.

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of Committees): Yes, I’d be happy to distribute it. I will also note that perhaps the meeting schedule that has been identified should be adjusted to better accommodate the availability of participants. Certainly, we’re pleased to facilitate any changes that work for members’ schedules and for those that you’d like to hear from.

The meeting schedule that was circulated last week was simply a preliminary attempt to block off some dates, but we’re very much in your hands as to how you’d like to see the timing of this process unfold, with a view to the phase 1 report.

L. Reimer: Just to keep in mind that our legislative assistants have already started the process of making trades for those meetings, I believe. That’s one reason I’d be hesitant to start looking at other dates.

S. Robinson (Deputy Chair): Moving ahead and inviting these groups, I think, would be an important next step. But if we get a lot of “can’t make it; can’t make it,” then I think we’d need to come back and say: “Okay, what are we going to do instead?” I do agree with Jenny that it’s one thing if they’re just making a presentation, but if we want to ask questions and engage in a conversation, it’s just more difficult. I would prefer to have an in-person conversation.

I think we just go ahead. If we can’t book any times, then we have to rejig this.

M. Hunt: If I’m seeing this correctly — I just went through my calendar to make sure I got the numbers right — the next three meetings are actually all in Victoria, because the House is sitting. To me, it’s mission impossible for us to ask….

I was thinking of Vancouver, okay? This was my error. The next three meetings are all in Victoria. I would suggest that it’s a real challenge to have anybody from an electoral organization, because you’re taking their whole day. But just do it by phone.

Kate, once we identify the groups and we look at…. We’ve asked you to block off time.

As the groups respond and we look at the dates that they’re available and what that looks like, if we’re having difficulty, then the committee can sit down and talk about that. But at this point, if we can complete a list of groups that we would like to invite, then leave it up to the Clerk’s office to make the contacts and look at how it’s filling out.

If we run into difficulty, then the committee can sit down and discuss that. It may be that we don’t need the three Wednesday meetings in Victoria, but we do need the two days in Vancouver, depending on what the responses are like.

M. Hunt: Just looking at the preliminary list of stakeholders and experts, I would just think it might be an idea to almost go around the table. What communities do we know that have electoral organizations? Obviously, the ones listed here are in Vancouver simply because Vancouver’s are much better known. But what communities have electoral organizations that we know of? Again, they could be decided on, whether we go to the list or what.

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of Committees): I was under the impression that Elections B.C. has now a requirement for these groups to be registered, so our intention was to connect with them to receive a complete and up-to-date list.

J. Kwan: I was going to make this suggestion. On the whole calendar issue, maybe I can suggest that the Deputy Chair and the Chair of the committee perhaps go back and look at all the issues that have been raised at this committee and talk to both sides of the members to try and find some way to finalize a calendar and to bring it back for the committee’s adoption. That way we’re not sort of going around the table to say this day, that day, maybe that day, and so on. That might be the easiest thing to do, to just get that thing done.

Then in terms of the stakeholders list, I would also suggest that aside from checking with Elections B.C. as to who are the registered groups…. There may well be some groups that are not yet registered but may well be soon and will be coming onto the docket. I can see that in the Vancouver area there are two parties that are missing already, right off the top, that I know of. I’m sure there are others. I’m not 100 percent on top of what’s going on with all of the municipal groups that are running for office, etc.
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Maybe we can also take this away and then maybe send the information to the Clerk’s office and to the Chair on what other groups you might want to consider inviting. Then we can sort of get that finalized and get that underway.

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of Committees): If I might, we would be pleased to send out, as broadly as possible, notice of this committee’s work to all interested individual candidates and/or electoral organizations, at your direction. Whether or not you may consider it necessary to hear from any number of them in a public meeting format is a question that we’d welcome your input on as well.

Certainly, we can advise them of a submission deadline in November at a date that the committee will identify. But you may, in fact, decide to have both measures of consultation — public face-to-face meetings as well as the provision of written input. We can certainly develop a draft letter of invitation to participate.

The committee also has a website you may be aware of. On the parliamentary committees website there’s some general background information thus far. A transcript of this meeting will also be there. We can supplement any calls out, if you wish to advertise. So that’s an option for the committee. Other than that, we’d probably be supplementing notice on the committee’s website with some social media information that we’d invite you to retweet, and the like. So there are a number of options that we have to get the message out.

M. Hunt: I’m going to assume that Elections B.C. has most likely got e-mail addresses for most of the candidates now, since the deadline has closed. I would expect that both the organizations and the candidates are in a database that Elections B.C. has. I don’t think we’d be violating privacy and stuff because it’s all about elections, and that’s what we’re dealing with.

M. Hunt: Yeah, I know that. But I would think that it might be easy to send a letter, through the auspices of Elections B.C., to all of them and say, “Here’s what we’re about,” and do the written submissions back. I would think, in the smaller communities and that sort of thing, that it would be an easy thing to get e-mails back from them.

L. Scowcroft: Well, I have some…. Candidates file their nomination forms still with local governments. Then local governments are required to pass some of that information on to Elections B.C. — their name, their mailing address, and that.

I’m not sure if an e-mail address would be received by Elections B.C., just because it might not be part of the material that’s required. But I can check into that for you to see how that process works, to see what contact information Elections B.C. will have.

Everything still goes to local government, and then there are legislative requirements to pass some of that information on to Elections B.C.

J. Tegart (Chair): Just as a wind up to the conversation around schedule and invitations, MLA Robinson and I and the Clerk’s office will have a discussion about the input that we received from you in regards to who should be invited.

We’ll also take a look at the scheduling and do our best to look at how we can do this in the most efficient way and most convenient way, not only to members of the committee but also to those giving input.

If there are any information requests, please…. We’ll send out an e-mail reminding you that if you have information requests, we need to ask different ministries, etc., or our research person, to take a look for that information. The sooner we can get that, the better.

I would just remind the committee that we’re in two phases, so if we can stay concentrated on our first phase and not be overwhelmed by how big it looks but remember that we’re here to form some principles. We have good background information. There’s been good work done to date. We’re going to build on that.

I think we all recognize it’s a challenge. It’s a challenge that we’re up to. We’re going to do, as a committee, a very, very fulsome kind of consultation and pull it together to hit our deadline.

I’m looking forward to working with everyone and, particularly, to sharing the load with Selina.

Is there anything else from the ministry perspective that would be helpful to the committee at this point?

Thank you for the opportunity to start the dialogue, and we’ll look forward to providing you with additional information as and when requested.

Seeing none, our next…. We will send out an e-mail in regards to confirming. Keep it on your schedule for October 22. On our list we have identified some ministries that we have already had preliminary contact with in regards to sharing information with the committee.

So assume that October 22 is on, and in the meantime, we’ll look forward to hearing back from you and sending out the schedule as quickly as possible.
[ Page 18 ]

Seeing none, thank you all for your attendance today. Thank you for the presentation — very helpful — and thank you also for the background material. It’s great to be building on the work that’s already been done.

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Chair:	* Jackie Tegart (Fraser-Nicola BC Liberal)
Deputy Chair:	* Selina Robinson (Coquitlam-Maillardville NDP)
Members:	* Mike Bernier (Peace River South BC Liberal)
	Gary Holman (Saanich North and the Islands NDP)
	* Marvin Hunt (Surrey-Panorama BC Liberal)
	* Jenny Wai Ching Kwan (Vancouver–Mount Pleasant NDP)
	* Linda Reimer (Port Moody–Coquitlam BC Liberal)
	* Sam Sullivan (Vancouver–False Creek BC Liberal)
	* denotes member present
Clerk:	Kate Ryan-Lloyd
Committee Staff:	Helen Morrison (Committee Research Analyst)

Witnesses:	Heather Brazier (Ministry of Community, Sport and Cultural Development)
	Lesley Scowcroft (Ministry of Community, Sport and Cultural Development)
	Alayna van Leeuwen (Ministry of Community, Sport and Cultural Development)

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS(Hansard)

SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON LOCAL ELECTIONS EXPENSE LIMITS

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS
(Hansard)

SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON
LOCAL ELECTIONS EXPENSE LIMITS