Local Elections Expense Limits — Issue No. 2 — Wednesday, October 22, 2014 (HTML)

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

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

• Heather Brazier, Executive Lead, Integrated Policy, Legislation and Operations Division

• Dave Duerksen, Executive Director, Accountability, Governance/Legislation and Corporate Reporting

• Sarah Loveday, Senior Legislative Analyst, Governance and Legislation Unit, Knowledge Management and Accountability Division

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

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
Briefing: Local Elections Expense Limits and Campaign Finance	19
H. Brazier
A. van Leeuwen
L. Scowcroft
D. Duerksen
S. Loveday
N. Western
Committee Meeting Schedule and Consultation Process	37

J. Tegart (Chair): Good morning, everyone. We’d like to start the meeting of the Special Committee on Local Elections Expense Limits. First, I’m going to ask the members of the committee to introduce themselves, starting with MLA Hunt.

J. Tegart (Chair): This morning we have Susan Sourial, who is stepping in for Kate, and Helen Morrison, who is our research analyst.

I’m going to turn it over to our first witness, and that is the Ministry of Community, Sport and Cultural Development.

H. Brazier: Good morning, everyone. My name is Heather Brazier, with the Ministry of Community, Sport and Cultural Development. To my right is Brad Cox, who’s a senior policy analyst in the ministry, and delivering the presentation today will be Alayna van Leeuwen and Lesley Scowcroft. They’ll be speaking to you about elector organizations and third-party advertising specifically. The presentations support the two background papers that were provided to you earlier.

J. Tegart (Chair): Great. I would just like to say that we have quite a tight schedule this morning. We have until 9:50 for your group, if you can keep that in mind. Over to you.

A. van Leeuwen: Thanks very much, everybody. Thank you for having us again. Bearing the time in mind, we will try to be quick. Today we wanted to, as Heather said, get into sort of the heart of the committee’s terms of reference.

But before we do that, we did want to do a small piece of follow-up from last meeting, just to confirm what, if any, additional information the committee might want on something that we think we heard come up last week.

In terms of the follow-up, we want to make sure that we were adequately clear around the timelines that are in the existing Local Elections Campaign Financing Act and what that might mean for whether the committee wants to move forward with looking at any changes to that time period that’s presently contemplated as the time when limits would be in place and, additionally, whether any sort of a pre-limit or a pre-campaign limit, such as exists in the provincial system, is of interest to the committee.

We want to just clarify, again, that we have the defined concept in our legislation, of the campaign period. So things used in that period, which essentially opens with the calendar year of the election and goes up till voting day, are defined in the act as an “election expense.” Then, with the election proceedings period, things used in that period are an election proceedings period expense. So that is the 46-day period prior to the election that opens with the opening of the nomination period.

Now again, just to reinforce something we said last week, it’s a significant time frame in our act, because it’s when election advertising rules are in effect. Sponsorship information needs to be included on advertising by candidates and third parties, for example. Third-party advertising itself is regulated, so third-party advertisers who want to conduct election advertising during that time need to register with Elections B.C. before conducting their advertising and track and value their expenses related to advertising.

Then the election proceedings period expenses for candidates and elector organizations need to be recorded during this time and disclosed after the election. Those are essentially a subset of the election expenses.

Now again, to be clear, the LECFA does require election expenses and election proceedings period expenses to be disclosed separately but on the same form — so just as before, one campaign finance disclosure form after the election.

Conceptually, in working with the existing LECFA foundation, I think the policy intent there was that that would be a fairly rational time frame during which to have the limits in place, but we’re certainly open to hearing views on that.

We also want to emphasize another point that probably all the committee members would be familiar with from local and provincial experience, which is the really important concept that things used during that period are defined as an expense of that period. So if we were
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to layer expense limits in over top of that, things used in the election proceedings period would be the things that would count against the limits. Basically, you can’t go out and front-end-load your expenses in order to avoid the limit because of that very crucial use concept.

We do want to emphasize that, conceptually, there is transparency in the calendar year of an election in terms of recording and disclosing those expenses. Then there is the opportunity to, through that use concept, make sure that people can’t do tricky things with the limits, if I can put it that way.

Again, I just want to emphasize that the election proceedings period is consistent with the election rules in our campaign financing act. It is obviously longer than the provincial writ period but shorter than the combined provincial writ period during which limits are in place and the pre-campaign limit. So obviously, it doesn’t quite sync up with the provincial model. Whether that’s an issue for the committee or not, we’re happy to take your views on that, for sure.

The other issue I think I heard come up last week was the possibility of looking at whether sort of a pre-limit, such as exists in the provincial system, might be relevant. There would be some system design issues with that, possibly some legal issues that we would need to do further policy work and exploration for. We’re certainly happy to supply whatever helpful information we can to the committee around possible implications of a pre-limit in our system.

We just want to emphasize that we’d like to hear the committee’s interest in that flagged early because it very much goes to the framework drafting of the legislation. It would be a pretty crucial foundational rule, and it would further, also, link into your phase 2 consideration of expense limit numbers. Were you to have a pre-limit, that might affect your choices around what are appropriate and reasonable actual expense limits numbers.

In terms of proceeding, I’m not sure. I’ll defer to the Chair on this, as to whether we should discuss this issue now or table it and discuss it later. But we did want to just make sure we flagged that for the committee.

J. Tegart (Chair): Any comments or questions from the committee in regards to that?

M. Hunt: I’d be happy to discuss it later, because I think it needs to be part of the larger discussion of the whole thing — and then whether we see that as a significant piece or we don’t see that as a significant piece.

Also, keeping in mind that the sooner we can let staff know that the better, we will definitely be discussing that. Thank you.

A. van Leeuwen: We won’t detail today the history of how elector organizations came to be regulated under the legislation, how that emerged or evolved, or even how they’re presently regulated right now. We did provide the discussion paper, which helpfully provides some additional detail, but we’re of course happy to answer any questions or give more details, if and as the committee needs, as we proceed today.

Generally speaking, elector organizations are regulated in a similar way as a candidate. The campaign finance disclosure rules are the same — the same deadlines, the same definitions of expenses and contributions.

That said, we do want to emphasize that elector organizations and their endorsed candidates run campaigns that are technically separate for campaign finance purposes. Endorsed candidates and the elector organization that endorses them each need to have a financial agent appointed, though it can be the same person. Each entity needs to file a disclosure statement, even if a candidate or the elector organization didn’t incur any expenses or accept any contributions.

There are also some specific rules in the LECFA for recording and disclosing movement of funds between elector organizations and endorsed candidates. In general, there are few barriers to becoming an elector organization at this point other than having the required number of members and, of course, candidates who are consenting to be endorsed.

To make some comparisons to the provincial system. While elector organizations are often referred to as civic political parties and of course share some functional similarities in terms of what they do during a campaign — informing voters, mobilizing supporters and contributing to the public dialogue — and, similarly, political parties and elector organizations have a lot of flexibility in terms of how they set their internal policies on membership, platform development, selection of leaders, candidates and their key officials and staff, there are some quite pivotal differences in terms of the governance context in which they exist.

Primarily, there is no systemic role for elector organizations in local governance in the way there is with political parties and governance in the Legislative Assembly. Basically, the governance model of a council itself is not premised on a majority party forming government. I think that’s fairly obvious to everybody, but it’s interesting in that it goes to the confusion the public sometimes has as to what the role of an elector organization is in campaigns, versus in terms of actual governance.

I also raise these governance contexts to underscore that these contexts have likely shaped how parties and elector organizations are regulated under their respective legislation. I can’t totally speak for the provincial act, but I think it’s probably fair to say that their legislation is fairly party-centric, very much premised on the existing of parties, though it does accommodate independent or
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non-affiliated candidates. But our local legislation accommodates but is not fundamentally designed around elector organizations as a key premise for campaigns or governance.

In terms of elector organizations in practice, this is an interesting area and kind of a difficult one for us to comment on as public servants trying to support government’s policy-making process, as we don’t, obviously, have the direct on-the-ground experience. But what we do, when we’re trying to develop rules, policies and recommendations around this matter where we kind of by design don’t have a role, is to listen very carefully to stakeholders and, of course, to the elected officials, who have their own direct experience with this.

In addition to that really key role, consultation with our stakeholder organizations, such as the Union of B.C. Municipalities, and direct consultations with elector organizations and such have been really important and valuable.

Also, I should mention Elections B.C., too, in terms of the elections administrator’s perspective on how to design and apply the legislation. So observations we’d make are basically based on reviewing disclosure forms, media recording and listening to stakeholders.

In 2011 it looks like there are about 28 elector organizations in nine different communities, and those nine communities overall probably containing about half of B.C.’s total population. The only non–Lower Mainland elector organization we were aware of 2011 was in Victoria, although there have been elector organizations in other communities such as, I believe, Dawson Creek in 2008.

Again, there’s obviously a spectrum of approaches taken by elector organizations, and that’s basically by design because the legislation doesn’t go too far into how they design their internal campaign arrangements of candidates. But obviously you can guess.

If you see disclosure statements where individual candidates file a disclosure statement with no expenses or contributions, you could infer that the elector organization in that case is playing a more key role in doing the campaign finance organization, doing more essential direction, whereas others are much looser affiliations where candidates and elector organizations both share that responsibility for spending and raising contributions.

In terms of 2014 trends, it does look like we’re going to have more elector organizations, both in communities that have previously had them and in communities that didn’t. It appears that in 2014 so far there are about 60 elector organizations endorsing candidates in 18 municipalities, five school districts and one in the Islands Trust. Four appear to be endorsing only in board of education elections.

To give you a flavour of a couple of communities that are seeing elector organizations this year that didn’t in 2011: Abbotsford, Colwood, Coquitlam, Kelowna, North Saanich, city of North Vancouver, Port Alberni, Sooke, View Royal and White Rock all have an elector organization, or at least one active in this upcoming election.

I’ll reflect a little bit on what we’ve heard from elector organizations as that goes toward the committee’s deliberations on probably how to approach the consultation but also, more materially, to the terms of reference — how they should ultimately be treated or regulated under the legislation in respect of expense limits.

Through the task force, because of a very, very large agenda and a short amount of time, they limited the number of in-person consultations they did. They did talk to UBCM, BCSTA, Elections B.C. and the Local Government Management Association, representing local elections administrators and also to a couple of academics. The task force didn’t hear directly from elector organizations in that sense, though at least one of the members had run with an elector organization and had direct experience. And of course, all the members had their own knowledge and perspectives that they brought to the discussion.

They didn’t receive a lot of written submissions from elector organizations — probably less than ten in my count. Although those that did make a submission supported expense limits. Additionally, there was a unanimous city of Vancouver council resolution supporting expense limits and other campaign finance changes. In that sense, via the city of Vancouver resolution, we also got some perspective from people who were represented by elector organizations.

We also met directly with elector organization representatives last January. The minister conducted a meeting with them. In preparing for that meeting we encountered the issue, I think, with dormant EOs, some that had not geared up yet for the 2014 elections and some that were probably not going to. I guess they were defunct, essentially. We had some difficulty accessing them, but we did get 18 representatives of 12 elector organizations that attended.

It was very much a listening exercise. We took sort of a round table approach to going around and hearing what everybody thought their key issues in general were. And we didn’t do any direct recording or publication of comments made other than summarizing them in a thematic way in the summary of consultation report. We did receive some written submissions from elector organizations during that consultation period as well, some that attended the meeting and some that weren’t able to.

In terms of themes, there was definitely unanimous agreement that expense limits for candidates in elector organizations are important and a good thing. Smaller elector organizations were concerned that it is difficult to compete with the better-resourced and more well established EOs.

There was unanimous agreement from those who spoke or wrote about it or referred to it that third-party advertising should be limited, especially if candidates’ spending was limited. Definitely general agreement that one-size-fits-all approaches would not be welcomed, although there was a lot of emphasis on the need to gear to the realities of sophisticated urban campaigns, which is typically the context in which elector organizations are working in the more populated communities.

A few referenced specific support for a base-plus-per-capita formula approach in terms of being a potential good way to address the scale issue that we have with our varying populations. And there was, of course, interest in a variety of other issues raised too, although the perspectives on that were not necessarily unanimous — for example, some arguing for disclosure of expenses and contributions before voting day or arguing for contribution limits.

In terms of considerations, I’ve touched on a few, but I’ll try to summarize them and bring them together on this slide. There are a number of them that could contribute to the overall consideration or question of how to treat elector organizations under expense limits. One of those is views of stakeholders and members of the public.

Of course, elector organizations don’t exist in the majority of B.C. communities. They tend to exist in the larger ones. Some places, like Vancouver, have a very strong political culture of elector organizations as a key organizing force in their campaigns. This diversity of experience, from no experience whatsoever to a long history of elector organizations, certainly informs how people think and feel about them.

To people in many of B.C.’s communities, they’re simply not necessary and not relevant for campaigning in a small community. There is probably a stream of people out there too…. We heard this anecdotally, through task force discussions and submissions, that elector organizations are neither necessary nor particularly desirable, so they would prefer the campaigns to be more on an individual basis, more about individuals and issues and not partisan in nature. Some people see elector organizations as being civic political parties, I suppose.

Then, of course, others would argue that elector organizations are necessary, desirable and possibly both. For example, they help voters make associations between candidates, issues and policy positions; they can be really helpful in a large field of candidates; and they help with the costs of campaigning in large communities, maybe even making it possible for people who wouldn’t otherwise be able to run for office to afford to do so in a large city.

It’s probably these diverse perspectives on elector organizations that the task force had in their mind when they emphasized the principle of neutrality in providing the guidance that they did on expense limits. And of course, we have government’s expense limits model that we touched on in the last election. But aside from that very general approach to setting the expense limit amounts, I think there’s a lot of room to consider what the framework rules for elector organizations should be, hence the references in your terms of reference to looking at their framework rules and principles for them.

I do, before proceeding any further, want to make a clarification in terms of our use of the term “independent.” In the discussion to follow, we’re going to use the term independent sort of as shorthand for non-endorsed — that is, not endorsed on the ballot by an elector organization.

We certainly recognize that there are people out there who would definitely disagree that running with an elector organization means you are no longer independent. One quote from the submissions. A representative elector organization said: “There’s a misconception out there that belonging to an elector organization necessarily entails a loss of independence for the candidate. That depends more on the rules that bind the elector organization.”

As mentioned, the legislation is designed to be quite flexible to accommodate differing campaign practices, and as a result, we have a spectrum of practices. That certainly doesn’t mean that candidates aren’t independent in the sense of being controlled or directed.

Then, conversely, on the other side, candidates running with an elector organization obviously might be working more informally with a slate or be supported by groups in the community, so they may not be independent in the sense of being self-reliant.

But I do think it means a little something different to be running with an EO. The significance of being endorsed on the ballot and then the resulting rules, the campaign finance rules for elector organizations…. They’re different, and they’re a special thing. So we’re going to use “independent” as shorthand and just try to make things a little bit more plain-language, recognizing that it doesn’t mean you aren’t independent of mind and choices in your campaign, for sure.

In terms of a spectrum of policy choices for the question around how to treat elector organizations, I think maybe a useful starting point is the question: should neutrality regarding the choice to join with or form an elector organization and regarding how independent candidates are treated relative to elector organizations be a central objective of the design of the expense limits policy framework?

In many larger communities running with an elector organization is, in fact, sort of the default choice due to campaigning practicalities in a populated urban area and due to local political culture. In many communities running as an individual or with maybe a loosely affiliated slate is the default choice. But practical reality is, I think, the real driver of whether or not to join or form or run with an EO. The question we’re trying to look at here in
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respect of expense limits is what impact, if any, the expense limits design itself should have on that decision-making process.

I mean, generally it’s probably unlikely that the design by itself would change the tendency for B.C.’s largest communities to see elector organizations. However, depending on structural incentives in the design, it’s possible that more elector organizations forming or splitting, maybe even into technically separate organizations with a similar look and feel or brand, could result, depending on how you design the expense limits.

It’s probably unlikely, further, that expense limits design principles for elector organizations would have much impact on small communities. Here I can’t speak directly for the task force members, although I did have the benefit of attending and listening to all their meetings. But I think they wanted to make sure that issues of practical realities and choice around political strategy remain the driver of the choice of how you run, not incentives — accidental, purposeful or otherwise — that tapping into more spending room would present to a candidate.

The table that we’ve presented here and in the expense limits paper presents a spectrum of possible principles or objectives. That could range from a system that’s designed to be advantageous to elector organizations to striving for more neutrality as per the task force direction to you, potentially even discouraging elector organizations.

Consultations to date haven’t focused on the concept of designing a system that is either less or more favourable to elector organizations. That is, we haven’t done work around the farther ends of the spectrum. We have, in the work that we’ve done to date and the consultations we’ve had to date, been taking the task force direction as the guidance or the principle around which we would design the legislation. But again, the committee has a key role here, I think, in saying whether that’s the right track to be on.

Looking at the ends of the spectrum, in terms of being more favourable to elector organizations, a system framework that treats them more like a provincial political party in the sense of allowing them a separate additional limit over and above candidate limits would probably be more favourable to them and may give an advantage to endorsed candidates over independent or non-endorsed candidates.

In terms of being less favourable to elector organizations, we haven’t done significant examination of that concept, and we can’t say we’ve heard anyone specifically advocate for such an idea, although we also haven’t asked that question. Again, we’ve been taking the task force’s guidance as our starting point.

On the middle of the spectrum, in terms of options consistent with the task force’s neutrality guidance, there would be more than one way, more than one approach, to actually carry out a neutrality principle.

There are various ways that we could do that, in which we could get into more detail at a time that suits the committee. But something like having the candidates sort of sign over responsibility for expense limits to the EO would be one possibility. This appears to be what Quebec does in respect of how they regulate their local political parties.

Another — this is the area where we’ve done the most work to date — would be involving maintaining flexibility for elector organizations and their candidates to decide who will be responsible for what portion of the candidate’s limit. For example, they could agree to split the candidate’s spending limit 50-50 or by some other proportion.

What both of the neutrality approaches have in common is that there wouldn’t be a separate additional limit over and above the limit of endorsed candidates. We haven’t done in-depth consultation to this point on exactly what the precise best approach to carry out a neutrality model would be.

Just to try to animate what might be a confusing and packed slide there with our spectrum that we tried to illustrate, we put a few examples of policy questions that you could have in your mind or potentially use in considering how you want to approach stakeholders on this type of an issue.

Basically, these questions are a way of articulating the spectrum of policy choices in a way that would try to encourage exploration of the principles or get to that question: what’s the objective? What do you want to see the expense limits system do in respect of electoral organizations?

Just as a final piece, we’ll leave you with a note about the additional policy issues that further stem from the examination of principles for elector organizations. There would be secondary policy choices connected to the primary question of how to treat elector organizations.

On the slide we have a fictional example of an elector organization advertisement that, cartoony faces aside, is fairly typical of the kinds of ads that we really do see in local elections, or have to this point. The ad promotes the elector organization’s brand, and it also promotes specific endorsed candidates running in a couple of different jurisdictions: parks board, councils and school. Even in this ad we’ve shown the extra room or boost for a couple of the candidates, including the mayor.

With expense limits, we’ll need policy guidance and legislation that would set out how to divide up or value the benefit of this kind of ad. This issue might be important under a model that provided a separate limit for elector organizations over and above candidate limits, but the policy question posed by this ad — what we could call the sort of attribution challenge — is definitely important and a really critical part of the framework rules when it comes to the neutrality models in particular.
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We’re certainly not proposing to solve or debate this issue in detail today, but we leave this thought with members to acknowledge that we’re aware of the next level of complexity that comes out of these kinds of considerations and also just to flag why it may not always be workable to directly transpose provincial approaches onto the local system.

L. Scowcroft: For the rest of the presentation we’ll be talking about third-party advertising and considerations for applying expense limits to third-party advertising in local elections. I am aware of the time, so a few slides I’m going to go over pretty quickly and then focus on the slides in the middle that are the real kind of issues for third-party advertising.

First of all, as you know, third-party advertisers are individuals or organizations that advertise during an election to support or oppose candidates or elector organizations and their platforms or to highlight issues they feel should influence voters’ choices.

In local elections third-party advertising may take different forms, and often issues that a third-party advertisement speaks to are relevant to more than one jurisdiction. Third-party advertisers have been regulated in provincial elections since 1995 and, with the implementation of LECFA, are now regulated as a defined group in local elections. This is a significant change for the 2014 election here.

This slide also goes on to provide points about what the LECFA framework was informed by. The first was the task force recommendations. The task force recommended that third-party advertisers be required to register and disclose what they spent on advertising and who made contributions to them, that advertising by unregistered third parties be prohibited and that some automatic penalties should be explored for failure to comply with the rules, such as failing to file a disclosure statement.

Secondly, there’s the provincial approach. This also informed the framework and the legislation as the task force recommendations reflected components of that system — for example, the registration system. The ministry consulted with Elections B.C. to understand their experience with third-party advertisers and to learn about how the agency administers the Election Act.

The third point there is about the nature of the local government system, and we’ll talk about this further on. As we’ve discussed, multiple separate elections to many different government bodies are occurring at the same time. Again, the third-party advertising may speak to candidates in several of these elections, and issues on advertising, as well, are often relevant to several jurisdictions or elections.

I’ll just provide a quick example of how LECFA has been customized to account for the difference of the local government system. One is the definition of third-party advertising in the act. The definition of third-party advertising accommodates the fact that a candidate may be running for office in one municipality but own property and may wish to speak to an issue in another municipality or jurisdiction as a third-party advertiser. It does become a little bit more challenging due to the nature of the system.

Finally, there were constitutional considerations. LECFA takes into account…. For example, there was a check-in for regulating election advertising during the election proceedings period, and this was considered to be a reasonable limitation on freedom of expression.

The next slide provides a large chart. There’s quite a bit of text on this slide, so I’m just going to point out key consistencies and differences. The top portion is about the consistencies between the provincial act and the local government framework. Both acts regulate third-party advertising during defined periods — the election proceedings period in LECFA and the campaign period in the provincial act.

Under both acts the third-party advertiser is generally an individual or organization that conducts election advertising. That is a key part of the framework and a defined term. The definition, as you most likely know, is pretty broad and includes promoting or opposing a candidate or elector organization — political party in the provincial sphere. It includes public policy issues that are associated with candidates and elector organizations or political parties.

Third-party advertisers, again, in both frameworks must register with Elections B.C. before undertaking advertising during the regulated periods. Sponsorship information is required on signs during those regulated periods, and both acts also require third parties to file disclosure statements.

Now, there are some key differences at the bottom of the slide there. Those are really what I’m going to focus on. A key difference in LECFA is that it establishes or identifies two types of third-party advertising. There’s directed advertising, which is advertising that specifically identifies a candidate or elector organization, and then there’s issue advertising. Issue advertising is generally about public policy issues associated with a candidate or elector organization and does not specifically identify a candidate or elector organization.

These distinctions were made in the LECFA to differentiate between advertising that could be specifically linked to a jurisdiction by naming a candidate from advertising that was broader and could generally be more relevant to several different jurisdictions. I’m going to discuss these types of advertising in the next few slides.

I’ll just point out quickly that there are differences in contributions between LECFA and the Election Act. Candidates, elector organizations and third-party advertisers — with LECFA, what constitutes a contribution for them is consistent. That’s why that difference was made.
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Again, no time horizon. A significant difference is that expense limits currently apply in the Election Act and not in the local government framework.

The next part of the presentation will discuss the design of the expense limits and, again, those types. The reasons for implementing third-party advertising expense limits typically include preventing a way to kind of work around the candidate and party limits, or elector organization limits if that’s the end result, and ensuring a candidate’s speech is not drowned out during an election.

To that effect, government anticipates that third-party advertising limits will be proportional to a candidate’s limit in a jurisdiction. This just means, for example, a percentage of a candidate limit. This inevitably means, in terms of the anticipation, that a third-party advertising limit would be linked to a candidate limit.

Now, as mentioned, directed advertising specifically identifies a candidate or elector organization. Identifying a candidate on an advertisement links the advertising to a certain jurisdiction and, consequently, the candidate’s limit of that jurisdiction. Again, this concept was developed as a way to link an advertisement to a jurisdiction in a workable way. In accordance with government direction, the limit for third-party advertising that is proportional to a candidate’s limit could apply to directed advertising — that kind of concept.

Again, the second type is issue advertising. Because issues may be relevant to several jurisdictions, it proves much more challenging to link issue advertising to a jurisdiction’s expense limit. For an example, an advertisement that identifies building pipelines but does not mention candidates could be relevant to several jurisdictions in several regions across the province. One consideration is that issue advertising could be subject to an overall third-party advertising limit.

In the next two slides we’ll use fictional advertisements to highlight these two types of advertising and the challenges of applying limits in local elections.

Once again, we have a fictional ad here. This ad is an example of directed advertising. Even though directed advertising does tie the advertisement to specific jurisdictions, there are still questions to be considered here.

The ad refers to candidates running for office in two different jurisdictions, Victoria and Oak Bay. If these two jurisdictions have a different expense limit, the outcome would be that two different expense limits would be applicable to this advertisement. The question becomes about attribution then, with respect to this. That is kind of the question that could be asked with respect to the directed advertising ad.

The next ad is a fictional example of issue advertising. Again, the challenge here is that bike paths may be a platform issue for candidates running for office in several jurisdictions across the province. An example of this is also challenges that could be considered with respect to if this was published in a regional newspaper, and within the distribution area, bike paths were relevant to each of those jurisdictions. Again, how is this adverting then linked to all of those jurisdictions?

The question with issue advertising, and I think third-party advertising in general, is how to ensure that expense limits are applied in a workable way.

We talked about considerations for electoral organizations, and I’ll do the same here for third-party advertising. Besides just the challenges that we’ve talked about, there are other considerations. One of these is principles of fairness.

In its deliberations the task force considered that applying expense limits to third-party advertisers enhances fairness by ensuring that all third-party advertisers have reasonable opportunity to express their ideas. Essentially, discourse during an election should not be dominated by those who could overwhelm the ability of others to present their ideas to the electorate, such as through larger organizations potentially.

During the stakeholder engagement process conducted by the Minister of Community, Sport and Cultural Development as well during the winter of 2013-14, there was near-unanimous support for applying expense limits to third-party advertising and to connecting those limits to candidate limits.

There are also constitutional considerations. As you know, freedom of expression is a fundamental freedom protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. While expense limits have generally been found to be a justifiable infringement on freedom of expression, restricting speech for prolonged periods of time and the amount at which the expense limit is set could affect whether or not expense limits are considered justifiable.

The third point here is the unique nature of local governments. We’ve spent a bit of time talking about that so I won’t go into that further here. But again, those considerations of how the local government system is a bit different than the provincial system.

So I’ll take you to your last slide here. It just provides a summary of the third-party advertising portion of the presentation and potential policy questions that could be considered by the committee.

Just to recap again, current government direction is that the third-party advertising limit will be proportional to the candidate’s limit in a jurisdiction. A workable way to link third-party advertising to the candidate limit could be through directed advertising. For example, there could be an expense limit for directed advertising that’s undertaken.

A question that remains is: should there also be an overall limit in addition to that proportional limit? Having an overall limit would mirror the provincial approach in which there’s a limit in relation to a single electoral district that has comparable populations, and
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is approximately $3,000. Under the provincial approach, as you know, there’s also an overall limit. It’s approximately $150,000.

If there is an overall third-party limit, a further question could be: does this limit just apply to issue advertising, or would it apply to money spent on both directed advertising and issue advertising? Again, in all of these questions for consideration, the constitutional implications of applying different options for third-party advertising expense limits in local elections just may need to be explored throughout the deliberations.

J. Tegart (Chair): Thank you. We have about five minutes, if there are any questions or comments — ten minutes, actually.

S. Sullivan: Just about the issue of provincial parties versus electoral organizations. I don’t think provincial parties have any role in, say, the BNA Act or Constitution Act or anything like that. Parties in B.C. just came about in the 1900s, so I’m not even sure if there’s….

Well, there might be a relation there — that there is no formal role for parties in the governing documents of the country and the province, and neither are there for the cities.

A. van Leeuwen: We’re getting well out of my depth here, obviously, although I would just say that in terms of the parliamentary model of government, the group that wins the most seats — by convention, by common law and practice — becomes the group that forms the government.

Perhaps I overemphasized the distinction there in my effort to try to bring home the point that in a council, the entire council, or the entire board of a regional district, is the governing body. There is no government and opposition. This sometimes appears to be a source of confusion for members of the public in terms of how local governance works.

S. Sullivan: That’s the theory, but in practice there does end up being government and opposition. It’s awkward, because it’s not recognized.

A. van Leeuwen: Certainly, it ends up working that way in practice, I think, for sure.

S. Sullivan: That’s the point, that the party system in the provincial government is just by convention. In the Constitution Act they don’t mention the Prime Minister. There’s no concept of that. There’s no concept of parties. But by convention, we’ve developed these.

A. van Leeuwen: I suppose the tendency towards people voting along blocs in affiliation with their elector organization is perhaps the source of some people’s concern regarding elector organizations or why some people, perhaps, would not welcome the development of elector organizations in their community, because they would rather see people behaving in what they would view as a more individualized manner once they are at the council table.

Now, I can’t attest to the accuracy or validity of that, other than to say that we have heard that thread of that perspective or concern come out.

M. Bernier: Good morning. Thanks again for all the information. It’s a lot to absorb.

Around the third-party advertising, I’m just thinking, like, smaller communities, first of all…. A couple of things. How would we envision — in your idea, then — determining, regulating, monitoring and enforcing? I mean, these are a bit of a Pandora’s box here in a lot of ways, especially in smaller communities.

I’m thinking of the last local election in mine. There was one person who had a specific issue, and they put signs all around town. They never endorsed anybody, so it’s kind of like the issues that you’re talking about. That person wasn’t regulated at that time. They weren’t actually forced to disclose anything. If you talked to that individual, he said: “I’m not supporting anybody. I’m just putting my signs out, talking about something I’m concerned about.” What’s the thought around how we’d deal with something like that?

L. Scowcroft: That’s very challenging. That has come up even in relation…. Without talking about expense limits, but just the actual framework itself….

I think there has been a lot of kind of education to try and just ensure that people are aware of the rules. Typically, it’s policy issues that become associated with a candidate or elector organization. You’re absolutely right. Someone could think that they were just advertising their say. Once it becomes associated with a platform, it could be interpreted as election advertising.

I think how we’ve tried to…. There’s a distinction, for one example, in the disclosure statements. One is education, just in terms of getting the word out there with respect to the requirements. The second thing is with respect to the disclosure statement. There is limited disclosure right now if you spend less than $500 on advertising. You literally tick a box that says, “I spent less than $500,” and that’s your disclosure statement. More kind of fulsome disclosure for over $500.

It is a challenge. I completely agree with you. I think a lot of it is education. I think those are some of the issues that are happening right now.

M. Bernier: One more thing on that around trying to deal with some of the issues. You mentioned, let’s say, the pipeline. That’s not specific to an election. You have com-
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panies, let’s say, that could be advertising non-stop. They could be advertising toilet paper all the time, and all of a sudden toilet paper becomes an election issue. Do we tell them to stop advertising during the election?

L. Scowcroft: I think Elections B.C. will be able to maybe shed further light on this. But it’s not about stopping the advertising. It’s just about being aware that if that becomes a platform issue during the election proceedings period right now, that could be considered election advertising.

It could potentially trigger responsibilities. But again, that is, according to the legislation…. Elections B.C., to administer the act, does look at different things. I don’t want to speak too much to that, because I think they’re probably better positioned to do that. For example, is this an advertising campaign that typically comes out every fall?

So there are questions that are asked when looking at advertising to determine whether or not it is in fact election advertising. It isn’t cut and dry, but if it becomes a platform issue, there could be further questions asked, to say: “Is this election advertising or isn’t it?” So it becomes partly about interpretation, which again is a challenge when you….

I think it’s a challenge in provincial elections and even with respect to all of a sudden having numerous elections throughout the province. Absolutely. And those are challenges that the team has grappled with for a long time. You’re absolutely on track there.

S. Robinson (Deputy Chair): I really appreciated the presentation, and it is a lot to absorb in a short amount of time.

On slide 9 you went over some of the history about what we heard from electoral organizations historically and talked about the task force having limited in-person consultations. As we proceed in our work, at the time it sounds like there were just a couple of dozen EOs at the time. Is that…?

S. Robinson (Deputy Chair): And we heard from 12, so we heard from half of them during another consultation that the minister did.

S. Robinson (Deputy Chair): And there was a summary consultation report. Is it possible for us to receive a copy of that? Or have we received that in our packages?

A. van Leeuwen: Yes, I believe the summary consultation report has been incorporated in your packages. But again, the views that we heard are represented thematically, and I’m not sure whether it might satisfy your appetite for detailed information on what electoral organizations want to do.

The other thing to note, too, is that as we’ve consulted over time, the nature of the question that we’re asking or the subject matter at hand has evolved slightly as well.

S. Robinson (Deputy Chair): Since LECFA came into being, and now we have electoral organizations that need to register so we actually can sort of track…. There are people that we know who they are and how to contact them. Do you think that will help in terms of maintaining — I’m not going to say relationship — contact or knowing how to reach out to them in terms of when they’re active and when they’re dormant? Are we getting a sense yet — or it might be too early — about how to connect with them beyond the intense election cycle?

I’m just thinking about the work we need to do around meeting and hearing from these folks, and want to make sure that we have a way to do that appropriately and with sufficient time.

A. van Leeuwen: I think it would probably be fair to say they are sort of in system, certainly, until February or March when they complete their campaign finance disclosure statements. I won’t be entirely surprised if some of the electoral organizations that were formed for this election…. Depending on what happens in the upcoming election, they may disband, or they may choose not to form again in 2018. But I think they will certainly sort of be in existence as organizations, for sure, at least to the point to meet their campaign finance disclosure obligations. So they’ll be reachable, to put it simply.

M. Hunt: Two quick points. One, when we were talking about the campaign period versus the EPP, my thought there — just to give you the heads-up of what my thought was — is that if we’re not going to make an advantage for EOs, then the money that is spent during the campaign period should be included in the EPP for EOs. Okay?

Otherwise, to me, you’re giving an advantage to EOs. So that’s why, to me, having not just a disclosure but that being part of the limit because there’s a lot of work done there as far as strategies — all those sorts of things — although it’s not as physical as the signs and the media and that sort of stuff….

Yet if we’re not going to give an advantage to EOs and we want to be neutral, then I think what is spent in that period needs to somehow roll into what is the actual limit. That’s what my thinking is — obviously, to be discussed later, but just to give you a heads-up so you can think through the ramifications of what I’m thinking through.

To give you another cute little one — and that is deal-
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ing with third-party advertising — let’s deal with Kinder Morgan’s pipeline. Kinder Morgan’s pipeline is just merrily going out there doing their thing, the normal public consultation that they’ve got to do. Now, all of a sudden, we have a mayoralty candidate who’s on the radio making it an election issue. Now the issue becomes: where is the line? I just leave it float to be discussed later.

J. Tegart (Chair): We’re right on time. I see no further questions or comments.

Thank you very much for presenting again and for the information that you shared with the committee. I know you’re available if we have further information requests. We really appreciate the work that’s been done.

J. Tegart (Chair): Our next presenters are from the Ministry of Education — Dave Duerksen and Sarah Loveday.

Welcome. We have you until…. We’re running five minutes behind, so we’ll give you until 10:40. I’ll turn it over to you.

D. Duerksen: Thanks for the opportunity to brief you today. My name is Dave Duerksen, and I’m the executive director of accountability and corporate reporting with the Ministry of Education. Joining me, on my right, is Sarah Loveday. She’s a senior legislative analyst with the ministry.

Today I’m going to be providing you with a general overview of school trustee elections in order to demonstrate some of their unique features as well as highlight some issues that are relevant to the context of expense limits. For some of you, this might be a review, but hopefully the material I cover will provide the committee with a foundation from which to start thinking about expense limits for school trustee elections.

There are currently 60 school districts in B.C., each of which is governed by a locally elected board of education. School trustee elections are conducted on the same cycle as local government elections — previously, every three years, and going forward, every four years. In many ways, school trustee elections are similar to other local elections. However, there are some features of these elections that make them unique — for instance, the governing legislative framework.

School trustee elections are governed in part by the School Act and by the Local Government Act. For Vancouver, elections are jointly covered by the School Act and the Vancouver Charter. The elections for the Conseil scolaire francophone, the province’s only francophone school district, are unique in that they are governed by the Francophone Education Authorities Regulation, in conjunction with the School Act and Local Government Act. As you know, the Local Elections Campaign Financing Act, or LECFA, applies to all school district elections as well.

Board composition tends to vary district to district. The Minister of Education determines the number of trustees for each board of education, which may be set at three, five, seven or nine members, in accordance with the School Act. The Minister of Education also establishes whether there should be more than one trustee electoral area, or TEA, in a school district. In districts with more than one trustee electoral area, the minister determines the number of trustees to be represented from each area.

In the Lower Mainland many school districts have one trustee electoral area and elect their trustees at large. By contrast, some rural school districts have as many as seven trustee electoral areas. Generally speaking, trustee representation is proportional to the population within the TEA and also within the school district. At the present time there are 16 districts that elect their trustees at large. These are typically on the Lower Mainland in urban areas, although this is also the case here in greater Victoria. The remaining 44 school districts have more than one trustee electoral area.

The responsibility for election administration depends primarily on the geographic relationship between the municipal boundaries and the trustee electoral area. The exception is the Conseil scolaire francophone, where district staff, their secretary-treasurers, are required to conduct the elections in every ward.

In situations where a trustee electoral area is all or part of a municipality, the School Act requires that municipal council must conduct the trustee election.

When a trustee electoral area includes all or part of a municipality and a rural area, the board may request the Minister of Education to order the municipal council to conduct the election. In practice, however, there is usually a mutual agreement between the school board and the municipal council, preventing the need for the board to request an order from the minister.

In other circumstances, the board is responsible for conducting the election and will typically appoint the secretary-treasurer as the chief elections officer to administer the election on their behalf.

On the next slide is a map of the school districts. As you can see, the size and population of school districts would vary quite widely across the province. The map depicts 59 of the 60 school districts. The only one not captured here would be the CSF, the Conseil, because the whole province is the district.
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Generally speaking, urban school districts tend to be densely populated and relatively small in size. Urban school districts are primarily situated in the Lower Mainland and southern Vancouver Island and perhaps Kelowna. For example, the Surrey school district, which encompasses the cities of Surrey and White Rock, has an estimated population of over 524,000.

The Vancouver school district has boundaries that roughly correspond with those of the city of Vancouver and therefore has an estimated population of around 650,000 or more.

On Vancouver Island, the greater Victoria school district encompasses a number of municipalities within the capital region and has a population of over 218,000, based on 2013 data.

Rural school districts tend to have a lower overall population and are much larger in size when compared to their urban counterparts. For example, the Rocky Mountain school district covers a sizeable area in the southeast of the province and has a population of around 24,000.

In the north of the province the school districts cover vast areas and are very sparsely populated. The Stikine and Fort Nelson school districts together border on Alaska, Yukon and Alberta. Fort Nelson has an estimated population of around 6,000, while the Stikine has a population of 1,646. They have around 300 students, and yet they’re an area as large as France.

There are two general trends when we look at campaign spending of trustee candidates in previous elections. First, spending for school trustee elections is low, both overall and in comparison to mayoral and councillor candidates. Second, school trustee candidates tend to spend more in urban areas in terms of dollars spent than in rural areas. Also, there tends to be a high variability in spending, both within and between school districts. So they range between zero and around $20,000. Not many are above that.

This graph that we have up is hard to read from here, but you might be familiar with it from the first meeting. I wanted to include it today just to give you a visual representation of what we were talking about.

This chart is a snapshot of the 2011 candidate expense data gathered across B.C. It includes school trustee candidates from eight districts as well as mayoral, councillor and regional district director candidates. In red, if you can see that, are school trustee candidates, and as you can see, the spending is low overall. School trustee candidates tend to spend less than the other municipal election candidates.

It’s important that I reiterate that this campaign financing sample from 2011 is limited because it’s just a sample from local districts that posted campaign disclosure statements online. For the sake of the analysis, the spending reported by elector organizations is not broken out but is split equally and added to the reported spending — endorsed candidates.

Due to the fact that the school trustee candidates tend to spend less than their local government counterparts, it could be considered whether there should be lower expense limits for school trustee elections than for other government elections.

The trustee candidate issue was raised during government’s engagement process on expense limits. When the BCSTA, for example, was consulted, they cautioned that overly high expense limits for school trustee elections might become a disincentive to run for prospective candidates.

With the introduction of centralized reporting of candidate disclosure statements through Elections B.C. in 2014, a comprehensive data set of campaign spending limits will be available now to help better inform establishment of expense limits going forward. Moreover, the 2014 elections data will provide a clearer picture of the similarities and differences in the spending patterns of school trustee candidates relative to the local government candidates. This in turn will help to inform consideration of expense limits.

I mentioned the CSF earlier. I wanted to circle back to discuss it in greater detail. Aside from being the only district to span the entire province, the CSF is distinct in many other respects which are important to know in the context of expense limits.

The board members are elected from the membership of the CSF rather than the general public. CSF membership is dependent on an individual’s entitlement to have his or her child receive francophone education under section 23 of the Charter.

The Conseil scolaire francophone is composed of seven wards. Each ward covers expansive and sometimes very heavily populated areas of the province.

We have a few examples on the chart there to demonstrate the point. The greater Vancouver ward covers the combined areas of Surrey, Delta, Richmond, Vancouver, New West and Burnaby school districts. The estimated population of that ward would put it at around 1.7 million or more. To give you some reference for comparison, the Vancouver school district, which I mentioned earlier, has a population of just over 650,000. The neighbouring Burnaby school district has a population of 201,000 and some change.

The second example from the Lower Mainland would be the Fraser Valley ward. This ward covers the areas of Chilliwack, Abbotsford, Langley, Maple Ridge, Pitt Meadows, Mission, Fraser-Cascade and Coquitlam school districts. With an estimated population of 760,347, this ward has a large population relative to other school districts. The Chilliwack school district has a population of 89,321, as you can see, and Abbotsford school district has a population of almost 140,000.

Within the context of the CSF, government’s proposed
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per-capita approach for jurisdictions of 10,000 or more people would lead to very high expense limits for the CSF wards. Given the special case of the francophone school district, the committee may want to consider a tailored expense limit formula for the CSF.

I’m going to speak for a moment on TEA population data. While there is readily available population data for school districts and wards within the CSF, we have no similar population data available for existing trustee electoral areas within other school districts.

In order to establish expense limits in accordance with the proposed expense limits model, the Ministry of Education would be required to undertake work to obtain population data for each trustee electoral area. The implementation of expense limits will need to factor in the time and resource requirements for the ministry to obtain this data. We think it would probably take around six months of work and likely under $100,000 to accomplish that.

That’s about all we have today for our presentation. I hope that it’s provided you a brief overview of trustee electoral area elections and hope it informs your further discussion. As we move forward, the ministry is always happy to entertain any questions or provide any additional information the committee might find necessary.

M. Hunt: Two questions. The first one is dealing with the CSF. I’m just wondering why, when you only have a select group that’s allowed to vote, you would give us the populations for the Vancouver ward and the Fraser Valley ward. To me, it’s irrelevant, because the issue is: who can vote? Tell me how many people can vote. Tell me that there are 1,000 people, 10,000 people. Tell me how many people can vote. Then I can get that into my head.

Yes, there’s no question that it is unique, and I expect that the committee will deal with it as a one-off because it is a one-off. But to me, it’s much more informative to give me the number of people that can vote within those wards, or the comparative size. Like, one ward has 1,000 people; another ward has 10,000 people.

Something like that would be much more helpful than telling me the straight population. They’re not eligible to vote, so it doesn’t give me something to sink my teeth into. Okay?

M. Hunt: I think “yeah” is most likely the correct answer for that one, because I don’t think there’s a lot of discussion there. Correct?

D. Duerksen: Yes, what you say makes a lot of sense. And whether the expense limits would be based on the number of eligible voters for the CSF, compared to just doing it based on the number of people or the population within the ward…. Doing it from population within the ward doesn’t make a lot of sense because you get outrageous numbers.

M. Hunt: Absolutely. And I would agree, also, that on that one, we’re really going to need to see Elections B.C.’s numbers to see: how much did they actually spend? I have the sneaking suspicion that it’s most likely going to be a small number because it’s most likely going to be a much more relational vote, rather than an advertising expense type of vote, just because, again, of the nature. We look forward to that.

The second question that I have is on your last sheet on TEA population data. I’m sitting there, and again, my mind is arguing, “Okay, let’s pick on Surrey,” because Surrey has two TEAs. One is Surrey itself, which has every one but one. Then the other trustee…. You did make an error on Surrey, because we have Barnston Island as well. I know there are only a few people out there, but technically, it’s there.

So we have those. But I would think that outside of the easy urban model that Surrey is — and I would almost argue that greater Victoria is, because again, it’s relatively easy to get the populations there — most of the other TEAs are going to be relatively rural. The major populations are going to be within municipalities, and then it’s going to be a much smaller number.

I would agree that it might take a long time to get extremely accurate numbers, but you could get general numbers very, very quickly. In the local government side of things we’re dealing with an exemption…. Well, we’re dealing with a flat rate, I should say, for those under 10,000 — was the proposed number. I would expect that most of the TEAs — the rural portion is going to be under 10,000. So it might be easier to come up with a ballpark number of what’s there as to whether it would qualify under the flat rate or whether it would then be population-based.

S. Loveday: I think that it depends on your comfort level, whether you’re comfortable with a ballpark figure. Our thinking is that we need to square down the numbers for each particular electoral area so that we’re certain what is above 10,000 and what is below.

You’re right that in the Lower Mainland a lot of the districts are large, so we already have population data for those areas. But in the rest of the province there are approximately…. We’ve narrowed it down to about 180 trustee electoral areas that we would need to map out and determine the populations for. I think it’s probably, from a policy standpoint, good to have accurate numbers for those areas to determine what would be below that 10,000 threshold.
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S. Robinson (Deputy Chair): Thank you for the presentation. Those of us on this committee all come from local government. Certainly, I will say that I will often forget about the impacts to school trustees. As we talk, I think it’s really helpful to have you here and help remind us about some of those challenges. I don’t know if anyone around here was…. Was anyone around here a school trustee?

S. Robinson (Deputy Chair): Oh, then we do have a few school trustees. Well, there you go. Okay. I’m a local government sort of gal, so I found this very helpful.

I am with MLA Hunt on the numbers. I would be much more interested in knowing how many members, how many eligible voters there are. I think that’s where we compare, and that’s what we’re going to look at when we look at expense limits. It’s about who is eligible to vote in any election, and that’s going to be the comparator. So that number would be much more helpful to us, and I hope that you’ll be able to provide that.

The other comment…. It’s actually a question for Elections B.C. I know that they’re here in the room, and we’re going to be getting a presentation. But what I thought was interesting that you said was that we don’t have a whole lot of data, if I understood correctly. We don’t have a whole lot of election data about school trustees.

S. Robinson (Deputy Chair): I think it’s really important that we actually have some data, that we understand what the challenges are, particularly urban versus rural TEAs — all that sort of stuff.

If I interpret what you’re saying correctly, the 2014 elections are going to be very useful, because we now have Elections B.C. that is going to be gathering all this data for us. We’ll be able to have a better analysis of: what are people spending, what are they spending it on, what are some of the challenges and how do we compare rural versus urban.

My question will be to Elections B.C. about when that data will be available. I know that you won’t answer that, but I know that they’re in the room. I’m hoping that when they do their presentation, we’ll get that information. I think that will be helpful for us in terms of how we go about making a decision.

G. Holman: It’s my first meeting. I’m feeling like I’m jumping in the deep end here.

I thought you made the statement that a per-capita approach could lead to very high expense limits, and there are concerns about that. But really, doesn’t that just mean you reduce the dollar number, right? A high population to which the per-capita amount, say, is being applied? You just make sure the per-capita amount reflects that.

Is there any reason why this sort of approach….? Not the specific numbers, not the per-capita amounts or, for smaller populations, the fixed amount. I’m not saying the numbers should be the same. But is there any reason why the approach to setting spending limits should be any different than for municipal elections?

S. Loveday: We haven’t identified any reasons that it should be different to date. We wanted to highlight the Conseil scolaire issue, just to say that they are unique.

You’re right. You know, the direction to date has been to have population-based expense limits, so we sort of highlight that issue to say: “Okay, well, you’re right.” Maybe membership-based expense limits would be more appropriate. So — yeah.

G. Holman: Just one last question. In terms of third-party advertising, presumably that could, theoretically at least, be an issue for school districts as well as local governments.

D. Duerksen: It could. There are limited electoral organizations for school districts. You see it a little bit in some of the more urban elections — like Victoria, Vancouver, Surrey. But you don’t see it for many of them, at all.

A lot of the expenses that we’ve seen so far, some of them are at zero, and yet the people still get elected. We do also, though, have…. There is third-party advocacy by other groups that aren’t electoral organizations. It’s unclear how this might affect that, depending on how we word things.

G. Holman: Just a comment on that. It’s my understanding from the data presented previously that the prevalence of electoral organizations is growing. I’m not necessarily convinced that the absence of electoral organizations, either for local governments or for school
[ Page 32 ]
boards, for that matter, is necessarily a reason not to have rules, because the prevalence does seem to be increasing.

D. Duerksen: From what I’ve seen, it’s increasing slowly. But it’s increasing, and your point is a good one.

L. Reimer: I appreciate your presentation and especially about the issue around the CSF, which I hadn’t thought of, as parliamentary secretary to the minister. We had talked a lot about school trustees, but not so much about the CSF. So I appreciate this.

My question for you is: are there CSFs in other provinces? Are there CSFs specifically in other provinces that have expense limits, and if so, are they treated differently in those other provinces that have expense limits than the rest?

D. Duerksen: I’ll speak to the first part — and maybe, Sarah, if you know the answer to the second part.

The province of B.C. is slightly different in our constitutional makeup than other provinces in Canada in that when our province was created, we didn’t have a sizable francophone population that advocated for a separate and equal school system, whereas in many of the other provinces, that was in place at the time when they joined Confederation.

So there was already a constitutional basis from the beginning for them to have a separate French public education system. In British Columbia that wasn’t there.

The CSF was created in the 1990s after a series of court cases brought forward by the francophone parents association. We were required, as a province, to create management and control of not a separate but a public education system for francophone parents, who have rights under section 23 of the Charter.

Before the Charter, in 1982, this wasn’t as much of an issue. But as Charter law developed, that was highlighted because of the way it was written — section 23.

The short version is: no, there aren’t really CSFs in other provinces, but there are certainly francophone school systems and francophone trustees. I don’t know, personally, whether there are expense limits that apply differently to them. I think the governance structure is significantly different, so it may be a bit of a moot point.

S. Loveday: I think that’s a really good point to raise. I think maybe some more policy work might need doing on that area, to sort of look across the country and see how they deal with francophone school districts and if there are lessons that we could take away that might inform this work. So if we can take that away, that would be helpful.

Seeing none, thank you very much for your presentation today. We’ll follow up with some of the questions and requests for information.

I think we’ll take a five-minute break at this point for the next group to set up, and people can take a break. We’ll be back at 10:35.

N. Western: Good morning, and thank you for giving us the opportunity to address you today. My name is Nola Western. I’m the deputy chief electoral officer for funding and disclosure.

With me today is Louise Sawdon. Louise is the manager of local election campaign financing. She’s been with Elections B.C. for almost 20 years, and immediately before taking on responsibility for local elections she was the manager of provincial election finance. She has lots of experience with election financing and third-party advertising.

Before we get into the meat of the presentation, I just want to clarify the number of elector organizations. There are 44 different elector organizations so far in this election that we know about. We get the information about elector organizations from the local chief election officers. Although they were supposed to have given us that information almost two weeks ago, there may be some stragglers still coming in that we don’t know about.

I think that there are 14 elector organizations that are running candidates in more than one jurisdiction. I think that’s how Alayna came up with her number that was rather higher than the 44 that we actually have.

As an office of the Legislature, Elections B.C. is a non-partisan body. We administer the Election Act and the Recall and Initiative Act, both of which have comprehensive financing provisions, including expense limits. We also oversee the Referendum Act and now the Local Elections Campaign Financing Act, or LECFA.

We administer the legislation the Legislative Assembly passes. We’re not public policy analysts, and we’re not advocates for whether there should be election expenses or not. We don’t have a position on whether there should be expenses limits or, if there are limits, what they should be.

Provincially, election expenses limits came into being in 1995, when the Election Act was completely rewritten. The limits for candidates and political parties were
[ Page 33 ]
based on formulae, and they applied to the 29-day campaign period only. This was, of course, before fixed-date general elections.

The candidate expenses limit was calculated using a somewhat complicated formula, and you’ll see it on the screen. There was a base limit of $50,000 that was increased for electoral districts with more than 25,000 registered voters and for sparsely populated electoral districts — those with fewer than two registered voters per square kilometre of the district. It was also adjusted for changes to the consumer price index.

Powell River–Sunshine Coast was one of those electoral districts for which both the over-25,000-voters adjustment and the sparsely populated adjustment applied. The formula in that case was the base of $50,000 plus 50 cents for each voter over 25,000, plus 30 cents, times the number of square kilometres in the electoral district, all times the CPI adjustment of 1.006, for a total expense limit of $64,508.54.

For political parties, the formula was much simpler: a simple $1.25 per registered voter in each electoral district in which the party ran a candidate — again, all adjusted for changes to the CPI.

In 1996 a party that ran candidates in all 75 districts had an expenses limit of $2,650,427.72 — a much simpler formula than the candidate one. This table on the next slide shows some of the expenses limits for candidates and parties in the 1996 to 2005 general elections. I’ve illustrated the highest and the lowest and the average for the candidates and the parties, for parties that ran candidates in all the districts.

The Election Amendment Act, 2008, established two separate periods during which expenses limits applied for fixed-date general elections: the 60-day pre-campaign period, which, as the term would imply, starts on the 60th day before the day the writs are issued; and the campaign period, which starts on the day the writs are issued and ends at the close of voting on general voting day. You’re all familiar with this.

The act also did away with the formula-based spending limits and brought in equal limits for all candidates and all parties, regardless of the electoral district or the number of candidates that a party fielded. For the 2009 general election, the expenses limits for a candidate were $70,000 in the pre-campaign period and $70,000 in the campaign period. For a party, the limits were $1.1 million and $4.4 million. In 2013 those limits were adjusted for changes to the consumer price index.

The limits are separate for each of the two periods. An unused expenses limit from the pre-campaign period cannot be carried forward and used in the campaign period itself. This is not the same as your unused RRSP contribution room. You can’t carry it forward.

Under the Election Act, we haven’t had a lot of issues regarding expense limits for candidates and political parties. The limits are clear and easy to understand. There’s a clear definition of an election expense. Section 203 clearly establishes that some expenses are not subject to the expenses limit. Things like the candidate’s nomination deposit and legal or accounting expenses incurred to comply with the act are personal expenses of the candidate. They are not subject to the limit.

Section 201 of the Election Act establishes clear attribution rules if a party incurs expenses on behalf of a candidate. If a party incurs an election expense for the primary purpose of promoting a particular candidate, unless that candidate is the party leader, the expense is deemed to be a candidate expense. It’s subject to the candidate expenses limit, and it’s reported by the candidate in their financing report.

If the candidate is the party leader, the expense remains a party expense. It’s reported by the party and not attributed to the candidate. It’s really quite clear.

For candidates and parties, it’s generally easy to determine if something is an election expense. After all, nearly everything they do in the campaign period is related to promoting themselves, and it’s an election expense.

Spending limits for third-party advertisers have changed more frequently than the spending limits for parties and candidates. In 1995 the act established a flat $5,000 limit that applied for the 29-day campaign period. That limit was challenged. In 2000 the B.C. Supreme Court found it to be unconstitutional. In 2002 the limits were formally repealed from the Election Act.

For the 2001 and 2005 general elections, there were no expenses limits for third parties. They still had to register with Elections B.C., and they still had to file disclosure reports that disclosed contributions and their spending, but there were no limits.

In 2008, when the limits for candidates and political parties were changed, the Election Amendment Act also established spending limits for third parties. These limits were $3,000 in relation to a single electoral district and $150,000 overall. For third parties, there was only one period during which their spending was limited. It began 60 days before the writs were issued and ended on general voting day — so an 89-day period.

In February 2009 the B.C. Supreme Court found that the expenses limits during the 60-day pre-campaign period were unconstitutional, and that decision was later upheld by the Court of Appeal. For 2009 and 2013, third parties were limited only during the 29-day campaign period itself. Again, they still have to register with Elections B.C., and they still have to file disclosure statements.

The table on this slide illustrates the limits that have
[ Page 34 ]
applied for the general election since 1996. In 2013 the amounts were adjusted for changes to the CPI, and they’ll continue to be adjusted for all by-elections and general elections.

Under the Election Act there are some issues with applying the third-party rules. The definition of election advertising, which is almost identical to that in the Local Elections Campaign Financing Act, is very broad. It includes advertising that takes a position on an issue with which a party or candidate is associated. Sometimes it can be difficult to determine if an issue is associated with a party or candidate. So far we’ve managed to do that without challenge, but it’s not easy. It has kept me awake many times — many, many times.

As for spending limits, what’s in relation to a single electoral district? Advertising that names a provincial candidate or electoral district is easy, because a candidate only runs in one electoral district. But advertising that names a party or supports an issue can be more difficult. It can’t easily be attributed to a single electoral district. In those cases, the $150,000 overall limit applies.

Under the Local Elections Campaign Financing Act, even without expenses limits, we can already see some issues that this committee may want to consider.

Elector organizations — again, the civic equivalent to political parties — can incur election expenses with the primary purpose of promoting specific candidates. Unlike in section 201 of the Election Act, there’s no attribution of those expenses to a candidate, so a candidate and their elector organization may decide that the elector organization will incur all the election expenses, and the candidate will incur nothing. The candidate disclosure report will show zero expenses, even though the elector organization may have spent considerable moneys supporting that candidate.

Essentially, it can result in the overstatement of elector organization expenses and the understatement of candidate expenses, and this reduces transparency. Transparency is one of the fundamental principles of democracy, and it is one of the guiding principles of the Local Government Elections Task Force.

Also, many elector organizations run candidates in more than one jurisdiction. In fact, we currently have over a dozen doing so. They need to attribute their expenses to the different jurisdictions, not necessarily difficult but it could become challenging to enforce spending limits by jurisdiction.

For instance, if the fictional pro-party elector organization endorsed candidates for the city of Vancouver and for the Vancouver Board of Education or school district, they would be covering two separate but geographically overlapping jurisdictions. If the elector organization posts a sign, like this, that doesn’t refer to council or school board or name a candidate, which jurisdiction does this sign belong to? Is this a school district jurisdiction and subject to that limit, or is it the city of Vancouver jurisdiction and subject to that limit? It might be difficult for Elections B.C. to enforce that.

Likewise, candidates can run in multiple jurisdictions. In fact, in the capital region we have a candidate that is running in all 13 municipalities. He’s going to need to attribute his expenses to each relevant jurisdiction. Directed third-party advertising that identifies that candidate can’t necessarily be linked to a single jurisdiction. He’s not the only candidate running in more than one jurisdiction. He’s just…

With spending limits for each jurisdiction, those candidates and elector organizations that run in more than one could increase their overall expenses limit, and there may be no way for Elections B.C. to determine if election advertising that promotes the elector or their candidate applies to a specific jurisdiction or not.

The committee may want to consider whether elector organizations and candidates that run in more than one jurisdiction have increased spending limits. Similarly, jurisdiction limits for third-party advertisers could be problematic if the advertising is directed advertising related to a candidate or elector organization that runs in more than one jurisdiction, as I just spoke about.

As you’ve heard from Alayna, issue advertising, which is election advertising that doesn’t name or specifically identify a candidate or elector organization, could also be a challenge. To apply jurisdiction spending limits, Elections B.C. will need to determine what jurisdiction the advertising applies to. Advertising often crosses jurisdiction boundaries.

For example, if bike lanes were an issue in both Saanich and Central Saanich, and it’s associated with a candidate in each of those municipalities, which jurisdiction would the expense of these third-party signs be attributed to? Perhaps this one’s easier because the signs are physically placed in one jurisdiction or another, so we may be able to do that. But what happens if it’s Internet advertising or advertising in a traditional newspaper, like the Times Colonist or the Vancouver Sun, that’s distributed across many jurisdictions? Just some things that this committee may want to consider as you conduct your deliberations.

M. Bernier: I’ll start by just saying wow. Trying to figure this out. I know your neutral position, so just looking for some advice, I guess, on how we’re going to try to shape some of this.
[ Page 35 ]

When you were talking about different jurisdictions, up in rural British Columbia I know there are lots of times somebody might run for a regional district position and a mayor position and sometimes even a school board position, all in the same election, hoping to get one, if not all. We’ve had situations where people have held two positions in the past.

I’m just trying to…. Presently the way things would go, then…. Would that mean they’d have three times the limits, if we had…? Right now there’s nothing really written, right? I know it’s a tough one for you to answer, I guess. But the way things….

N. Western: …and for the ministry policy analyst. I just can envision that it could be difficult.

M. Bernier: Well, how would you…? I mean, regardless, this committee will come up with something, whatever we come up with. But that goes back, then, whatever we decide, to Elections B.C. to actually enforce?

S. Robinson (Deputy Chair): I’m glad to have Elections B.C. along for this ride, because I think, at the end of the day, if Elections B.C. is going to be doing the enforcement, it’s really important that we understand what the actual implications on the ground would look like. So I’m pleased that you’re along with us — well, in some ways, I imagine, would be working with us as we run some scenarios by you. Or you might have some scenarios that perhaps we hadn’t thought of. I think it’s really important to have that.

My question actually relates to the earlier presentation we had on school boards and trustees and trying to get some accurate data and information. I know that this 2014 election is the first election where we’ll have Elections B.C. doing the monitoring. Do you have any idea about when we might have access to some data about this election — what the expenses were, what was the minimum people spent in order to get elected? Then taking a look at some of that rural versus urban.

I think that is going to be really helpful information for us in terms of understanding the scope of what we’re trying to get a handle on — so looking for some timeline.

N. Western: Absolutely. The disclosure statements must be filed with Elections B.C. by February 13. We will scan those statements and post them on our website. We’re hoping there will be over 3,300. There are over 3,300 candidates running. Just the paperwork and the scanning…. We’re hoping to have them posted by the end of February.

There won’t be any data analysis, though. Elections B.C. doesn’t conduct analysis on whether it’s rural. We are going to post the financing reports filed.

S. Robinson (Deputy Chair): If we were interested in getting some data, then, we would have access to the raw data by the end of February.

M. Hunt: But our dear friend running in 13 jurisdictions — we will also, by the end of February, be actually able to analyze not only his but others who are running in multiples to be able to get a feel for the real world, what’s happened, which is, I think, one of the nice things about not having to set up this policy in a vacuum. At this moment in time we have a bit of a vacuum, but that will be cleared up completely. By the time we get into March, we’ll at least have some stuff to be able to work with.

Another one that we have to get our heads around — if I go back to one of the previous presentations — is, of course, the classic election sign. If I just pick on my own municipality as an example, we have such a variety of signs, it’s entertaining. You have one where the mayoralty candidate, on a 4-by-8, basically takes up…. I’m going to estimate about 75 percent of the sign is the mayor, and then there is this listing over in the corner in a very small font, the rest.

Those are also going to be classic ones that I’m sure you’re going to want the committee to address so that you can clearly know what the rules are, so you can clearly enforce them in ’18. Is that reasonable?

N. Western: Yes. Right now, because there are no spending limits, and elector organizations can spend to support their candidates — it’s part of their election campaign — that expense would be reported by the elector organization, assuming it’s the elector organization paying for the sign.

But if there are spending limits and attribution, they would have to somehow allocate or prorate the cost of those signs. We see that provincially to some extent too — maybe not so much with signage but with advertising, joint brochures, joint media advertising. The financial agents have to make a very reasonable, justifiable proration — 75 percent for the mayor and 12½ percent for each of the other two candidates — something that’s reasonable.
[ Page 36 ]

M. Hunt: Then it’s reasonable for us to expect that you are going to be expecting us to help you with those types of apportionments?

G. Holman: Thanks for the presentation — and for shifting the responsibility to the committee, being very clear about who’s responsible for coming up with recommendations. I think you kind of answered one of my questions. In terms of the problems of attribution across jurisdictions, for example, both for candidates and third parties, the rules that we come up with will require a reasonable attribution by both those entities.

The difficulty, of course, is: are they doing that properly or appropriately? I mean, there still is an enforceability issue there. Doesn’t it come down to a reasonable attribution by the entities themselves? I assume that if there is an enforcement issue, it’s a complaint-based kind of system. If somebody saw that data and was unhappy with it, they could complain to you, or you could do spot audits. The thorny problem of which jurisdictions, say, to apply — that’s up to the entities themselves to do, to some extent.

N. Western: Yes, it is, but it is up to us to enforce it. If there was an issue, the attribution wasn’t reasonable or we got a complaint, then that’s when the tough part comes in for us.

The other question, too, is just around the issue of enforceability, and as the Deputy Chair said, it’ll be good to get your feedback on the enforceability issue. We shouldn’t come up with rules that are just so difficult to enforce that they don’t make any sense, but is it fair to say that on principle, you shouldn’t necessarily not have a rule just because it’s difficult to enforce?

Do you know what I’m trying to say? The committee shouldn’t be saying: “Because there might be a difficulty in enforcing, we should stay away from that completely.” I know there’s a balancing there, right? For example, speed limits. Just because speed limits can be difficult to enforce, it doesn’t mean you don’t have speed limits.

N. Western: Absolutely. Yes, fair enough. The income tax. Filing your income tax can be difficult to enforce sometimes for the CRA, but the rules are still there.

J. Tegart (Chair): My question, Nola, is: based on your experience of the last couple of elections, are there pitfalls that we should be aware of as we’re considering some of the challenges around expense limits for our local elections?

N. Western: Not provincially. The spending limits provincially, especially for candidates and political parties, have not been an issue. For third parties, it’s a little bit more of an issue because, as MLA Hunt referred to, it could be very difficult to know or determine if that’s election advertising. If there are expense limits, it becomes even more important for Elections B.C. to accurately determine whether that’s election advertising or not — if it’s issue advertising.

But that’s not solely related to expense limits. We have that issue right now at the local level, and there are no spending limits.

M. Hunt: If my memory serves me correctly, attribution then becomes the EO’s decision, and we don’t challenge it. Correct?

N. Western: It’s the EO’s decision at the beginning, and the candidate’s decision at the beginning of the process. If the candidate spends the money out of their campaign account, it’s reported by the candidate. If the EO spends the money to support candidates from the EO campaign account, the EO reports it as an EO expense.

M. Hunt: That’s how we have the rules set up for now. Therefore, for this election, if we have someone who…. Well, we have a whole slate that signs off to the EO. They can all say they didn’t spend any money at all, and the EO is the one that has all of it. But it could be done in this election?

N. Western: That’s right. I expect that to happen this election. It happened in the last local election.

Seeing none, thank you very much for your presentation. Certainly, in my experience with Elections B.C., if we have further questions or need information, I know that you’ve always been very available.

We’ll have a two-minute break as the speakers move, and then we’ll come back to order.

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

Review of meeting schedule. Yesterday the Deputy Chair and myself met with the Clerk’s office, looking at the draft workplan and meeting schedule. Understanding that we’re in very, very tight timelines in order to deliver our report by November 27, we have handed out the meeting schedule that we developed yesterday in the hopes that people could take a look at it and accommodate the schedule.

I realize it’s a lot to ask, but I think we’ve had discussion around the fact that it is a very short timeline for phase 1 of our work, and we’re going to try to do our best to accommodate to the 27th. The Deputy Chair and myself have agreed that if we are having difficulty as we get closer to the deadline, then we’ll have a discussion about what that looks like and what it means to our work. But for now we’re working from the November 27 deadline, and we put the schedule before you.

M. Hunt: The only one I have is that I am already committed for one of these time periods. I just think it’s a matter of going forward with a quorum type of issue, and we just get the materials. To me it looks like a great plan to try and squash this into the limited time that we have and make it work.

M. Bernier: Are you able to…? I think what is going to be important — what MLA Hunt said — is around the quorum. On the Friday and the Saturday on the long weekend some of us have specifically made commitments in our ridings. Looking around the room here…. For myself, who has to has to paddle from 1,300 kilometres away, it could be problematic.

J. Tegart (Chair): Just to indicate that conference call options are available also.

J. Kwan: Just to note, as the member for Surrey-Panorama stated, I think there will be times where we won’t all be able to make it. I note already on November 8 that I’m fully booked in the community with three events all day, so that’s not going to be a possibility for me. Anyway, I think that’s how it goes sometimes, and we’ll do the best we can.

J. Tegart (Chair): Thank you very much. I really appreciate the cooperation of the group. This is important work, and the more we learn, the more complex it becomes, as I watched on everyone’s faces today.

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Deputy Clerk and Clerk of Committees): Just by way of clarification, we will be sending out through our office a notice to all of you and your LAs with the revised schedule as presented today. If you’re unable to attend a meeting, please let us know so that we can either accommodate you through a conference call connection or just to ensure that we are not expecting you when you’re unable to attend.

The timelines, of course, are quite ambitious, as we know. Our hope for next Wednesday, October 29, during the sitting of the House, is that we would convene a meeting here with any stakeholders that may be available to speak with you. On some of the documents that are also in front of you this morning is a list of preliminary stakeholders. We will be trying to reach out to those individuals and to see how many of them might be available to meet next Wednesday and the Wednesday that follows.

As the House is sitting, it would be much appreciated if you would be able to arrange your availability through your Whips, if possible, to attend. Of course, we understand that if the division bells ring, we’ll be recessing from time to time, but we hope things will go as smoothly as possible.

I just want to draw, in particular, I guess, if we’re ready to proceed, members’ attention to the other documents circulated.

G. Holman: Are each of these stakeholders going to be contacted proactively by us?

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of Committees): Yes, our intention, based on the direction of the committee, would be to send a letter notifying all of the stakeholders identified in the four-page document — by way of e-mail, I expect — so that they are aware of the committee’s work in phase 1 and the timelines that you are working under.

We would specifically like to invite, in particular, the Union of B.C. Municipalities and the B.C. trustees association to present at one of the upcoming Wednesday sessions, if they’re available. But we certainly did want to take the time to ensure that all of the key stakeholders identified — these and any others that might be on your mind — are aware of the work of your committee.

In addition to that, the proposal on the other page that was just circulated is an outline of an on-line consultation portal which we would like to place on the committee’s existing website, on the Legislative Assembly website, so that any interested individuals — members of the public
[ Page 38 ]
or other stakeholders who, perhaps, are not able to attend at a face-to-face meeting to provide you with input — have an ability to answer some questions that we have prepared and, if they so wish, can attach a more fulsome written submission to that on-line form. We welcome your input on that.

G. Holman: While it’s fine for the committee to agree to this schedule…. I’m not clear what my conflicts are either, but several people have said that as long as we have a quorum, we’ll move ahead, and that’s fine. I guess my concern is more around the stakeholders and the process perceived as being as open to them as possible. The time frame is more of a concern to me with respect to stakeholders almost more than the committee.

If phase 1 is around the principles and then phase 2 is around the more specific recommendations about limits and formulas…. Do I have that basically right? Is it possible, if we get into phase 2, that we are still open to input from stakeholders at that point?

And what if, in the course of discussion of phase 2 around the specifics, we realize, as a committee, that we’ve kind of overlooked an important principle in the first phase, which we’re kind of rushing through? Is there an opportunity, if there’s agreement on the committee, to revisit a key principle we may have missed or misstated, now that you actually get into the substance of the recommendations?

That’s happened to me before in other processes. You think: “Oh, we’ve missed something.” The same with stakeholders. Are they allowed to weigh in after that November 29 deadline?

J. Tegart (Chair): We’ve had this discussion at the committee, Gary. I think we agreed, based on the work done in phase 2, that if there is something which comes up during that time, that we, as a committee, would like to be able to go back and take a look at those principles we delivered to the first phase of the report and that we would like the freedom to do that.

G. Holman: Good. What about the stakeholder input? Does their opportunity end after November 29, or whenever — the 27th?

J. Tegart (Chair): My belief is that as we look at phase 2 work, we will also be looking for public input in that phase also.

M. Hunt: I was just thinking of the draft discussion paper for the on-line consultation. I just think it’s wise, in the line that is halfway down the page above the scrolled line, that “the deadline to receive written and on-line input for phase 1 is Friday, November 29.” I think you just need to really stick it out there that this is the phase 1 deadline so that nobody gets confused.

S. Robinson (Deputy Chair): When we ask people to share their views — we’ve divided it up, I see, around electoral organizations, in terms of what the principles are — we just have these tick boxes. Anyone can just tick all the boxes, because they’re all equally important.

I think it’s important, if we’re really trying to get a sense of which values they want us to consider, which principles they want us to consider, either we need to say “pick the top three” or “pick the top five” or make some sort of ordinal determination that this is the most important and then this and then this and then this.

Really, what you could do…. Oh, it says: “Please number them in order of priority.” Sorry. I was just looking at the little boxes. It’s already there — thank you. I just saw all the little ticks, and I’m thinking: “You can just tick off all those.” But I see….

M. Hunt: Well, I just think, in that regard, the question is: how are the IT guys going to create this? I think we may have people that said: “No. I have three that are No. 1s.” Okay? You’re forcing them to say that this one is second.

I think you should just put a little line after that, which says: “You may have more than one No. 1.”

You see, this is where I would get really irritated. I will say I am really irritated with this kind of thing, because you’re forcing me to judge between, let’s just say, accountability and transparency. Which one is more important? Well, I think they’re both excessively important, so why can’t I have more than one 1?

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of Committees): Your observation is well taken. We’ve had experience on the budget
[ Page 39 ]
consultation process and have had both approaches. We’ve had it where British Columbians are asked to rank a number of options on a similar form, and we’ve had it also where they’re asked to tick off the ones that are most important to them.

The IT department is very willing and capable of creating whichever type of survey would best meet your needs. It really, I guess, depends on the kinds of outputs you would like see — the kinds of information that would be most helpful to you in your deliberations to assess the input that you’ve received. But I take your point that some may find that to be a frustrating way of approaching it.

What we’ve tried to do in developing this draft is to provide British Columbians with the option to provide some open-ended questions, some comments at the end. They can also attach a paper or other documents that they want to bring to your attention. But we’re hoping, if the committee did generate a large number of participants in this on-line process, that the first two questions really do help provide you with some quick tally type of information, so we can at least get a quick snapshot without a lot of investment of time to decipher the results.

We will be focusing, of course, as well, on the open-ended questions in the information provided there — trying to provide a balance. But your point is well taken.

S. Robinson (Deputy Chair): I have a response to the member for Surrey-Panorama around his frustration around having to choose. Oftentimes that is what we have to do. We have to choose the order of our values, because sometimes one bangs up against the other.

So if you do this, then you lose some of that. If you do this, you lose some of that. We do have to make those choices. I’m not saying that they’re not difficult choices, but I really do want to push people a little bit in terms of sometimes you do have to make those choices. They are frustrating and hard, and so it is.

J. Tegart (Chair): Any other comments in regards to the document for on-line consultation?

M. Hunt: I would just like to comment that I really appreciate staff, both within the committees as well as those who have come and presented, for all the information they gave us — especially for those who haven’t been through this to try and think up how you walk through it.

I really found it interesting, because for those of us who have been in it, we understand it. Or at least we see our perspectives on it. I think it’s a real interesting challenge for the civil servants who have not been through these processes to try to get their head around the different nuances and that. Sometimes they come up with this stuff, and you go: “Yeah. Gee, we would never look at it that way.”

J. Tegart (Chair): Again, I’ll just reiterate: thank you to those who took the time to present today. If we have further questions, we will be in touch.

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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)

Clerks:	Kate Ryan-Lloyd
	Susan Sourial

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS(Hansard)

SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON LOCAL ELECTIONS EXPENSE LIMITS

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS
(Hansard)

SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON
LOCAL ELECTIONS EXPENSE LIMITS