Finance and Government Services — Issue No. 91 — Monday, January 18, 2016 (HTML)

Strategy Room 420, Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue
580 West Hastings Street, Vancouver, B.C.

Present: Wm. Scott Hamilton, MLA (Chair); Carole James, MLA (Deputy Chair); Dan Ashton, MLA; Spencer Chandra Herbert, MLA; Eric Foster, MLA; Simon Gibson, MLA; George Heyman, MLA; Jackie Tegart, MLA; John Yap, MLA

2. Pursuant to its terms of reference, the Committee continued its review of the three-year rolling service plans, annual reports and budget estimates of the statutory offices.

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

5. The following witnesses appeared before the Committee and answered questions on Elections BC’s supplementary funding request: February 2016 By-Elections, Coquitlam-Burke Mountain and Vancouver-Mount Pleasant

7. Resolved, that the Committee meet in-camera to deliberate on its draft report to the House. (George Heyman, MLA)

10. Resolved, that the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services adopt its report entitled Annual Review of Budgets of Statutory Officers as amended today, and further that the Committee authorize the Chair and Deputy Chair to work with committee staff to finalize any minor editorial changes to complete the supporting text. (Carole James, MLA)

11. Resolved, that the Chair of the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services deposit a copy of the report entitled Annual Review of the Budgets of the Statutory Offices with the Clerk of the Legislative Assembly; and further, that upon resumption of the sittings of the House, or at the next following session, the Chair shall present the Report to the Legislative Assembly at the earliest available opportunity. (Carole James, 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
Office of the Representative for Children and Youth	2125
D. Thomas-Wightman
M. Sieben
A. Clayton
Elections B.C.: Supplementary Funding Request	2134
K. Archer
A. Boegman
N. Western
Committee Report to the House	2141
Office of the Ombudsperson	2141

S. Hamilton (Chair): Welcome, everyone. This afternoon we’re here to, first of all, receive the annual review of the statutory officers of British Columbia, continued consideration of the Office of the Representative for Children and Youth 2016-17 budgetary estimates request.

I’d like to take the opportunity to welcome you here today. Maybe I should start with some introductions. We can start with ourselves. First of all, we have our good friends at Hansard Services.

D. Ashton: Good afternoon. Dan Ashton from Penticton. Happy new year to each of you.

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Deputy Clerk and Clerk of Committees): Kate Ryan-Lloyd, Clerk to the committee.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Dawn, if I could start with you, maybe you could introduce yourself, and the rest, to the committee, please.

D. Thomas-Wightman: Good afternoon. Dawn Thomas-Wightman, the deputy representative. The representative sends her regrets today.

We’re pleased to be here to provide you with further clarification around our office’s request to fund eight time-limited staff on a three-year basis. The sole purpose of this staff would be to help more children in care in B.C. to find their forever families.

I’ll begin by introducing some of our senior staff. We have John Greschner, executive lead at the office. To my right is Alan Markwart, who is our associate deputy representative of advocacy. Then we have Dianne Buljat on the end, who is our chief financial officer.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Before we begin, if you don’t mind, I’d like to also introduce two people we have on the phone with us. We have Mark Sieben, Deputy Minister of Children and Families; and Anne Clayton, executive director, adoptions branch. Welcome.

D. Thomas-Wightman: We welcome the opportunity to address the committee on this important issue, on the work of our office. We’re able to provide a brief background and overview as to why we’re here today.

At any given time, as you may be aware, there are approximately 1,000 children in care waiting to be adopted. The representative and MCFD, the minister, both agree that is way too many, which is why we’ve been working together collaboratively in an effort to reduce those numbers.

Last fiscal year the ministry had set a modest goal of 300 adoptions, which, unfortunately, it fell short of. They reached 265 children being placed. This is a result that neither the minister was happy with nor our office.

The ministry subsequently revised a goal to 600 over two years, and we’re not sure they’re going to be able to make that this year as well. I think they’re at 275 presently. They’ll likely get to the 300, but they need to get to 330 to make up for the shortfall the previous year. That’s a concern of the minister’s and our office as well.

Since June of 2014, when Minister Cadieux joined the representative at the release of our report Finding Forever Families: A Review of the Provincial Adoption System, our office has been working jointly — and, I feel, pretty successfully — including on three subsequent B.C. adoption updates.

We are not confident, however, that MCFD will be able to significantly increase adoptions in the near future. We believe that the ministry needs help in this area, and that is where our request from last May for additional resources has come up. We respectfully requested an increase in the RCY budget in order to hire one senior advocate, five advocates, a research analyst and administrative clerk on a three-year basis.

The primary role of this new RCY unit would be to provide individual and systemic advocacy to increase the
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adoption rates. The advocacy will be aimed at promoting timely adoptions in all regions of the province, addressing systemic barriers to timely adoptions that are now in place and working to improve communications and relationships on the front line.

Our advocates will be expected to travel extensively in the regions, making direct contact with children, foster parents and permanency-planning professionals to promote timely adoptions.

Given the lower and slower rates of adoptions for aboriginal children and youth, advocates will work extensively with the delegated aboriginal agencies, First Nations leadership and First Nations communities across the province. Some of that work has begun, including a forum that we held last spring in conjunction with the Ministry of Children and Family Development and First Nations leadership to discuss this topic that can sometimes be controversial in many First Nations communities for reasons that are well known to all of us.

Early work will necessarily focus on research to identify numbers and circumstances and outreach activities to establish presence in the regions and prioritize cases of advocacy.

As you know, the overall increase for this ask would be $958,000 over a three-year term. We did not make this request lightly. It is simply not possible for us to complete this work without reallocating existing resources.

As I said, the most recent adoption figures, I believe, were at about 275, and the deputy minister can confirm that for us. With those numbers, it’s unlikely that the ministry will meet its target of 600 over two years. We know we can do better in B.C., and we want to do better.

E. Foster: This is a very challenging file, as we’re well aware. I guess my question, bluntly, is: why do you think you can do a better job?

I think we’ve proven that we can do a better job. An example of that is with the joint forum that we had in the spring, where we brought together First Nations leadership, the ministry and ourselves. That was the first type of meeting and forum that ever happened to talk about adoption and have really open discussions on what permanency meant.

We had a youth panel there that was very moving for First Nations leaders, who often have a sense of the word “adoption” that’s different than what adoption looks like today. Having them be present and open to that was important.

The ministry itself, at the end of that meeting, said: “We couldn’t have done this forum without the RCY.” We had our discussion with the deputy minister at that time, who was present, and it was very much a joint initiative. It was a successful initiative, with the number of people we had.

We’d like to have another forum. It costs about $75,000 to have those forums, so money is obviously an issue. There’s more work to be done in that area. But it developed a collaborative relationship between the two offices, where we worked together to develop this forum.

We have the relationships on the front line that sometimes the ministry doesn’t because of the contentious history that has been between First Nations and the ministry in the past however many years — 50 years or so. That’s another piece of why we think we can do it.

We have better access to some of those First Nations communities and better relationships. We’d like to build a bridge between the ministry and those communities, with us facilitating.

One more piece, Eric, if I can follow up. We’ve done it better as well…. This isn’t a criticism of the ministry. We do want to work together. But we’ve had a few cases of advocacy cases where we’ve had family with aboriginal children that are available for placement, and they’ve been placed in a non-aboriginal home. With our advocacy on the front line, being able to bring people together, we have successfully placed children that were in non-aboriginal homes to a placement with a family, which is the end goal for everybody.

Although it took a lot of time and energy…. The representative talks about one case where we spent 64 straight days on advocacy support. That ended up and resulted in a placement for three aboriginal children with families. So we’ve had some successes. It takes time, and it takes energy. It takes a lot of time from our front-line staff.

In that particular case, it took the representative and myself to do daily advocacy, right up the line to the ministerial level.

Where’s the problem? What is it? Put your finger on it for me. What is the problem between yourself and the ministry in the availability of being able to place these kids?

D. Thomas-Wightman: I don’t want to throw rocks either or criticize the ministry, because they have taken this issue of adoption and made it a priority again. I really commend the minister and the deputy minister for taking adoption on, because it was an area that was not prioritized for a number of years.

There are a number of issues. They’re twofold. I think the aboriginal community issues are some of the largest ones, where a child that’s in the care of a delegated agency right now is 20 times less likely to be adopted — an aboriginal child — if they’re in care of an agency versus the ministry.
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Now, the reasons for that is what I discussed around the difficulty in relationship, the difficulty of adoptions, the history of the Sixties Scoop, etc. Aboriginal communities are fearful of what that word “adoption” means, so a lot of work has to be done to build trust in those relationships and really talk about open adoptions and what adoption looks like today versus what adoption looked like yesterday.

Communities aren’t really willing to have the ministry walk in and have that conversation right away because there’s a mistrust there, so it takes a lot of relationship-building time, etc.

Mary Ellen, the representative, with her relationships and the trust that she’s built with First Nations’ community, has a bit better access there. I think the deputy minister would agree with me on that point — that we need to work together with those communities to get them on board to place more aboriginal children.

On the other end of the spectrum, with some non-aboriginal kids, I think adoption hasn’t been given a priority. There hasn’t been a campaign. So as you know, we released a joint campaign last spring — 1000Families — and there’s been some media around adoptions.

So we need to do better with recruitment. We need to do better about how we’re working with prospective adoptive families, and they need some staff to do that as well. That’s what our report showed. Just reframing the culture in the ministry as well as about what permanency and adoption mean takes a bit of work as well.

We feel like it’s been a good first step that the ministry has taken. We wouldn’t ask this if we didn’t believe we needed to be part of this solution, and that’s where we feel we could get those adoption numbers up. At the end of three years, we fully expect that those numbers will be better, and the ministry will be able to meet its modest goal.

I mean, 1,000 children waiting — it’s significant, and placing 200 to 300 each year isn’t okay.

D. Ashton: But is there a reason that people are not picking up on these kids? I’ve heard of families at home in the Okanagan that have waited years to pick up adoption.

D. Thomas-Wightman: Right. We’ve heard the same stories about families. You’ll notice in our report that some families waited over two to four years. Some of that has to do with staffing. Often with child protection, when that work is a priority, often in the ministry, and when they’re short-staffed, sometimes they’ll pull the permanency staff to cover the child protection work, right? Then those files might sit and wait year after year for prospective parents. So the ministry needs to take a look at their staffing, and they also need to take a look at the way they do their business, which I believe they’re doing.

Like I said, adoptions wasn’t a priority. The focus wasn’t there, so I think when some of those situations happen, that they weren’t as responsive as they should have been.

But definitely, there are waiting parents. Definitely we need to do a piece around who the kids are and that they’re not, in the media, described one way rather than another way, if you know what I mean, so that these kids can be part of a healthy family and bring richness to all families, and they’re not painted out sometimes how they are in the media.

There’s a great deal of work to do, but our main focus in this would be working on the relationships, working with prospective adoptive parents who are waiting. We could go out and say: “What’s been happening? How long have you been waiting?” Then we talk to the ministry — might have to talk to the executive director and move it up the line of: why is this family waiting? What’s the discussion that needs to happen?

We’ve had advocacy cases where maybe the family wasn’t an appropriate family to have an adoption. Well, that discussion needs to happen openly and honestly as well, instead of the family just waiting. So we work with the ministry to say: “Have this discussion with the family. Be upfront. Let them know that these are the concerns you have.”

Rather than that, though, this family stood and waited and waited and wondered why they couldn’t be an adoptive family. There were some issues, and once you have that discussion, they can mitigate those issues sometimes. Sometimes there are families that can’t pass the test, and then that open discussion has to happen with that. So our advocacy staff work with the ministry to have some of those conversations.

The deputy may be able to speak more about what his thoughts are on why it’s not happening and why they are having trouble reaching the number.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Before I go on, Mr. Sieben, if you have any commentary on anything that’s being said, if you’d just jump in. We try not to be too formal here.

Just to follow along the lines of questioning, I think you’ve identified well a variety of issues that get in the way of moving adoptions forward simply from the ministry itself. I think all of us, including the representative’s office, I’m sure, would believe that the ministry should take care of this. It’s part of their mandate. It’s part of their job. It’s part of what they should be doing.

Reality is it’s not happening as quickly as it should, so I think it makes good sense to look at providing additional support.

My hope would be, if this support goes on and if the project goes on, that the learning will happen as well, that it’s not simply that you’re there providing the support but
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that you’re actually supporting the ministry in doing the learning that needs to be done to be able to take on that responsibility; to look at different kinds of ways to address the systemic challenges of families coming forward — particularly aboriginal families, when the ministry is not, from their perspective, a place you go; to be able to support them. That’s a long history, and that’s going to take some time. I think having an intermediary there providing that support makes a big difference.

I had on my list to ask the deputy minister if he could talk a little bit about the work that has actually gone on in this first year and the kind of experience that it’s been for both the ministry and the rep’s office, from his perspective, in taking the project on.

M. Sieben: Chair, I can do that now, if you like, or I can wait until other questions. What’s your preference?

S. Hamilton (Chair): Feel free. If you’d like to address it now, by all means.

To a large extent, I would agree with what Dawn has laid out in identifying many of the challenges associated with adoptions and permanency work. It is true that over the course of the last two years, MCFD has put increased importance and emphasis on adoptions and permanency. It is not the case that it has not always been important, but I would agree…. I think at times, between Minister Cadieux and myself, we’ve made a point in identifying that there was a period of drift of adoptions and permanency as an area that required ongoing, significant attention. That arose over a period of a number of years.

Minister Cadieux’s strong desire was to right that trend and re-emphasize the importance of improving plans of care — including elements of cultural appropriateness in those plans of care, particularly for children in long-term care — and to begin to explore opportunities either relating to adoptions or other forms of permanency that are available through the Adoption Act and the Child, Family and Community Service Act.

We have not received a budget lift ourselves for this work. We have found means internally to sort of self-fund approximately $2 million in initiatives — about what were allocated for adoption. We do that readily, given the importance of the work.

As Dawn has noted, we weren’t able to achieve the 300 target that we identified last fiscal year. As a result, we’ve upped the common total to 600 next fiscal, and we remain optimistic that we’re going to be able to reach that goal by the end of the fiscal year.

The child-in-care caseload is shaped by a number of different factors. At any one time there are approximately, say, between 7,200 and 7,300 children in care. The majority of those children in care are children who are in care as a result of a continuing custody order — in old language, what were known as permanent wards. They are children for whom the director under the Child, Family and Community Service Act is the guardian and, really, are the state’s children.

Our strong desire is to find permanent homes for the children in long-term care, and that begins with strengthening and increasing the permanency plans for them. As Dawn has noted, that begins with re-energizing the relationships that we have with the communities from which the children come.

So in addition to simply being available for prospective adoptive parents and looking to do the matches, there really is a front-line work requirement that sees a re-instigation of lines of communication between the ministry and the communities from whom the families for the children came.

Grand Chief Ed John has instigated some of this work. It will continue on over the course of the next few years. I would anticipate that through the next few years, in addition to adoptions, we’ll see increasing importance on other avenues of permanency that allow us to move children from being in care to permanent homes.

So, Chair and Carole, what I think I’ll do is I’ll leave it at that, and should there be specific questions relating to the nature of the initiative itself, then I’ve got Anne here to help me out to provide some specifics.

E. Foster: It doesn’t matter who answers this question. Of the thousands of children that are waiting to be adopted, what percentage of those are First Nations?

D. Thomas-Wightman: Let me see here. I’ve got that number for you. Sorry, just give me a minute.

M. Sieben: The overall proportion of aboriginal children in care is around 60. On the continuing custody order side, it tends to be between 53 to 55, I think, if I recall right. Not all the children who are in care through continuing custody order are immediately available for adoption. That’s the number that Dawn references. It is safe to say that it’s the majority of the kids and, again, would be between, say, 50 and 60 percent.
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E. Foster: Okay. Where I’m going with this, I guess, is to try and identify…. For me, one of the challenges, and the hope, is to place those children in permanent First Nations homes. Is that correct?

D. Thomas-Wightman: I can answer that. Yes, that’s the policy that the ministry has — to place with aboriginal families. That’s not going to be possible, necessarily, with the amount of aboriginal families that are available as a prospective parent.

Already the statistics show that aboriginal families overrepresent as far as caretakers. So they do step up and act as caregivers in many cases, but with those numbers, we’re really aware that some non-aboriginal families will have to adopt aboriginal children or offer permanency options. Our office — we do support that, with a strong cultural plan in place to explain how that family’s going to make sure that that child remains connected to their aboriginal community.

I believe the ministry feels the same way — that there’ll be non-aboriginal families that are appropriate for aboriginal children to be placed in, with strong cultural planning to ensure that that connection stays. It’s important for the communities and the leaders of those communities that there is that plan.

Realistically, yes, there’ll have to be some non-aboriginal parents. They all probably can’t be placed with First Nations families. That’s our hope and our goal.

S. Chandra Herbert: This question may not be answerable — I’m not sure — but I thought I’d take a stab at it. We all know the impact — well, we have an idea, anyway — of being in care long term. I’m wondering. I had two points. Is there an average cost to the taxpayer, to the government, that you know of per one child in care? And what’s the average time that kids are in care?

I just ask that because there’s a financial cost, so to speak, for us to hire more folks to get kids out of care and into permanent families. But there’s also a cost when we leave kids in care, not just financially but — I think we also have to think — emotionally and socially long-term into their futures as well. I’m just wondering if you’ve crunched those numbers.

D. Thomas-Wightman: We can get those numbers for you. I don’t have them available right now, but we do look at those numbers, and it is more expensive to keep a child in care. The rates for foster care are generally higher than the post-adoption rates and family placements, so definitely it’s higher to keep a child in care. We can get those numbers for the committee. I can have them sent over.

Can I go back to one point that I made with your first question, Eric, that I want to correct? I don’t mean to say that we can do it better at our office. I mean we can do it better together as an organization with the ministry, and I do want to say that our relationship with the deputy and his staff around this project has been positive. It’s been very collaborative, and I feel like we can build on that success that we’ve seen in this area and other areas of our work and work together in a more positive, collaborative way.

If it came across that I was saying we do it better, I didn’t mean to say that. I meant to say that we work better together, and I believe the deputy and his staff would say the same thing, as well as the minister and the representative, working together positively on this issue.

I would also add, if I could, that the majority of children and youth that come into the ministry’s care tend not to remain with us very long. That’s usually a period of a number of months. We’re usually successful in seeking their return. That is not common amongst all of our service lines nor even with some of the cohorts that we deal with.

It’s true — and we could provide numbers if this was of interest — that the length of period of time that a child is in care gets longer as they come into our care older. We have some more older children. A simpler way to word that is that we have more older children in care rather than younger children in care. Often we have sibling groups that are in care with us permanently, which presents, sometimes, a challenge.

We can cut up the costing a number of different ways in terms of a response to the question of how much it takes to look after a child in care. We can work with Dawn and the representative’s office and agree on a number that we can get you for that purpose. We’ve got a couple of different ways of doing it.

S. Gibson: As I’m hearing the presentation, should I worry that there’s going to be an overlap? We’ve got, essentially, two organizations, concurrently, with the same or similar congruent issues that they’re trying to resolve. I worry about that a little bit. If you could make a comment on that.

D. Thomas-Wightman: Sure. That’s something that we consider but not something that we worry about at our office.

We aren’t delegated under the act to actually do adoption work per se. The ministry staff do that. We see our role as a little bit different in the adoption work and the placement and the permanency work.

As I described on some of the pieces around relationship-building, we have a little bit more — what with staff too — time to get on the ground and do some of that work and then bring the ministry in together with us or go in together with the ministry, as we’ve done in some
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communities. Our piece is around the relationship-building, around the direct advocacy, the day-to-day advocacy. So as advocates, we are not decision-makers per se, but we bring the issue to the table and work as an intermediary, as Carole had suggested, working with the ministry to help do this work.

We don’t see it as an overlap. I appreciate the question, but our work is a little bit different than the placement of the children and some of the technical work that gets done maybe after we’ve been involved. We’ve brought the families together. We’ve brought the community together. Then that technical piece of work we’d step out of, and the ministry would take it forward.

M. Sieben: I would reference a letter that the representative sent to the committee at the end of November in which she speaks to the proposal. Within that letter, she attributes to me, and rightfully so, a brief conversation that she and I had regarding the representative’s office’s proposal being distinct from but supportive of the ministry’s permanency initiative.

As Dawn noted, this has been a collaborative enterprise for a couple of years. While, certainly, the responsibility for pursuing adoptions and permanency initiatives for children in care remains here, we’ve been pleased and will continue to look to receive the collaborative support from the representative’ office.

To that end, I’d want to make sure it’s understood that the permanency initiative itself is not dependent upon this proposal. This is an area of priority for Minister Cadieux and the ministry. That will continue. But again, as the letter references, MCFD remains committed to the collaborative nature of it.

Given the disproportionate number of folks representing the First Nations community, which you alerted us to earlier, I guess it would be fair to say that there are issues in those family units that have precipitated the current situation of the availability of these children, often in tragic circumstances.

How do we, as a society — as government, perhaps — address that in a way that we’re not in denial? You know what I mean? All these folks have come through the system in this familial tragedy, and now we’re trying to change the paradigm, sometimes against extraordinary odds. I’d like you to speak to that.

D. Thomas-Wightman: Sure, definitely. Some of that I think is spoken to through the Truth and Reconciliation report, but from our office and maybe from government’s side, we see a couple of different roles.

Obviously, the impacts of colonization have been significant on First Nations families and communities. Saying that, in our work we often find that there are some healthy family members in every family and that some of the work and searching has to be done around that. As far as dealing with some of those issues, our advocates deal with that on a day-to-day basis around supporting families and connecting them up with the services that may or may not be available to help them mitigate some of those risks that have been developed over time due to colonization. So there are a number of things as far as aboriginal child welfare.

We also see a large role for First Nations–directed services and supports in place so that First Nations can own some of those. Some of the services in place for non-aboriginal families aren’t always appropriate for aboriginal families, for non-aboriginal to aboriginal — for instance, parenting courses. Sometimes they’re set up and made for mainstream issues and not really dealing with some of the issues that aboriginal communities have to face around deep intergenerational poverty, trauma, etc. — so trauma-informed services, services that are specific to that group and First Nation to get the families in a better healing place from the impacts of the colonization, residential school, etc.

Some of the recommendations from the truth and reconciliation report are important to follow, but in our day-to-day work I see it as advocacy. I see it as advocating for First Nations–directed supports around child welfare.

It’s a huge issue. You’re right. I think just acknowledging that it is an issue and that there’s a different way to do the work is the first step.

D. Ashton: Maybe first of all, a question to Mark. Mark, is there anybody in the ministry for contract?

D. Ashton: Contract to the representative to see how they can do for a year. I mean, we issue other contracts elsewhere, so is there an opportunity to do a one-off and see how this works?

M. Sieben: As I noted off the front, for the last couple of years, MCFD has been self-funding a series of initiatives specific to permanency in adoptions. We remain in discussion with our colleagues at the Ministry of Finance.

Budget day is looming for us now sort of closely. Without speculating, without any basis on which I could be close to accurate or what that might find, I would note that the proposal in relation to what we have with the Ministry of Finance certainly is distinct from the one that the representative’s office has with this committee.

I’ve been in discussions in community forums in the past with Mary Ellen and the representative’s office and have been appreciative of her noting that often the solu-
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tion is increased funding for supports for families. But that should be funding that is in addition to funding that MCFD already has, because we’re looking to maximize our expenditure for direct service. So any dollars that we chase further are going to be directly for service.

We’ll find a way to keep going what we have instigated with the series of relationships inside and outside MCFD that we’ve begun to fund the last few years. I can’t say that we’ve got additional dollars for the distinct but supportive purpose that Dawn has identified through the representative’s office.

D. Ashton: Dawn, my question to you is: how do we do compared to the rest of the country, other provinces, in placements?

D. Thomas-Wightman: I just want to answer the contract question first, if I can, please. It wouldn’t be appropriate for an independent office to be a contractor to the ministry that we have oversight over, either. So even if the budget was available in MCFD, we wouldn’t be able to enter into it as a contractor because of the independent nature of the office. The….

D. Ashton: Sorry to interrupt, but that’s one of the things that I struggle with. You’re independent, but you’re asking to be part of and to do placements, you know, to facilitate….

D. Thomas-Wightman: We’re not asking to do that, though. We’re asking to continue in the independent nature of our work that we already do, building on the advocacy work that we do already. We can’t continue to do the same advocacy work at the level that’s required around this specific issue around adoptions and permanency for families. It’s intense work on a day-to-day basis, and we just don’t have the staff.

We’re not looking to do placements. We’re not looking to approve home studies. We’re not looking to do any of the delegated or mandated work that the ministry is responsible for. There’s a great deal of front-end work that Mark had suggested as well that we need to do, because adoption wasn’t a priority for a number of years.

In addition to that, then you have the historical relationship between the ministry and First Nations communities around adoption and what that word means and what it looks like today. That isn’t easy work. It’s not work that can be done in a few days. It’s building trust over broken relationships over a number of years. And as I had said before, the ministry isn’t likely just to walk into that community and be able to have that discussion.

We need to have that discussion urgently. There are 1,000 kids, so we can’t wait for that relationship and trust to be built. The ministry is doing good work trying to build those relationships. It’s going to take years to do that. We need to get in there so those 1,000 kids aren’t waiting the year, the year, the year next.

I mean, 1,000 kids waiting. We can do placements. We can help them reach their targets if we get this work. But it’s not the same work. It’s building on advocacy work that we’re already mandated and legislated to work on. We’re not asking for a change in mandate.

On the second question, as for the rest of the country, I’m not sure we can get those numbers.

D. Ashton: I’d like to see them if you don’t mind, if you could, and just see how we pair up to the rest of the country.

M. Sieben: Anne is the best person to offer a brief comment regarding where things are at cross-jurisdictionally.

A. Clayton: We place, on average, about 16 percent of the kids that are in care that have adoption as their aftercare plan. We’re fairly unique in terms of our setup and how many kids we have. Alberta is probably the most similar to us. I think they’re somewhat ahead of us but not hugely. Ontario has a different system, with the Children’s Aid Society, so it’s difficult to get a sense of where they’re at. But we’re probably the three biggest provinces with kids in care.

D. Ashton: If you could get some figures — like Manitoba, I’ve got in the back of my mind — just to have a quick look at it, I’d just be curious to see. Without a whole bunch of work, please, just a broad….

D. Thomas-Wightman: Yeah we can get those. No, we can pull it. It won’t take a lot of work.

G. Heyman: I think the question I was going to ask about 15 minutes ago has largely been answered, but I was picking up from the deputy representative’s comment on collaboration. I’m happy to hear the deputy minister and the executive director of adoptions….

I think it’s important from the committee’s perspective. We had the discussion when we had the initial submission about the nature of the relationship between the representative’s office and staff and the ministry, so I think the use of the word “collaboration” is instructive. Your further clarification about the difference in the roles that the representative’s staff will play and the ministry staff will play is also very helpful.

My question to Mark Sieben and/or Anne Clayton is really fairly simple, and I think you’ve largely answered it. But I just want to boil it down. I think what I’ve heard you say is that you see value in and you’re supportive of
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the proposal from the representative’s office in the time frame presented.

M. Sieben: Yeah, I would note that…. I think this is a bit of a unique scenario in which a deputy minister is being asked to comment on the adequacy of the budget of an independent officer. So I approach that question with some amount of caution.

G. Heyman: May I interject for a minute? I purposely didn’t ask you about the budget. I just asked you about the value of the work and the time frame.

M. Sieben: The representative’s office proposal is, from what I understand, three years. We’re not looking to stop our permanency initiative in the next cycle of the service plan. It’s likely to change in hue and colour, to a certain extent.

At a certain point, there are probably more children to pursue with permanency and options other than adoptions than through adoptions. We’re not quite there yet. However, we will be doing this work for quite some period to come. We have lots of work to do in order to ensure that the children who come into our care and remain in our care have stronger plans of care. Part of the advocacy component that Dawn and the representative’s office speak to is to ensure the adequacy of such plans to a certain degree.

As Dawn has noted, while we’re everywhere across the province, there are some communities where MCFD continues to have some difficulty in getting direct access to leaders. We’re taking steps to begin to address that through such activities as what Grand Chief Ed John is beginning to instigate, but that will require ongoing contact over the course of the next months and years as we look to turn the corner and try to create some healthy relationships.

Quite often the children who are in our care are no longer present in or near the communities in which their families historically have been residing. So there’s also a need for us to bridge that somehow and develop meaning and value in those distance relationships and, to a certain extent sometimes, remind those communities of the children that are in the director’s care and that are theirs too. That’s the challenge of social work. There’s plenty of social work to go around.

I think there’s clarity in perspective between our respective offices regarding what gets done under the Child, Family and Community Service Act and the Adoption Act and what gets done under the advocacy function under the Representative for Children and Youth Act. I think I would look to leave it at that, if I might.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Thank you, Mr. Sieben, for that very delicate dance. Well done.

G. Heyman: I think I’ll take the answer I was seeking from it, without pressing any further.

J. Yap: You’ve mentioned that the role you will have in this project is advocacy, relationship-building, connecting up. Could you describe further what exactly the activities or the tasks would entail? I imagined, as you were describing this, that the people who’d be doing this work for the representative would be doing outreach, would be going and meeting families one on one, would be doing education, would be doing contact, follow-up and all that. Could you describe, in a little more granular form, what activities would be involved that will lead to a reduction in the backlog?

D. Thomas-Wightman: We envision some of the work on the ground, obviously, throughout the province. So we don’t necessarily believe that those advocates will be sitting in an office in Victoria or even Prince George or Burnaby but that they would be remotely working across the province, because we need to have some presence in the north and in the Interior, etc. We imagine one advocate in each region, working remotely.

Some of that work, yes, is reaching out with the First Nations and having that initial discussion about wanting to come into the community, what the work is about and why permanency is better. Some of those discussions — and what I wanted to touch on today as well — are talking about the outcomes for kids and what are the outcomes versus being in care for 18 years and aging out versus a permanent family. The statistics are really clear about what those differences are. When we start to talk to First Nations about that and what that means for their kids, then we can get some buy-in.

That day-to-day work in building a relationship on the ground — some of it will be meeting with children. Maybe adoption was never on their radar, permanency wasn’t on their radar, for whatever reason and experience they’ve had. So it’s talking about adoption and connecting them up, maybe with other children who’ve been adopted, to talk about their experiences.

Maybe it’s bringing a bunch of youth together and having like: “What do you need? You’re youth in care. What’s your experience? What does permanency mean to you? What does adoption mean to you?” It’s doing some of that work at that level but very much in the communities. Then hopefully, as we go forward, we’d build on some of the success we had with the adoption forum — maybe not bringing First Nations leaders together in the next one but maybe bringing the youth together, maybe bringing front-line workers together. The forums could look differently from year to year and build on those successes.

The five advocates and the senior advocate would be doing that day to day. They would be taking calls from families. Sometimes a lot of our advocacy calls — the 15,000 that we’ve had over the past number of years — are from social workers themselves, from the ministry, to say: “I’m at a block here. I need some help here. Can you assist us?” Maybe it has to go up the line to the deputy or the representative to have a discussion.

About half our calls are from social workers, so they’ll be responding to some of those calls. But a big outreach on the ground and then coming together as a group to report back on what they’re receiving.

J. Yap: If I may, will the work be focused on families with children that are offered for adoption as well as families that may be prospective adopting families?

D. Thomas-Wightman: Exactly. Prospective adoptive parents that we want to reach out to. Other permanency options around kith-and-kin placements, around family placements. Then the children that are up for adoption. And then the children that are in continuing care that maybe don’t have a plan yet. We want to sit down and look at their plan, and maybe adoption is a good plan for them.

When Mark talked about reviewing the adequacy of those care plans, there may be some children that appropriately should be registered for adoption but aren’t yet. It’s not just the children that are registered for adoption. It may be an increase. So looking at that ground level at each plan for the children.

But yes, with the prospective adoptive parents and bringing them together, what are your barriers? What are you finding? I think Dan talked about the parents who’ve been waiting for a number of years, trying to get to the bottom of some of those issues, as well, and supporting the ministry.

I can’t stress enough the importance of us working together collaboratively and building some success. This was the first real joint work that we did. Since that time we’ve had the joint hotel report, which we worked together on as well. We learned from some of the challenges we had with the adoption forum and some of the issues that we had come across. There’ll always be a necessary tension between our two offices, but the more work we can do together makes sense for kids and families.

S. Chandra Herbert: Just so I completely understand it. Effectively, what you’re asking for really is to continue being advocates for kids, that that’s your role. The ministry looks after social work. The ministry looks after parents to a large extent. They look after the rules, the forms — that kind of thing.

But really, it’s being there on the front lines with kids and, in some cases, prospective families to advocate so we can get them into the permanent homes a.s.a.p, reduce the budget of the ministry in terms of having to pay for that care — because you’ve got families looking after people — and increasing the lifetime prosperity of those kids that are in families. Really, that’s your role as advocates regardless of what way you’re doing it. It’s advocates for kids.

In the ministry, if you have any concerns with my way I express it, please let me know. But that’s the best way I can understand of what you’re asking for here.

D. Thomas-Wightman: Exactly. So just increasing our ability to provide the advocacy supports that are necessary with a specific focus on adoption and permanency.

S. Gibson: Super quick question. How are your standards of measurement of success either different or the same as the ministry?

D. Thomas-Wightman: I would say they’re pretty similar, as far as our measurement of success, as far as getting the numbers down, the hard numbers. Helping them reach that goal if there’s a placement — that’s a success, as far as we’re concerned. Whether that’s a kith and kin or family placement or a formal adoption or a custom adoption, all those would be successes.

In addition, though, dealing with some of the systemic issues is also a success. So bringing us together to discuss this issue. For instance, the forum that we jointly held, I believe, was a success. I would say that the ministry felt the same way in our discussions with them. Some of it is around the coming together as groups. Working together is successful. Bringing youth together to hear their voice is a success.

But at the end of the day, we will be looking at the numbers closely. Our goal at the end of this three years is to come back and say: “Yeah, we increased the number of placements for children in the ministry. More kids are with permanent families.”

S. Hamilton (Chair): On that note — following up on what Spencer commented on, and maybe a little bit of what Simon had to say — this being a finance committee, I would also be interested in those metrics. I’m very reluctant to…. I know this isn’t going to sound right, because we don’t treat our children like numbers. But Spencer is talking about one side of the ledger, and wiping that clean, and the benefits associated with the investment over here.
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Those numbers actually exist. I’d certainly be interested in looking at it.

I know they’re fluid. Obviously, you’re not going to take it down to a dime. But it’s an interesting argument when you look at one side and say: “Look, we can take care of all these kids. We can place them. We can get them off of the support role that they’re in now within the ministry, and we can put them in permanent homes.” What’s the value there? What’s the actual dollars and cents?

Again, don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to treat kids like putting a value on their heads by any means. But it is an interesting argument.

Seeing none, thank you so much for taking the time, coming all the way over here and entertaining us with your presentation. It’s very thought-provoking, and I’m sure the committee is going to have a lot more discussion in our deliberations as we go forward. Once again, thank you very much. I appreciate that.

Mr. Sieben and Ms. Clayton, thank you very much for joining us as well. We do appreciate you taking the time.

We’ll just have a recess for a few minutes, please, while we get settled with our next group.

S. Hamilton (Chair): I’ll call the committee back to order, thank you very much, for the consideration of Elections B.C. supplementary funding request for the February 2016 by-elections in Coquitlam–Burke Mountain and Vancouver–Mount Pleasant.

Dr. Archer, thank you, once again, for coming all the way over to entertain the committee. It’s good to see you again. Happy new year. We’ll start. You can introduce your party, and we’ll go from there.

K. Archer: Sure. The introduction is part of my first paragraph, so I’ll go right into it.

Mr. Chair, Madam Vice-Chair, members of the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services, thanks for inviting me here this afternoon to present our financial requirements to administer two by-elections, Vancouver–Mount Pleasant and Coquitlam–Burke Mountain. I’m joined at the table today by Nola Western, the Deputy Chief Electoral Officer, funding and disclosure; and Anton Boegman, Deputy Chief Electoral Officer, electoral operations.

I’ll proceed this afternoon by providing a description of our financial requirements, a copy of which you will have received through my letter to the committee of January 6, which was the day after the writs were issued on January 5. In addition, on Wednesday of last week, I was requested by the Committee Clerk to present the request using the template that was developed for the annual budget requests of the independent officers. This template includes the funding requirements broken down by standard object of expenditure or by STOB. This is the first instance in which a supplementary budget request of this office has been presented in this manner, so I’m hopeful that it provides a level of detail that facilitates the work of this committee.

I would note that there are some differences in the categorization of expenditures between our table from the January 6 letter and the template that includes the STOB codes that were provided to the committee. The categories in our table are those that we report on publicly, as these are the most useful to our stakeholders. The STOB categories are those that are used in government more generally. Although the differences between these tables make a direct comparison — a bit tricky sometimes — nonetheless, the categorizations are close enough that I believe we can make our way through the materials without any difficulty.

In addition to describing the budget requirements, I also will provide some background information to the committee that highlights some of the changes that are being implemented in these two by-elections. This is particularly useful context since a number of the changes that were introduced in the by-elections will form part of the administrative framework used in administering the 41st general election in May of 2017.

Following the presentation, following my comments, Nola, Anton and I, of course, are available to respond to your comments and questions.

Let me start with the budget requirements. Beginning with my letter and the accompanying table of January 6, I think that would be a good place to focus initially. The budget requirement for Coquitlam–Burke Mountain is $634,000, and the requirement for Vancouver–Mount Pleasant is $681,000, for a total in the two districts of $1.315 million. This is slightly less than the estimate of $1.322 million that I provided to this committee at the time of our annual budget request presentation on November 16, 2015.

One of the questions that may be in your mind is: why would you have a different budget requirement in two electoral districts? That’s what I’d like to focus on initially. Focusing on the table included with my letter of January 6, you’ll see that the salaries in these two electoral districts are about $9,000 higher in Vancouver–Mount Pleasant.

This is a function of the fact that no two electoral districts have exactly the same staffing plan, because the communities themselves that they serve are somewhat different. The populations of the two districts, in this
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case, are fairly similar. In using data from 2014, for example, there were 58,041 people living in Vancouver–Mount Pleasant and 59,029 people in Coquitlam–Burke Mountain.

There are a few more voting areas in Coquitlam–Burke Mountain, but there are more site-based voting areas in Vancouver–Mount Pleasant. When all of the nuances, the differences in personnel allocation in these two electoral districts, are taken into account, the net result is a modest staffing difference of $9,000 between the two districts.

The table also shows a higher cost of general office expenses in Vancouver–Mount Pleasant compared to Coquitlam–Burke Mountain, by about $14,000. The higher costs in Vancouver–Mount Pleasant include the need to hire security personnel to staff the entrance of the district electoral office. This has to do with the location of the district electoral office in that district and its street-level entrance, compared to a second-floor entrance of the DEO office in Coquitlam–Burke Mountain.

In addition, maybe counterintuitively, we need to pay for janitorial services separately in the Vancouver–Mount Pleasant DEO office, whereas that was part of the rent in the Coquitlam–Burke Mountain office. There were also some relatively minor changes that had to take place within the office in order for us to open that up.

Advertising in publications is budgeted at $8,000 higher in Vancouver–Mount Pleasant. Although we’re placing print advertising for both districts in the two major daily newspapers, the Vancouver Sun and the Province, and in two Chinese language dailies — this is for both electoral districts — we’re using different community newspapers in the two districts, and the costs are higher in the community newspapers in Vancouver–Mount Pleasant.

Building occupancy is substantially higher in Vancouver–Mount Pleasant compared to Coquitlam–Burke Mountain. Two factors account for this. First, although our plan called for a three-month office rental for the DEO offices, suitable short-term office rental properties in Vancouver–Mount Pleasant are in scarce supply, and it turns out that the minimum rental period we are able to negotiate for this office space was four months. The plan called for three months, but factors necessitated a longer rental period. In addition, rental costs for the voting places used in the by-elections are about $10,000 higher in Vancouver–Mount Pleasant than they are in Coquitlam–Burke Mountain.

That’s a general description of the spending requirements for the two by-elections, in addition to an indication of the variance between these two districts.

I’d like to turn now to the changes that are being introduced in these by-elections, probably the bigger story of the budget proposal. I’d like to describe the origin of these changes, together with their financial implications. Much of these comments will focus on the effects of Bill 20.

Bill 20, which was passed by the Legislative Assembly in May 2015, contained a number of significant changes to the Election Act. My office has six months from the enactment of legislative changes affecting the voting process to implement the changes as well as the authority to implement them sooner if we’re able to do so. The six-month time period ended in late November. Consequently, all the changes introduced in Bill 20 are now being reflected in these by-elections.

It’s important to recognize that some of the changes introduced by Bill 20 result directly in higher costs for administering the by-elections. In some instances — such as for personnel costs, which I’ll discuss in moment — there are ways of mitigating these increases by introducing some offsetting decreases in other areas. In other instances, by contrast, the legislative changes simply require higher costs to administer, and they’re unavoidable.

In addition, it’s also worth noting that some variability exists in the costs of delivering a by-election, depending on the characteristics of the electoral district. These will become apparent as we review the budget requirements for these two, Vancouver–Mount Pleasant and Coquitlam–Burke Mountain, compared to the most recent three by-elections. These are the three that are included in that STOB table that I referred to earlier. The comments in this part of my presentation will focus on a comparison across by-elections to try to understand the spending differences over time.

The changes that were introduced by Bill 20, of course, can be seen in the Election Act. One of the changes to the act is the addition of two more days of advance voting, I think an important change that was introduced by the Legislative Assembly. Assuming that writ day is day zero of the campaign and assuming that general voting day is day 28, previously advance voting occurred on days 22 through 25 of the campaign, which is the Wednesday through the Saturday preceding a general voting day on a Tuesday.

This change adds the Saturday and Sunday prior to the previous advance voting days — according to our calendar, it’s days 18 and 19 — as additional days of advance voting. Therefore, two additional days of advance voting — a requirement from Bill 20 — increases, of course, the personnel costs for the by-elections.

While introducing two new days of advance voting, we’re also introducing changes to the size of voting areas. We’re making voting areas larger — more people per voting area. This change has permitted us to reduce the number of voting areas and, consequently, the staffing associated with those voting areas. Thus, more staffing in some places, such as at advance voting, and fewer in others, such as with fewer voting areas, means that the net staffing effect is minimal.

The implication of these changes can be seen in the template of expenditures by STOB. Despite having two
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more days of advance voting with all of the attendant costs for those, the total salary line for the by-elections has either stayed relatively constant or, in fact, has decreased, using a comparison with the by-elections in Westside-Kelowna in 2013 or in Port Moody–Coquitlam or Chilliwack-Hope in 2012. Thus, we’ve designed greater efficiencies into the administration of the event.

Another change introduced last year in Bill 20 concerns a provision of information to candidates on who voted in the electoral district — again, a really important change, from our perspective and, I think, from the perspective of candidates and political parties as well.

Because of the Bill 20 changes, we’re now required to provide candidates a list of who has voted, following each day of advance voting. In a paper-based system, developing such a list for those who voted in the electoral district is complex and very labour-intensive. Producing an accurate list that includes not only those who voted in the district but those who voted outside the district, anywhere in B.C., is nearly impossible.

This has led Elections B.C. to develop a new protocol for striking off voters who voted in advance, either within or outside the electoral district. We’ve developed a new voter-lookup application that will be used in every advance and every general voting location, both in these by-elections and, it’s anticipated, in the general election.

This system requires us to use non-networked computer technology in every voting place, at each voting station for advance voting and at the absentee voting station on general voting day for near real-time voter strike-off. Parenthetically, I would note that this computer technology at the voting place will be used by voting officials for voter strike-off and not for voters in casting a ballot. The latter provision is not permissible under the Election Act.

At the end of each day of advance voting, the information is uploaded to the voters list. This process produces a valid end-of-day strike-off list that can be shared with candidates, as per the requirement in section 97(7) of the Election Act — this new requirement from Bill 20. We can leverage the existence of putting computers in every voting place — again, used by election officials — to improve the accuracy of information in the voting process.

In addition to the development of the voter-lookup application, we also have developed and are implementing for the first time software to complete a certification envelope, using the computers at the voting places. The software includes programming to ensure that it can be completed only if the information is accurate and entered in its totality.

To accompany the laptop computers, we’re also including a label printer in each voting place so that all certification envelope labels can be generated and printed in the voting place by election officials. Our expectation is that this technology will result in many fewer certification envelopes being set aside, ensuring that those votes will be counted.

The changes described above are reflected in increased expenditures in several budget lines. Much of the technology, both hardware and software, both for the voter-lookup application and for the label-printing capacity, is included in the information systems line. That’s line 63 in that STOB table. This budget line is larger than in previous by-elections to account for this technology.

In addition, some of the technology costs are included in line 65 — that is, office and business expenses. This includes materials to support the voter-lookup application. Also, as I mentioned previously, it includes additional security costs of one district.

Actually, I’d also note, with respect to line 65 expenditures in both electoral districts, line 65 includes an additional $20,000 in these by-elections for each electoral district to cover the cost for the new forms and guides that were required by the Bill 20 changes — largely to electoral finance provisions but also relating to electoral operations to the Election Act. That $20,000 also covers the cost for new ballot boxes. We’ve redesigned the ballot boxes, and those costs are included within that line as well.

There’s a higher travel budget — that’s line 57 in the STOB table — for these by-elections compared to the previous by-elections. The higher costs are due to greater costs associated largely with sending headquarter staff to the DEO offices for training and oversight and to voting places during advance and general voting so that we can observe and record the experiences that this new technology and these new processes are providing.

These are very important changes that we’re anticipating putting in place for 2017, and this is a chance for us to get a good understanding of their implementation. This is consistent with our interests in having teams document the impact of the changes, subsequently to review the processes as we prepare our implementation for the general election.

A comparison of advertising costs — that’s lines 67 and 68 — shows that these costs vary considerably, depending on whether the by-election is in an urban setting — and in particular, whether it’s in Metro Vancouver — compared to those in more either urban-rural mixed districts or in more rural areas.

For example, in 2012, when there were by-elections in Port Moody–Coquitlam and in Chilliwack-Hope simultaneously, advertising costs in Port Moody–Coquitlam were about double those in Chilliwack-Hope. That’s due to our advertising in more costly media outlets in Metro Vancouver. Since both Coquitlam–Burke Mountain and Vancouver–Mount Pleasant are in Metro Vancouver, they’re subject to these more costly media costs in both cases.

Similar variation occurs in building occupancy costs — that’s line 75 — which also can be seen when the by-elections are held either within or outside of Metro Vancouver. Building occupancy, which includes the costs
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of renting the district electoral offices as well as the costs for all voting places, both for general voting and advance voting, varies considerably for one event to the next.

In Chilliwack-Hope in 2012, for example, it totalled $29,000, whereas in Port Moody–Coquitlam at the same time, it totalled $41,000. In Coquitlam–Burke Mountain in 2016, the occupancy costs are budgeted at $43,000, which is very similar to the costs from Port Moody–Coquitlam of a few years earlier.

I would note, parenthetically, that these costs have remained constant in these two electoral districts despite the need to provide for two additional days of advance voting this time around.

I spoke previously about why the occupancy costs are higher in Vancouver–Mount Pleasant. The DEO office was rented for an additional month, and the costs of voting places will be $10,000 higher than in Coquitlam–Burke Mountain.

In closing, I would emphasize the following aspects of our budget requirements for the by-elections in Coquitlam–Burke Mountain and in Vancouver–Mount Pleasant.

The total costs are somewhat higher in Vancouver–Mount Pleasant than in Coquitlam–Burke Mountain due to several higher cost factors in this district: security, rent and a community with more need for site-based voting areas and more personnel.

Overall, there are higher costs for these by-elections compared to previous by-elections, largely due to implementing changes to the Election Act. More advance voting opportunities are required due to changes to the Election Act. And implementing the ability to provide candidates accurate lists of who voted each day of advance voting, as required by Bill 20, has led to higher information system costs.

But it has also produced the benefit of equipping candidates with better information and with more timely information, and we expect it will enable us to improve the accuracy of data on certification envelopes. We also expect that the technology will significantly increase the efficiency of key elements of the voting administration process.

Finally, there are higher postage and office expenses, due to supplier increases, and higher advertising costs due to the by-elections both taking place in Metro Vancouver.

With that, Mr. Chair, I’m pleased to turn the floor back to you and would be pleased, along with my colleagues, to hear the members’ comments and questions.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Thank you very much, Dr. Archer. Before I go to the committee, I just want to let you know there is one piece of correspondence that didn’t form part of your package for today’s presentation. Kate is just forwarding it to the committee now. It’s a letter from January — something like that.

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of Committees): That’s correct. The original letter accompanied the Elections B.C. submission to you all originally. That was received a number of weeks ago, but we had not included it in your meeting materials for this meeting. We’re just in the process of forwarding it again to you now by e-mail.

E. Foster: Well, thank you very much for your presentation. I really appreciate the comparatives over the last number of…. It makes life a whole lot easier, because we tend to forget those numbers.

The letter that the Chair is referring to was the one where you sent the letter and said you had an extra 800 grand in the bank, so the ask wasn’t going to be nearly as bad as it looked. We certainly appreciate that.

One of my questions was the travel costs. I couldn’t understand why it would cost more to go to Vancouver than it would to go to Kelowna, but I see you’re talking about more staff being there. Will you have staff with the technical expertise to help in those polling stations? I can see that that would become pretty difficult, even with the training that you give — as far as the computer staff, and so on.

A. Boegman: Certainly. We have made…. One of the changes is that within each district, the district electoral officer has hired a technology officer to provide on-the-ground support directly to that. We’re also deploying resources from headquarters, particularly around the beginning of advance voting — so the lead-up to advance voting, the start of advance voting, which will take place on Saturday of this coming weekend. We’ll have resources on the ground, and we’ll continue to provide support throughout the duration of the advance voting period.

We recognize that that’s a concern, and we’re trying to place the resources to make sure that we can support the DEO should things require that.

Dr. Archer, you referred to — I just put a note here — voting areas, and there were some additional costs. What exactly did you mean by that?

K. Archer: A voting area is the block of population that’s connected to an individual ballot box. Up until this point, voting areas have had a maximum number of voters of 400. That’s what the Election Act says.

The Election Act also provides the ability of the Chief Electoral Officer to increase that number if he or she feels it’s appropriate to do so. We’ve increased it by a sub-
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stantial amount for these by-elections. We’re very interested in seeing how this is going to turn out, because we intend to do something similar in the general election in the event that we have good results this time around. We’re now looking at a maximum population per voting area of up to 700.

S. Chandra Herbert: Thanks for the presentation on the different updates you’re doing. One that came to my desk, which didn’t go so well — and I’m looking for an update on it — would be in terms of making sure that visually impaired folks, people who might be blind or partially sighted, have the ability to, I guess, feel the ballot in such a way….

I don’t know all the specifics, but I was told that a ballot form which has been used for years…. It fits into a plastic envelope or something like that, that’s easily felt, easily sensed. Many partially sighted people or blind folks don’t know Braille but might know another form of…. Maybe it’s a printed number or something like that that’s associated with a party.

Currently the new ballot size doesn’t fit with what advocates had created for partially sighted or blind people. Great consternation in the community that I’m speaking with, wondering why a government agency would be creating a new form which makes it more difficult for people with visual disabilities, I guess. Any idea what I’m referring to or thoughts on that?

K. Archer: Thanks, Spencer. I’m just going to turn to Anton to see if he can clarify our position on this.

A. Boegman: I’d first like to say I’m not aware of what you have presented and would be happy to receive further information about that. We have made some changes to the size of the ballot and the format of the ballot to test in this by-election. We’ve made the ballot larger and a much bigger font in the ballot, which is intended to assist partially sighted individuals or individuals who had a challenge reading the size of the ballot previously.

Our size and font are based on the standards that Elections Ontario uses as part of their Ontarians with Disabilities Act. It’s a requirement for them. But we have also subsequently adjusted our ballot template. There will be a ballot template that will allow voters who can use Braille to insert the ballot into that, and the holes will line up so it will be available for them to vote independently in the by-elections.

I’m not certain about the change in size of the ballot meaning that the template doesn’t fit, because we’ve also adjusted our template. If there’s another template that people are using that we’re not aware of, as I said, we’d be happy to follow up on that.

S. Chandra Herbert: Thank you. I’ll follow up with the people who contacted me and let you know and connect the two of you.

S. Gibson: I think you’ve recorded the budget requirement very well. My question is: can you enumerate the benefits of holding two by-elections at the same time? What are the financial benefits to that? In other words, if you had one, it would cost X, which you’ve enumerated. But you have two, so there must be some efficiencies that you’re experiencing. Can you enumerate those please?

K. Archer: Thanks for the question, Simon. It’s a good question. I don’t think we’ve run that analysis independently to give you something comprehensive. Let me make some general comments and see if my colleagues have anything to add.

Many of the requirements for advertising are specific to each electoral district, so running two by-elections at the same time doesn’t have a noticeable effect on the advertising costs for the election. If we were running radio ads, assuming we were running radio ads in both electoral districts, we might have a modest amount of savings on the production side — probably not a lot on the delivery of that message in the advertising costs.

I know that when we did the training of the election officials for these two electoral districts, that training took place at the same time, so there was certainly an efficiency for the headquarters staff to have both groups come simultaneously to our offices and go through the training. It would be hard for me to put a number to that. Again, in terms of our shipping of materials, those are going to be quite separate shipments, no matter if it’s coterminous by-elections or not.

I would say if there are savings, it would be very much on the margins, and the costs are quite independent for each of the electoral districts.

Maybe I’ll just turn to Nola or Anton to see if you have any further comments on that question.

N. Western: I think Keith’s absolutely right. There are maybe some minor changes — in this case, for instance, our staff that are coming. I know Keith is going to visit both electoral districts tomorrow because they’re relatively close to each other. But that’s some minor, minor savings.

The warehouse staff. We only have one additional employee in the warehouse when we have two by-elections, whereas we’d have to have one, even if there was just one by-election. But that’s very small.
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If you look at the budget, you can see most of it is salaries. Those salaries are in the DEO offices and in the voting places. So there are no savings there.

The IT is the same. There are probably some savings around the voter-lookup testing of the new application because we get to use it twice, but most of these costs are very specific to an electoral district, and there are not a lot of economies of scale.

I think that one area where we can achieve efficiencies and have achieved efficiencies, although it’s not a tremendous amount of dollar value, is in our technology support for the by-election. We have a technology vendor. They provide additional uplift support to ensure that the systems run correctly, to make sure that the data extracts are pulled when we need to pull those data extracts to create voters lists, to create voting books, to create where-to-vote cards — these sorts of things.

When two are run at the same time, it’s the same effort to pull that data, to provide the uplift and support. If they were being run at different times, that effort would have to be replicated almost in its entirety. So that’s an area. It’s not a tremendous dollar value but perhaps could be in the area of several thousands of dollars that would benefit there.

The other area, mainly on the operational side, is that from headquarters staff, we can support two by-elections just as easily as we can support one by-election. There are times during advance voting and general voting day when our staff work long hours. Overtime that’s payable to them to work those long hours…. Well, they’re working in support of two districts instead of one.

Those are just two areas that I have observed where there are efficiencies, in particular, from having concurrent by-elections.

While it’s not an efficiency, certainly it’s a benefit to the public knowing that the by-elections for those districts are run at the same time. So it’s a common message and a common understanding.

S. Gibson: Well, thank you. I appreciate you being candid. This was not a trick question or anything. Just more out of curiosity.

C. James (Deputy Chair): Thank you for the comparison. To echo Eric’s comments, I think it’s really helpful to be able to have the numbers and look at them.

I appreciate the specificity in here on that, and I appreciate you using the template. I know it doesn’t always fit, and it doesn’t make it easy to fit everything. But from the committee’s perspective, we’re trying this out, as well, to give us an opportunity to see whether it helps us. I certainly find that it gives us that comparator. Recognizing it’s not going to be exact and recognizing that there will be movement there, I think it’s helpful. So thank you for using the template.

Just a quick question. You mentioned the balance of the increase that’s going to be needed because of the changes to Bill 20 but also that you’ve been able to find some savings in things like a reduction in the number of voting places. I just wonder if you have a number on that. Are you looking at reductions in voting places in these two by-elections? If so, how many? Just curious.

A. Boegman: It’s not necessarily the number of voting places but, rather, the number of staff that are within each voting place. By reducing the number of voting areas…. I think it’s approximately 33 percent fewer voting areas. Each one of those voting areas would have two officials working at a table and a ballot box and all the other accoutrements. So that’s where the efficiencies are, primarily, to counter some of the legislated increases.

C. James (Deputy Chair): It’s not necessarily the polling station. It’s not necessarily the reduction in the polling station. It may be in the area.

J. Tegart: Just in regards to the information technology. You’re putting together new systems. Will this be a common cost for every district in the province during the general election — the $102,000? Or will you see efficiencies as you put that program together?

We will be looking at new computers that will be purchased for use in multiple events in every electoral district. A lot of the development costs will either have been borne already or will be spread across a much larger number of electoral districts — 87 in all next time around.

We haven’t done the detailed budgeting, so it’s hard to know what those specific costs are, but my sense is that in relation to the cost increases for these two districts, I wouldn’t have the expectation that it would be the same for a general election, certainly not when one looks at system development. When one looks at hardware purchasing, there’s no getting around it. We’re going to have to purchase some hardware for this model to be used more generally.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Anything else? Seeing none, my only question — or maybe it’s just a comment — is that you seem to indicate that these two by-elections are going to be a bit of a dry run on a number of levels — systems,
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procedures, the size of the polls and that sort of thing. Now, you will obviously be taking all the best practices learned from the dry run and reporting out at some level and deciding how you’re going to apply that to the next general election. Will this committee have an opportunity to see any of that? Who do you report to on that level?

K. Archer: There will be a CEO report on the two by-elections. That will go through the Speaker’s office to the Legislative Assembly as a whole. I think the standard procedure today is to provide each MLA with an electronic link to that report. If there’s an interest in providing something else to this committee, maybe we could be in touch with the Clerk at the appropriate time, and if the committee has particular needs, we’d be happy to try to accommodate them.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Thank you. I guess the one thing the committee would be interested in is how that’s going to extrapolate into the next general election in terms of the costs associated with that and the changes that will be made in these by-elections and what we choose to adopt in the next general. My only comments.

S. Chandra Herbert: Just one more. There were, of course, as Bill 28 came through, a number of people questioning and raising concerns around the sharing of who voted, who didn’t vote — that kind of thing. Can you help me understand what that would look like functionally in a by-election? Is it a month down the road that information is shared? Is it shared by the hour with the different parties and candidates? What does that look like?

K. Archer: The requirement is that we provide information to the candidates on who voted in the last event. Now, as part of the new requirement, Elections B.C. requires either individuals or organizations receiving that information to agree to develop a privacy policy that is approved by me, by the Chief Electoral Officer. We’ve developed a template for that purpose. All of the registered candidates for these two by-elections have been made aware that if they want personal information from the voters list, they need to have a privacy policy in place that’s agreeable, acceptable, to the CEO.

All candidates have agreed to that. All have adopted the privacy policy template that we have made available, and that information — I’m assuming, Anton — has already been made available to those candidates. If not, it’s imminent. So they’re in compliance. We’re required to provide it. It’s happening.

S. Chandra Herbert: Just to clarify, that’s for the previous election, not the current election they might be working on.

A. Boegman: I can expand on that. When you become a candidate, you’re eligible to receive a voters list. There are two variants of the voters list that you can request as a candidate. One is just a standard voters list. It’s the same one that’s available for public inspection in the DEO office, which contains the names and residential addresses of the voters. The other list that they can request is essentially the same list, but there’s an additional column that indicates whether that individual voted in the last election within that district. That’s the list they get to start with.

As the election continues, at the end of each advance voting opportunity — that is, generally the next morning, following the previous day’s advance voting — on request, they’re eligible to get voter turnout information from that previous day’s advance voting opportunities. That is the voter number of those voters who were previously registered, or it’s the name and residential address of those individuals who registered in conjunction with voting or who updated their registration in conjunction with voting.

That’s available after each advance voting opportunity, so the Saturday, the Sunday and then the following Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday.

In addition to that, during general voting day, there’s also what’s — I was going to say lovingly known; perhaps that’s not the best word — colloquially known as the bingo sheet in the federal elections. We’ll have a variant of that that will be available to candidates at five times during general voting day, where they will get, again, information on who has voted during that day. This is information available during voting, in addition to the information that’s available at the end of the event.

E. Foster: Just a quick one on that, Anton. You said five times during the day. That will be made available electronically?

A. Boegman: No, that’s in paper format right now. We don’t have the technology in general voting to do that electronically.

E. Foster: Okay. Well, that’s fine though. That cuts down on the work. Thank you very much.

S. Gibson: Super quick question. Given the traditionally lower turnouts in by-elections, what do you project the difference between the cost per voter in a general election and the cost per voter in a by-election approximately?

A. Boegman: Back when I was a political scientist, I used to make projections about elections, but in my current role, it’s probably not in my interests to do that. We’ll be happy to report on the cost per voter at the end of the process, but yeah, I’m not in a position to estimate.
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A. Boegman: Well, we actually report on cost per registered voter, which is independent of turnout. So it’s depending on how many voters are registered will be the denominator in terms of cost.

N. Western: But the costs are based on registered voters because it’s the number of registered voters that impact how many voting areas you need, how many ballots you need. How much staff and how much paper is all based on registered voters, whether they come to vote or not.

By the time they come to vote, all the other costs have already been paid for. We don’t understaff because we think turnout’s going to be low. We have to have enough staff there for the number of registered voters.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Okay. Any further questions? Seeing none, thank you all so much for taking the time to enlighten us. The committee will just take a short recess. We’ll take a little break and come back and yell at one another.

S. Hamilton (Chair): We’ll call the committee back to order. Thank you very much.

S. Hamilton (Chair): We’re now back in regular session. I’ll look for a motion to adopt what you’ve just heard.

C. James (Deputy Chair): I’ll move a motion that the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services approve and adopt the report entitled Annual Review of the Budgets of the Statutory Offices, as amended today, and further, that the committee authorize the Chair and Deputy Chair to work with committee staff to finalize any minor editorial changes to complete the supporting text.

S. Hamilton (Chair): That’s the motion. Do I have a seconder? Seconded by Jackie.

C. James (Deputy Chair): Second motion. I move that the Chair of the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services deposit a copy of the report entitled Annual Review of the Budgets of the Statutory Offices with the Clerk of the Legislative Assembly, and further, that upon resumption of the sitting of the House or the next following session, the Chair shall present the report to the Legislative Assembly at the earliest available opportunity.

S. Hamilton (Chair): It’s not on the agenda, but I do have one very quick item. Before you is the strategic plan for the Ombudsperson’s Office, the old one, 2010-2014.

Jay Chalke contacted me last week and said that his predecessor was kind enough not to submit a new strategic plan, knowing that her term was up and that she would be vacating her post. So he is now in the process of developing a new strategic plan under his name and will be reaching out to each committee member for whatever input they choose to provide him with to help him develop this. Then he’d like to sit down with the Deputy Chair and myself at some stage for us to help refine that.

So he will be reaching out to you sometime in the future. We just thought it might be convenient if we provided you with a printed version of the existing strategic plan for a little guidance.

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of Committees): Just one final note to remind members that as all parliamentary committees are appointed on a sessional basis in B.C., your committee will temporarily cease its activity on February 9, and we will be awaiting reactivation and confirmation of membership shortly thereafter in order for you to continue your work in the fifth session.
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I wanted to thank the members very much for their work over the fourth session and, particularly, for their work today.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Thank you. On that note, I would certainly like to put on the public record and thank all of the hard-working staff that have helped support this committee in almost the last year.

Hansard Services, you’ve been packing this stuff up and unpacking it I can’t count how many times. Of course, our Clerks. And Ron, you’ve done an absolutely stellar job, and I do appreciate the guidance you have given us individually throughout the last year. It has been very, very helpful and very much appreciated.

Hansard Services publishes transcripts both in print and on the Internet.
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Chair:	Wm. Scott Hamilton (Delta North BC Liberal)
Deputy Chair:	Carole James (Victoria–Beacon Hill NDP)
Members:	Dan Ashton (Penticton BC Liberal)
	Spencer Chandra Herbert (Vancouver–West End NDP)
	Eric Foster (Vernon-Monashee BC Liberal)
	Simon Gibson (Abbotsford-Mission BC Liberal)
	George Heyman (Vancouver-Fairview NDP)
	Jackie Tegart (Fraser-Nicola BC Liberal)
	Claire Trevena (North Island 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