Finance and Government Services — Issue No. 61 — Wednesday, April 22, 2015 (HTML)

Present: Wm. Scott Hamilton, MLA (Chair); Carole James, MLA (Deputy Chair); Dan Ashton, MLA; Eric Foster, MLA; Simon Gibson, MLA; George Heyman, MLA; Gary Holman, MLA; Mike Morris, MLA; Jane Jae Kyung Shin, MLA

2. The following witnesses appeared before the Committee and answered questions regarding Elections BC’s Budget Proposals 2015: Metro Vancouver Transportation and Transit Plebiscite; Maple Ridge Mission Recall Proposal; and Burnaby North Recall Proposal

3. Resolved, that the Committee meet in-camera to consider the request from Elections BC (Carole James, MLA)

6. Resolved, that the Committee recommend that Elections BC be granted supplementary funding up to $25,000 for fiscal year 2015/16 in order to defray initial expenditures to administer the Maple Ridge-Mission Recall Petition.

Should the Maple Ridge-Mission Recall Petition proceed to the verification stage, the Committee recommend that Elections BC be granted additional supplementary funding up to $142,000 for fiscal year 2015/16 in order to defray expenditures related to the Maple Ridge-Mission Recall Petition. (Eric Foster, MLA)

7. Resolved, that the Committee recommend that Elections BC be granted supplementary funding up to $24,000 for fiscal year 2015/16 in order to defray initial expenditures to administer the Burnaby North Recall Petition.

Should the Burnaby North Recall Petition proceed to the verification stage, that the Committee recommend that Elections BC be granted additional supplementary funding up to $142,000 for fiscal year 2015/16 in order to defray expenditures related to the Burnaby North Recall Petition. (Carole James, MLA)

8. Resolved, that the Committee recommend that Elections BC be granted supplementary funding up to $2,740,500 for fiscal year 2015/16 in order to defray expenditures to administer the Metro Vancouver Transportation and Transit Plebiscite. (Dan Ashton, MLA)

9. Resolved, that the Chair advise the Minister of Finance, as Chair of Treasury Board, of the recommendations adopted earlier today and that the Committee’s recommendations be formally recorded in its report on its annual review of statutory office budgets later this year. (Simon Gibson, MLA)

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

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS
(Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON
FINANCE AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES


CONTENTS
Page
Elections B.C.: Supplementary Funding Requests	1375
K. Archer
N. Western
A. Boegman
D. Main
Other Business	1384

S. Hamilton (Chair): Well, good morning, everyone. Obviously, we know why we’re here today. It’s to entertain the budget proposal by Dr. Keith Archer and Nola Western of Elections B.C.

First of all, I’ll welcome you and ask if we could just go around the table for brief introductions. Then we’ll get started. I’ll start with Mike over here.

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Deputy Clerk and Clerk of Committees): Good morning. I’m Kate Ryan-Lloyd, Clerk to the committee.

A. Boegman: Anton Boegman, Deputy Chief Electoral Officer, electoral operations.

N. Western: Nola Western, Deputy Chief Electoral Officer for funding and disclosure.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Keith, if I could have you introduce the folks that are joining us here.

K. Archer: Yes. Also in the gallery here are Sherry Hyde, our comptroller; and Don Main, our communications manager.

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of Committees): May I also introduce members to Lisa Hill, a new committee research analyst who’s just joined our office this week.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Welcome. We know why we’re here. We’re here to deal with two budget proposals, one of which is the Vancouver transit plebiscite. And of course, under Elections B.C. is also the authority for the two potential recall campaigns.

I plan on conducting this committee much the same way as my predecessor did. We’re going to be informal and hopefully use first names, and we’ll go from there. I’ll just turn it over to you, Keith.

K. Archer: Well, thank you very much. Good morning, Mr. Chair, Madam Vice-Chair and members of the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services. Thanks for the invitation to meet with you this morning so that we can present our budget requirements for the Metro Vancouver transportation and transit plebiscite for the 2015-16 fiscal year. Several of our senior staff met with this committee last month to review our budget requirements for the plebiscite over the 2014-15 and 2015-16 fiscal years.

This committee recommended we receive our requested funding for 2014-15, with a further request that we meet to review our spending requirements for 2015-16. I’ve copied this communication in the package that we sent along to you in support of this meeting. I’ll also be presenting our budget requirements for two recall petitions issued last week. They’re actually not potential recalls. They’re underway at the moment — one in Maple Ridge–Mission and the other in Burnaby North.

As in my previous appearances before this committee, I’ll begin by turning straight to the numbers in identifying our budget requirements. I’ll then provide some comments that set the context for understanding the spending requirements for these events. This is followed by a discussion of our event-funding requirements for 2015-16. Nola will walk you through the budget numbers in greater detail, after which Anton will discuss the recall petitions.

To the numbers. Our revised budget requirement for the vote-by-mail plebiscite is $5,760,620. This is lower than our original estimate of $6,213,000 by about $450,000. The original figure was based on expected budget requirements for each of two fiscal years. The revised figure consists of budget actuals for the 2014-15 fiscal year, coupled with budget estimates for 2015-16. There is some change in budget requirements for specific budget lines from one fiscal year to the next. Some of the
[ Page 1376 ]
expenditures that were initially budgeted for 2014-15 in fact will accrue in 2015-16.

For the recall budgets, we presented two sets of figures for each. For Maple Ridge–Mission, the budget, without verification, is $25,000, and in Burnaby North it is $24,000. In each electoral district there is an additional requirement of $142,000 if we conduct a signature verification. A verification occurs only when a proponent submits completed petition signature pages with the required number of signatures.

Let me provide some context for these budget requirements. To understand our event budget requirements, it’s useful to reflect on the organizational structure of Elections B.C. We have a relatively small permanent staff — about 55 people — who need to be supplemented when we are administering electoral events.

Our largest staffing complements are in voter registration and boundaries and local electoral finance, with smaller staffing in electoral operations, provincial electoral finance, information technology, finance and administration, payroll, corporate planning, the executive and the warehouse.

Our permanent staff not only design the electoral processes that we use, ensuring compliance with legislation and regulations, but they also recruit, hire, train, equip, deploy, pay and oversee the staff who are hired in temporary positions or the contractors engaged in support of our requirements.

Now, allow me to describe some of the ways in which this was done for the vote-by-mail plebiscite. Our plan calls for the establishment of a contact centre to field calls from the more than 1.5 million British Columbians who were sent a plebiscite voting package. Since we don’t have a permanent contact centre, we established a temporary contact centre in our offices. The contact centre is staffed by 28 temporary staff and is open from 8 a.m. until 8 p.m. Monday to Saturday.

We find that this is a service that’s very useful for voters. Last week, for example, staff at the contact center answered 2,702 calls, and as of Friday of last week, they’ve answered 10,595 calls since the contact centre opened on March 9. The contact centre will be in operation until the close of voting on May 29.

I know that when our staff met with this committee in March there were some questions about the comparison of the cost per registered voter between the 2011 HST referendum and the 2015 transportation and transit plebiscite.

At the time, our staff indicated that such a comparison is akin to comparing apples to oranges, since there are a number of key differences in the regulations for the two events or in the administrative practices employed.

One of the lessons we learned from the HST referendum, in which we established six ballot collection centres in Metro Vancouver, was that we had challenges getting ballot packages to some voters, particularly those who needed to update their voter registration information or who were registering for the first time.

To address this service gap for the vote-by-mail plebiscite, we’ve opened nine plebiscite service offices in Metro Vancouver. These offices make it easier for voters to interact with us directly, to register, to update their voter registration information and to request a replacement ballot package. In all, we’ve hired 61 staff, who will be in the plebiscite service offices from April 13 until May 29.

In addition to the staff in the contact centre and in the plebiscite service offices, the third group of temporary staff employed for the plebiscite are those who are processing the returned ballot packages. We’ve established a ballot-processing centre at our facilities in Victoria for this purpose. These staff members receive all returned ballot packages and begin manual processing by municipality.

The first step is to remove the certification envelope from the return envelope for the check whether the voter has signed the envelope and provided their date of birth. This information is checked against our records to confirm that the ballot is from the eligible voter. If the information matches, it’s accepted for further processing. If the information does not match, the envelope is then set aside for further review.

We’ve introduced two innovations in the processing of ballots. First, we’re reporting publicly each week on the number of ballots processed, by municipality, and releasing this information each Wednesday morning. As of this morning, for example, we’ve received and processed 339,357 ballot packages, and we’ve received another 158,206 that are awaiting initial processing. Thus, we’ve received over 495,000 ballot packages or about 32 percent of the total ballot packages issued.

The second innovation is that following the initial screening, rather than simply setting the packages aside and not considering them further — in the event that a person didn’t sign it, for example, or provide their date of birth — we’ve introduced secondary processing criteria so that if people haven’t signed their envelope, we contact them to provide them a chance to do so, via one of our plebiscite service offices.

Following the close of voting on May 29 we will complete all initial ballot screening and move to removing secrecy envelopes from certification envelopes and then removing ballots from the secrecy envelopes. As yet another innovation, we’ve designed the ballots such that they are able to be optically scanned and electronically tallied. Furthermore, rather than looking to purchase scanning devices, we have contracted with B.C. Mail Plus to use their equipment for the optical scanning of all ballots, thereby reducing the person-hours required to count such a large number of ballots.

As is the case with almost all electoral events, much of the actual staffing to deliver the event is provided by
[ Page 1377 ]
short-term, temporary employees. In the case of this vote-by-mail plebiscite, this includes the 28 staff in our contact centre located in our headquarters, the 61 staff in the nine plebiscite service offices throughout Metro Vancouver and the 33 staff in the ballot processing centre in Victoria. Our plan provides for an increase in staffing in this latter area, if required. We’ve also hired three short-term, temporary staff in finance and administration to assist with hiring, payroll and materials management in the warehouse.

We also contract out a number of services for many electoral events, and this vote-by-mail plebiscite is no exception. We have an agency of record for our advertising materials, and these materials are developed and placed by the agency at the direction of Elections B.C. The plebiscite is being administered in British Columbia’s most expensive media market, and this fact has contributed to proportionately higher advertising costs for this event. In addition, for every electoral event, we develop a specific advertising strategy to ensure voters have reasonable awareness of the event and of the question on which they’re voting.

Let me talk a little bit about this strategy to communicate with voters. It’s useful to compare the information needs of the HST referendum and the transportation and transit plebiscite to see why the needs of the advertising campaigns may differ.

In the HST referendum there was a lengthy and high-profile lead-up to the referendum, with a provincewide drive for signatures as part of the initiative process. Consequently, the media planned for Elections B.C. over the seven-week voting period included two newspaper ads throughout the province, a 30-second radio ad over seven days, three weeks of on-line display advertising on cable TV channel listings as well as earned media.

For the Metro Vancouver transportation and transit plebiscite there was a much less salient lead-up to the event. There is a longer voting period — 11 weeks instead of seven weeks — and there are new processes that allow voters to register at plebiscite service offices or to make some corrections to their ballot packages at such offices.

Consequently, the media plan for this event is adjusted accordingly. One major change was the issuance of a householder, or a plebiscite information bulletin, to every household in Metro Vancouver. In addition, we’re running three newspaper ads over the 11-week voting period. We’re using radio advertising, in light of the reach of the radio stations throughout the voting area, and we’re using outdoor display advertising, particularly on public transit facilities and services.

We also have prepared a number of useful tools for voters and have made them accessible on our website, including a vote-by-mail animation for first-time voters and new Canadians and a video explaining all steps in the vote-by-mail process.

I’d like to talk a bit about other contractor relationships and shared services. Now, in addition to the work with our agency of record for advertising associated with the plebiscite, we also contract out some of our information technology services. One area in which this occurs, which I’ve mentioned already, is with the electronic scanning and tallying of ballots. We’re using the shared-services model to partner with B.C. Mail Plus to provide the service for the plebiscite. This is the first electoral event administered by Elections B.C. in which this technology has been used.

When we first prepared the budget for this committee’s consideration, we were still in the position of not being able to discuss details of the event with our suppliers, since the regulation had not been issued. It was issued on February 12 and published on February 13, and that was the point at which we had the authority to begin discussing publicly our requirements with our suppliers. At that time we were able to confirm that we could repurpose some of the technology that B.C. Mail Plus uses for marking provincial exams, thereby reducing our plebiscite IT expenditures considerably.

We also work with a contractor for the development of our IT system development requirements. While administering the HST referendum, we developed a vote-by-mail tracking system to ensure, for example, that when issuing a replacement voting package to voters, we could cancel a package previously issued to that same voter. We were pleased to discover that we could reuse most of that code that was developed for this purpose for the vote-by-mail plebiscite.

Since there were changes to a number of our processes for this event, such as allowing for ballots to be issued at those plebiscite service offices, and since all changes must still enable a coupling of this technology with our core electoral information system, we were able to undertake only the changes required to fulfil the new requirements while maintaining overall system integrity.

It’s also worth noting that with technology-enabled ballot scanning and tallying, the costs for this function, ballot tallying, have moved largely from a staffing cost to a technology cost. Therefore, part of the IT budget that you see is for ballot counting.

Let me close my comments by talking a bit about the culture of Elections B.C. before I turn to Nola and Anton. Our approach to the budgeting for the Metro Vancouver transportation and transit plebiscite is consistent with our planning and budgeting for all of our ongoing activities as well as for all electoral events. I would describe our culture as one of responsible fiscal stewardship of the public funds entrusted to us.

We fulfil an important function within British Columbia’s democracy. We administer electoral processes so that they are inclusive and so that all eligible voters have information about the event and about the
[ Page 1378 ]
steps they must take to participate in the governance of our province. We also must ensure that the results of electoral processes administered by us not only are fairly administered but are widely perceived to be fairly administered. It is through this approach that our collective decisions achieve the legitimacy required for the exercise of political authority.

In undertaking this function, we place a high value on the principle that we should spend public funds prudently. Allow me to illustrate this with an example that’s very timely to me, and that is our work with the B.C. Electoral Boundaries Commission. I say this is timely because last week I travelled with the commission throughout the Lower Mainland, where we conducted seven public hearings. We’ll continue conducting public hearings in May, completing this process with hearings of MLAs on May 27. Perhaps some of you will attend those hearings.

Now, when I addressed this committee in December of 2013, I said to the committee at the time that I was interested in having Elections B.C. provide the administrative support for the Electoral Boundaries Commission. This had never happened in British Columbia. Typically, once the commission was appointed, it would set up its own offices, have its own staff and operate with its own budget.

Following my comments to this committee I then met with senior officials in the Ministry of Justice and the Attorney General — that’s the ministry that’s responsible for the Electoral Boundaries Commission Act — where I repeated my offer. We agreed to proceed on that basis.

The ministry had already allocated $4½ million to the commission — $2½ million in 2014-15 and $2 million in 2015-16. This was consistent with the financial allocation to the commission in its previous iteration in 2006 to 2008.

This time around the commission is being administered in our facilities, largely using our permanent staff, supplemented by up to five temporary staff. The last commission, by comparison, rented offices in Vancouver and hired 14 staff.

I’m pleased to say that in the first fiscal year, that is 2014-15, the commission spent slightly more than $1 million — I think it’s $1.016 million — of the $2.5 million allocated. I expect similar savings will be obtained in the current fiscal year.

Now, the commission could have proceeded on the previous model, with a stand-alone office and staff. By housing the commission, Elections B.C. has generated several million dollars in savings of public expenses. Sure, it was more onerous for our staff, and it’s true that we didn’t provide dedicated office space for the commissioners, but we were able to share our services for an overall savings for the public. We did it because it was consistent with our culture to manage public funds responsibly.

Mr. Chair, Madam Vice-Chair and Members, those are my comments, which are meant to provide some context for our budget requirements to administer the Metro Vancouver transportation and transit plebiscite.

I’ll now call on Nola Western to make a few comments about specific expenditures. After that, Anton will provide some comments on our budget requirements for the two petitions we’re currently administering. Then we’ll be pleased to answer any questions or comments that you have.

N. Western: When Jill Lawrance and I met with you on March 24, we did not yet have the actual expenditures for fiscal year 2014-15. Now that that fiscal year is over, most of the invoices have been received and paid. I want to say all, but there might be a small one or two trickle in. We’re able to now not only report on the actual expenditures for that fiscal year but adjust the estimated expenditures for 2015-16. You can see those adjustments reflected on page 2 of the document that you have before you.

Our total revised budget for the vote-by-mail plebiscite is now $5,760,620, broken down as follows: $3,020,120 in actual expenditures for ’14-15 and a budget request of $2,740,500 for fiscal ’15-16. As Keith said, the revised budget represents an overall decrease of $452,380 from the original estimate. However, as I noted might happen when we met in March, there have been some changes to the fiscal year breakdown; that is, the actual and expected expenditures have not all occurred in the fiscal year that we had originally anticipated.

Although the overall budget is actually lower than the original estimate, the amount spent in ’14-15 was less than expected, and the amount required for ’15-16 is higher. The request for fiscal 2015-16 is $820,500 higher, largely because return mail postage for voters to return their voting packages was originally budgeted for in fiscal ’14-15. People didn’t return their ballots that quickly. So we incurred lower costs that year, and we will see higher return mail costs in the current fiscal year.

The remaining $40,000 of fiscal year changes is for minor costs that were budgeted for last fiscal but will actually be incurred this year.

Again, the total revised budget is lower than the original budget, and most line items decreased. But there are increases in two areas: postal services and building occupancy. Postal services increased by over $200,000 for a couple of reasons. We originally budgeted for mailing the voting package at 91 cents a package, and the actual cost was 95 cents a package. We also incurred additional costs for B.C. Mail Plus to sort the returned ballot packages by municipality. That was an extra cost of about $100,000 that we hadn’t budgeted for in our original submission. As well, the mail preparation costs were slightly higher than we had anticipated.
[ Page 1379 ]

Building occupancy increased by $7,000 overall, as we had originally only planned on eight plebiscite service offices. The rent for the nine offices we actually have is higher than we’d estimated. But again, the overall budget has decreased by almost half a million dollars, as we now have the luxury of having the actual expenditures for ’14-15 and are able to refine those estimates.

Elections B.C. always looks to minimize salary costs while maintaining service levels. The staffing levels at the ballot processing centre in Victoria fluctuate with the volume of returned voting packages. If overall participation rates are low, we can expect overall staffing costs to be lower. However, at 32 percent already, that’s maybe indicating that participation is going to be relatively high. Also, as I just mentioned, we decided to have B.C. Mail Plus sort the ballot packages by municipality rather than have our staff do it, so staffing is a bit lower.

General office expenses are expected to be lower than originally thought because printing costs for the Householder and the voting packages were less than estimated. We reduced the signage for the plebiscite service offices, and the setup costs for the contact centre in our basement were lower than expected.

Elections B.C. has changed our advertising strategy slightly and decreased spending in that area by $176,000.

Finally, information technology, which shows the biggest decrease. This reduction is because the original plans for setting up, testing and counting ballots were replaced by a more cost-effective approach, resulting in savings of approximately $130,000. IT also used existing applications that you heard Keith talk about, and that resulted in additional savings of $100,000. And we used existing equipment for the plebiscite service offices. We used old computers for those offices.

A. Boegman: Thank you, Nola, and good morning, committee members. As Keith had mentioned, I’m going to be providing a few more details about the funding requirements to administer the Maple Ridge–Mission and Burnaby North recall petitions that are currently underway.

Elections B.C. last administered a recall petition in 2011, also in the electoral district of Maple Ridge–Mission. Since that time, as part of our ongoing readiness activities, Elections B.C. has made improvements to both recall operational processes, as well as the computer application used to verify petition-signers. These improvements will enable Elections B.C. to administer both of these current recalls in a more cost-efficient manner.

The budget requirements to administer the two recalls is shown on pages 3 and 4 of the document before you. In each recall, the budget is shown in three columns. The first column is costs without verification, and that is the costs that are incurred to administer the petition, regardless of whether sufficient signatures are returned to necessitate verification. So these are day-to-day operational costs and costs to prepare to do verification.

The second column is costs with verification, or the additional costs that would be spent if the petition does need to be verified. The petitioner must succeed in getting more than 40 percent of the signatures from all those voters who are registered in the district at the date of the last general election in order to have us go forward to try to verify those petitions.

Then the last column is simply the total estimated cost for the recalls. The costs for each recall are almost identical, with $167,000 being required for Maple Ridge–Mission and $166,000 for Burnaby North. The difference is simply the cost needed for the statutory advertising — the advertising that we must do under the act. Their fewer newspapers will provide greater coverage in Burnaby, so we spend less in Burnaby North.

The costs without verification for each recall are relatively modest. They include such things as salary and benefits for the temporary employees that are necessary to support canvasser registration and preparing for verification, general office expenses for courier-scanning of the petition sheets to create the public inspection copy and general expenses.

There is some travel money for meetings with the MLA, the proponent and their financial agents. Where possible, because we have the ongoing plebiscite happening concurrently, if we can combine travel to meet with the proponent and the MLAs, if necessary, with plebiscite travel, we will do that.

There are some professional services costs for B.C. Stats to prepare to conduct the signatory verification survey that is part of overall petition verification, some legal fees and the statutory advertising costs, which are the “Know the rules” ads that we publish in each electoral district, and information and telephone support.

For Maple Ridge–Mission, these total $25,000, while for Burnaby North, they are $24,000. Now, the additional costs required, should the petitions need verification, is where the bulk of this event funding lies.

The verification budgets for each recall petition are $142,000. This includes funding for temporary recall verification operators of $7,000 in each district, general office supplies, funding for B.C. Stats to administer the signatory verification survey — $115,000 — and information system support for Elections B.C.’s recall and initiative verification system, or RIVERS.

Of the costs identified in the recall budgets, 15 percent are required for general petition administration, with the remaining 85 percent for petition verification — only should it be required.

I would like to add several additional notes before I conclude my comments. Because Elections B.C. was able to issue both petitions on the same day, the two recalls are able to be administered concurrently. Costs that would normally be assigned to a single recall can now be split across both. An example of this is the funding necessary to prepare for petition verification. For a single recall petition, this professional services cost is estimated at $30,000. Now for each recall, it is only $15,000.

Of the $130,000 identified for professional services in each recall, should verification be required, the bulk of this funding is assigned to the shared-service agreement that Elections B.C. has with B.C. Stats for the administration of the signatory verification survey.

This is a critical component of recall verification and was implemented first for the Oak Bay–Gordon Head recall in 2010. The survey is necessary because of amendments made to the Election Act and the recall petition administration regulation in 2006, when the requirement for voters to provide signatures when registering to vote was removed by the Legislature. As a result, the voter signature database could not be maintained, and signature comparison cannot be used for signatory verification.

In the survey, B.C. Stats conducts follow-up interviews with a statistically significant sample of petition-signers to confirm whether or not they have actually signed the petition in question. The results of the survey will enable B.C. Stats to provide a confirmation rate with a confidence level over 99 percent, which will enable the Chief Electoral Officer to determine with certainty the success or failure of petition verification.

In the administration of recall petitions, Elections B.C. strives to minimize operational costs, where possible. For example, in the weeks prior to petition submission, we will try to ascertain, in confidence, from the proponent whether they believe they will be able to submit sufficient signatures or not. If they indicate they will not be close, Elections B.C. will stop preparations for verification and may only incur verification preparation costs on a prorated basis.

That concludes my comments. At this time I’m pleased to turn the floor back to you, Mr. Chair, and the committee members for any questions or comments.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Thank you very much. Before you go to the floor, Keith, are there any further comments you want to make to the committee at this time?

K. Archer: No, that’s it. That’s our presentation to you, and we’re happy to respond to your questions.

E. Foster: I’d like to go to the recall, if I could, to start. For the signature verifications at $115,000, how much…? That’s a pretty good-sized chunk of money. How many people do you have who would be working at it? How long would they work? It doesn’t take very long to verify the signatures.

A. Boegman: Certainly, I can respond to that. The survey has to take place within 42 days, and B.C. Stats manages that on our behalf. They’ll be contacting 3,900 of the voters individually who’ve purported to sign the petition by having their names, signatures, phone numbers and residential addresses on the petition line.

They use an outside contractor to actually do those calls. They can source the phone number. They will use that phone number to call them. If not, they need to send mail to that individual to try to get a response. All of that has to be done within 42 days, and in order to do that, there’s a significant ramp-up on the staffing side for B.C. Stats.

E. Foster: If I could just follow up on that. During a standard election campaign a lot of candidates hire outside agencies to do phone surveys for them. I can guarantee you that if I spent $115,000 calling 3,000 people, the Chief Electoral Officer would be visiting me and telling me that I needed to get a new job, because I wouldn’t have the one I held. It just seems to me to be a tremendous amount of money to make 4,000 phone calls.

K. Archer: I could respond to that. The requirement on our part is to confirm that the people who have signed the sheet are eligible to sign the sheet. That’s why our staff go through a comparison between those names and the voters list to make sure that those individuals are on the voters list and are eligible. We also need to confirm not only that that person is eligible, but that that is the person who signed. That’s the issue for us.

As Anton indicated, we no longer maintain a signature database, so our staff can’t compare that signature to some previous signature of that individual to confirm that it’s the same person. Therefore, we need to find another way of confirming that that person was the one who signed.

Consequently, we have contracted out with B.C. Stats on that project. Now, if your suggestion to us is we should go to tender with that contract and see if there are other private companies who are willing and able to do that work, we can certainly take that under advisement. At this point, we find that it provides us with a very considerable amount of confidence and, I think, British Columbians with a lot of confidence when the head of B.C. Stats is able to confirm to us the confirmation rate. The processes that they use are designed to provide us with that confidence.
[ Page 1381 ]

Again, if that’s the suggestion of the committee, we can certainly take that under consideration.

E. Foster: Just one follow-up. What I’m asking is…. You’re talking about 4,000 verifications, so 3,800 verifications at $115,000. That’s a lot of money per phone call. What you’ve done — just to clarify it, Dr. Archer — is that you’ve contracted to B.C. Stats. They contract to an outside agency. There are a few levels of…. I bring it up. You can deal with it as you wish. It seems like a lot of money to me to make 4,000 phone calls.

K. Archer: Okay. My understanding is that they don’t subcontract that out. I think it’s….

A. Boegman: They do subcontract out the data services. They use a contractor based in Vancouver that actually does the phone calls. In this case they absolutely have to contact the person who’s on the phone, so it will require a number of calls to try to reach that individual. If we can’t reach that individual, we do send mail directly to that individual in order to get back to them.

The way that the survey is designed is…. A typical survey is a 95 percent confidence interval plus or minus 5 percent. And this is much, much higher, in terms of 99 percent plus or minus 1 percent. So the survey is designed to give us certainty in this case, because the impact of a successful petition is a significant impact: a member loses their seat. B.C. Stats designed the survey so that it could give us that certainty in terms of: is the result what the result should be?

N. Western: Can I just add that those 3,900 people is a random sample, a statistical random sample taken by B.C. Stats. As Anton said, those individuals have to be contacted. It’s not just a case of phoning them each once, and if we don’t get a hold of them, phone somebody else. It has to be those people in order to give the results that we need.

M. Morris: Just a follow-up to that. You contact them by phone, but are the signatures physically compared? Are you asking these guys to sign and compare to verify that they are…? Is that where the extra cost comes in?

A. Boegman: No. In fact, as I mentioned in my comments, we don’t have a signature database.

M. Morris: You phone them up, and you say: “We just want to verify that you signed this.”

A. Boegman: No. It’s to simply ask: “Did you sign this petition?” And they say yes or no. It was the same process that we used in the HST initiative petition that was done in 2011.

K. Archer: If I could follow up on that. At that point, though, I think even if we had a signature database, it would probably be less critical that we make that comparison. The issue is that any eligible, registered voter in that electoral district can sign only once. So the question for us is, if we contact the person: “Did you sign it?” If they tell us they’ve signed it, then that provides us with the confidence that they have, whether or not we actually compare that signature. That is all the confidence that we require.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Thank you very much. Any further questions? Can I suggest we stay on the recall portion of the presentation? Any further questions regarding the recall portion of the presentation?

Okay, seeing none. Any questions to the floor with regard to the presentation on the transit plebiscite?

S. Gibson: Yeah. When we met last time, I thought the information that the committee received was helpful. As a new member of the committee, when I looked at the budget proposal…. Obviously, the veracity of the election can’t be compromised. I get that. As part of the process, I’m a beneficiary of that.

But my question is…. Obviously, our role, I think, as you noted in your comments earlier, Dr. Archer, is to be financially prudent, to be good stewards of the public purse. I see that as our role here, of course, because that’s the accountability.

When I looked at the budget documents…. I know that you’ve done some good things here, making $450,000 worth of adjustments. I guess, for me — I was looking at this — I say, “Okay, what’s optional? What is, like, a deal-breaker?” to use the vernacular. For example, you did the mailer, and the mailer’s price was, I think, about $1 million — something like that. The mailer was approximately $1 million?

K. Archer: To print the householder was $46,000, and then there were the mailing costs in addition to that.

S. Gibson: Right. Don’t hear me being critical of that. I’m just saying: “Okay, what is discretionary?” The 17 languages was something that I noticed. When you get six or seven languages, there’s lots of…. But then when it drops off, you’re only down to just a handful of people.

Again, we don’t want to exclude people. I get that. I think it’s laudable. But just as one person here, it would be interesting, maybe for the next go-round on this cycle, to say: “Okay, what’s discretionary, and what are the things we just have to do?” It seems that that’s our
[ Page 1382 ]
role: to ensure that we get the most value from the dollars we’re spending without compromising the veracity of the election process.

That’s, sort of, my general comment. It may be a little over philosophical, but that’s sort of where I’m coming from.

K. Archer: If I could respond to that. We gave a lot of consideration to whether we needed to provide a householder in this event. As I mentioned, we hadn’t done that for the HST referendum, but there were some things in the context to the lead-up to the plebiscite that led us to be convinced that a householder would be very useful.

One of the issues was confusion over whether this was a referendum or a plebiscite, for example. Was it going to be conducted under the Referendum Act or under the Election Act as a plebiscite?

Even as late as early January, if one went to the Mayors Council webpage, you would see a hotlink to “transportation and transit referendum.” Then if people receive something from Elections B.C. that is clearly marked “plebiscite,” that could lead to some confusion, it seems to me.

Because there was some different communication by different actors, it was our decision that we had an opportunity with one document to set out the language, the processes that would be used, the timing of the event. We went with that option and included those expenditures.

The Election Act does provide the Chief Electoral Officer — again, this is an event conducted under the Election Act — with important responsibilities for ensuring public education around electoral events. With that authority and with that context, we thought that this was a prudent approach on our part.

With respect to the number of translations, we, as a matter of course, translate key information about electoral processes in a large number of languages given the diversity of the population in British Columbia.

The costs of doing so are in terms of the event overall, and the payoff, as it were, that one gets from that greater understanding — fairly reasonable. I’ll turn to Don again, but I think the translation costs were….

S. Hamilton (Chair): Don, could I ask you to take a seat at one of the microphones here, if you wouldn’t mind, please, so we could have it on the record? And if I could get you to state your name before your comments, please. Thank you.

Initially we had budgeted about $17,500 for translation into 17 languages for our householder, but that was actually rolled into the production costs with our advertising agency of record. We created translation keys of the voting package materials in 17 languages, which is also something that we did in the HST referendum, and that was about $14,000.

S. Gibson: Just one other matter that I asked last time. Of course, I have the copy of the legislation here. This is very prescriptive regarding the actual mechanics. I was referring last time we met about the process of all these envelopes. We’ve got these millions of envelopes. We’ve got millions of envelopes inserted, and they’re taken out and resealed.

I work for a company where we require a same return process, where the envelope was like this. So you’d take off the outside, you would fill out the information — you’ll recall me mentioning this perhaps — and you open it like that. It’s pre-adhesive. Bam — into the mailbox.

Here, of course, we’re apparently not allowed to do that, according to the legislation. So my brainwave was not attainable.

I would love to see us maybe talk about logistics, of ways to use new mailing technologies as a way to save the taxpayers hundreds of dollars’ worth of envelopes. There are all kinds of techniques out there where they get one, and they just fold it up. You don’t have to have lots of envelopes and lots of extra paper. Again, probably the cost is not that much, but I think the optics of doing something like that would be good, compared to those millions of envelopes, many of which are discarded, unfortunately, because that’s just the nature of the business. That was something I shared previously.

If I could add, just following the theme that Simon brought up, I guess maybe I’ll just put it out to the committee. In the future — obviously, we can’t do it now — I guess defining what is statutory and what is discretionary and maybe having a discussion beforehand and figure out…. Maybe leave it to the politicians to decide whether or not we should take the extra leap, the extra steps for the advertising.

I think there’s a billboard outside of B.C. Ferries. It doesn’t say “Vote yes”; it doesn’t say “Vote no.” So I’m going to assume maybe it has something to do with Elections B.C., reminding people of the plebiscite.

G. Heyman: Partly in response to Simon’s point, I just want to make sure that it’s on the record there’s another perspective about this whole cost for a referendum/plebiscite on transportation, which the Transportation Minister himself admitted in estimates well over a year ago would not be repeated. It was being held because it was an election promise. There’s no intention to do it with the Massey bridge. There’s no intention to do it with B.C. Transit funding. There’s no intention to do it with anyone else.

I would simply suggest that the real lesson here is that we’re spending a lot of money to keep an election promise that’s a one-off and that serves no useful purpose other than to further delay investment in needed congestion relief that’s costing the economy of the province about $1 billion a year.

Okay, seeing none, thank you so much. I appreciate your time, Keith, Nola and staff. It was very enlightening. I appreciate you coming forward to give us your presentation.

S. Hamilton (Chair): If we can have an opportunity now to have some fulsome discussion and go in camera. Can I have a motion? Moved by Eric.

S. Hamilton (Chair): I’ll go to the floor with regard to the motions before us.

E. Foster: I move: “The Committee recommend that Elections BC be granted supplementary funding up to $25,000 for fiscal year 2015/16 in order to defray initial expenditures to administer the Maple Ridge–Mission Recall Petition.

“Should the Maple Ridge–Mission Recall Petition proceed to verification stage, the Committee further recommend that Elections BC be granted additional supplementary funding up to $142,000 for fiscal year 2015/16 in order to defray expenditures related to the Maple Ridge–Mission Recall Petition.”

C. James (Deputy Chair): I move: “The Committee recommend that Elections BC be granted supplementary funding up to $24,000 for fiscal year 2015/16 in order to defray initial expenditures to administer the Burnaby North Recall Petition.

“Should the Burnaby North Recall Petition proceed to the verification stage, the Committee further recommend that Elections BC be granted additional supplementary funding up to $142,000 for fiscal year 2015/16 in order to defray expenditures related to the Burnaby North Recall Petition.”

D. Ashton: I move that the Chair advise the Minister of Finance as chair of Treasury Board of the recommendations adopted earlier today and that the committee’s recommendations be formally recorded in its report on the annual review of the statutory office budgets later this year.

E. Foster: Should that motion not wait until we do the plebiscite motion first? Technically.

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of Committees): That may actually be helpful. There was also a motion with respect to the plebiscite that you may wish to have incorporated into your motion.

D. Ashton: I move: “The Committee recommend that Elections BC be granted supplementary funding up to $2,740,500 for fiscal year 2015/16 in order to defray expenditures to administer the Metro Vancouver Transportation and Transit Plebiscite.”

S. Gibson: I move: “The Chair advise the Minister of Finance, as Chair of Treasury Board, of the recommendations adopted earlier today and that the Committee’s recommendations be formally recorded in its report on its annual review of statutory office budgets later this year.”

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of Committees): I just wanted to thank members for their assistance this morning. We will convey on your behalf to the Minister of Finance, by way of correspondence, the results of your deliberations, and we will also be in touch with your offices shortly to schedule a new meeting of this committee on May 27, Wednesday morning, from nine till noon, and proceed with the invitations to the officers to provide you with an operational and financial update on the work of their respective groups.

G. Heyman: May I respectfully request that we schedule a little further in advance in future? We’re probably, many of us, in the position of rescheduling meetings on the 27th. Now, I think this is a priority, but it’s just easier to know for planning purposes.

S. Hamilton (Chair): By all means, let’s note it, absolutely. And thank you all, as well, for humouring me as I fumble my way through this new gig. I appreciate it.

S. Gibson: Staff have been asked to work on a kind of matrix or template, and I’m wondering when we’ll be getting a draft of that.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Kate addressed that. You mean as far as the budget proposals are concerned? The budget submissions?

S. Hamilton (Chair): Yeah, Kate had addressed that a little bit earlier. We have some examples here that we’ll be forwarding to the statutory officers.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Well, you can just get an example as to the format. We’ll be forwarding those to the officers. We’re going to ask them to comment on it because we want to give them enough lead time so that they can adapt their budgeting process to meet our requirements. If we get that common reporting theme at this committee, it’s going to make life a lot easier for us.

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of Committees): Certainly, at the will of the committee, we can share the proposed budget template with the officers in advance of the meeting. Because of the timing that we envision, which would be a maximum of one hour per office, the initial thought wasn’t to necessarily focus on the technicalities of a budget template. We certainly would welcome feedback from the officers and their financial staff on how to strengthen this proposed template.

The proposal was for the officers to come and simply provide the committee with an update on the operations of their office and the priorities that they have set for the current fiscal year under their mandate, recognizing that under the terms of reference that have been provided to this committee by the Legislature, in addition to the annual budget submissions which you receive each November, you are also formally referred their annual reports and service plans.

In many cases, because of the timing of the fall meetings, it’s very difficult for the committee to engage in the details of some of those priority areas for each of the independent offices.

Particularly, with respect to the service plan, it might now be a good point in time, six months after their initial appearance before the committee, to provide members with an update on the offices’ priorities and on new initiatives that they’ve undertaken or any other matters that they wish to bring to your attention. But we’re hoping to frame their conversations within the context of the terms of reference of this committee which, as I mentioned, provide you with those three key documents on an annual basis.

C. James (Deputy Chair): I was just going to follow up on Simon’s question. I think the committee’s discussion was a two-part process — and thanks to Kate and her staff for bringing it forward — to have an opportunity, away from the budget request, to actually understand the workings of the office, to be able to ask those kinds of in-depth questions.

I think the first visit this go-round is really an opportunity to learn about the offices do so that when the budget request comes forward, hopefully, with the template and a little bit more commonality between the information we get, we then have a better understanding and we better judge the budget requests that come forward. So I think it’s good work, and I’m really glad that the committee is moving on it. I think an important recommendation last time round was for us to have that time between the budget request and the office coming forward to really understand what was going on.

D. Ashton: Just before we go, welcome aboard, Ron. Look forward to working with you.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Oh yes, of course. My apologies, Ron. Welcome to the committee. We’ve worked together before, but I know you’re going to do us in great stead.

Seeing no further questions or comments, I’ll take a motion to adjourn. Simon, seconded by….

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

Chair:	Wm. Scott Hamilton (Delta North BC Liberal)
Deputy Chair:	Carole James (Victoria–Beacon Hill NDP)
Members:	Dan Ashton (Penticton BC Liberal)
	Eric Foster (Vernon-Monashee BC Liberal)
	Simon Gibson (Abbotsford-Mission BC Liberal)
	George Heyman (Vancouver-Fairview NDP)
	Gary Holman (Saanich North and the Islands NDP)
	Mike Morris (Prince George–Mackenzie BC Liberal)
	Jane Jae Kyung Shin (Burnaby-Lougheed NDP)
	John Yap (Richmond-Steveston BC Liberal)
Clerk:	Kate Ryan-Lloyd

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS(Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON FINANCE AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS
(Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON
FINANCE AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES