The committee met at 10:06 a.m.

[B. Ma in the chair.]

Committee Terms of Reference

B. Ma (Chair): Good morning, everyone. Welcome, on a Tuesday in beautiful Victoria on the unceded territories of the Songhees and Esquimalt First Nations. Before you, you will see an agenda for the Select Standing Committee on Crown Corporations. I’m just going to start by running through the agenda.

We’ll first review the committee’s terms of reference. There are a few nuances that we want to make sure that everyone is comfortable with and agrees to before we proceed. Secondly, we will review the committee’s draft workplan and proposed meeting dates.

I’m very grateful to Susan and Jennifer for their work in putting this together. Susan will run through the workplan and give us a bit of the lay of the land. We will have to decide today on some of the meeting dates, if not all of them. If we can, we can decide on all of them, but we need to decide on at least some of those dates today in order for us to keep on schedule.

After the workplan has been approved by committee — and that includes a decision on how many expert witnesses we will be bringing in — we will call a ten-minute recess in order for folks to just make sure that they’ve got their list of preferred expert witnesses ready. We will then reconvene the committee in camera, and we will have a discussion about those expert witnesses.

I’m not certain. Susan, maybe you could clarify whether or not we have to come back out of camera in order to confirm which witnesses we’re bringing forward.

S. Sourial (Clerk Assistant, Committees and Interparliamentary Relations): No. We can do that in camera.

B. Ma (Chair): Okay. Then we, I guess, come out of camera, and we can discuss any other business that committee members want to bring forward, unless any committee members right now have any suggestions that they would like to table for the agenda. Seeing none, we will proceed.

Agenda item 1: the committee’s terms of reference. It should be on the second page of your package here. I’m sure everyone has read through it. I don’t need to read through it word for word. Okay. I’m seeing no one needs a moment to read through it.

The three areas of the terms of reference that I would like to bring to your attention are, first off, under paragraph 2, that the committee be authorized to meet for up to three days to hear from expert witnesses.

You’ll notice in the terms of reference that we are limited to meeting up to three days to hear from expert witnesses. These terms of reference do not actually include provisions to allow us to conduct public consultations. So there won’t be an opportunity for the public to participate — for non-solicited submissions or witnesses. Are there concerns about this?

[10:10 a.m.]

Does everybody understand the limitations of these terms of reference? Okay.

Seeing no concerns, we’re moving forward to the next piece of clarification. In the first paragraph, the terms of reference reads: “On November 28, 2017, the Legislative Assembly agreed that the Select Standing Committee on Crown Corporations be authorized to examine, inquire into and make recommendations on ride-sharing in British Columbia.”

The clarification that I’d like to verbalize today is that we do use the word “ride-sharing” in the terms of reference, which…. For those who are more familiar with the specific technical definitions of ride-sharing versus ride-hailing, they would probably conclude that the intent of these terms of reference were really to allow the committee to look into ride-hailing, not ride-sharing.

A. Weaver: I think it’s probably both. I mean, ride-hailing and ride-sharing get used intermittently. Ride-sharing can be a charged service whereby you commute, say, to downtown Vancouver from Abbotsford, and there could be a company that allows a sharing process there as well. But ride-hailing, certainly, is kind of the traditional model that we think about. There is a model for ride-sharing too — a business model for that. I think that the companies and the people that we’ll interview will probably reflect that in their discussions.

I’m fine with changing it to ride-hailing if you want, but you could add both terms in if you want to.

B. Ma (Chair): Okay.

S. Sourial (Clerk Assistant): Sorry, just to clarify. Andrew, we can’t change the terms of reference, but in communication that the committee issues — for example, correspondence, tweets or whatever — we can use ride-hailing and ride-sharing.

A. Weaver: Yeah.

B. Ma (Chair): I guess the clarification is whether or not the committee is comfortable that, when we are actually reviewing report submissions and hearing from expert witnesses, we do include a focus on the ride-hailing concept as opposed to ride-sharing. For those committee members who might not be familiar with the difference, ride-sharing is more akin to organized car-pooling, whereas ride-hailing is more akin to the Uber- and Lyft-type models of service.

J. Sturdy: Not to be pedantic, but I think “ride-sourcing” is another common term that is used. If you look it up in Wikipedia, that’s what we’re talking about. Because that is the….

B. Ma (Chair): So ride-sourcing is both ride-sharing and ride-hailing?

J. Sturdy: No. Ride-hailing and ride-sourcing amount to the same thing. Ride-sharing, technically, is an organized car-pooling approach.

B. Ma (Chair): Can I conclude today, however, that the focus of this committee is going to be on the ride-hailing concept? There may be some of the organized car-pooling, ride-sharing, concept that seeps through as part of the discussions and the expert witnesses, but really, our focus is on ride-hailing.

Okay. I am seeing nods from all around the table and no objections. Fantastic.

The third part of the terms of reference. You’ll see three bullet points. Point 1: “How provinces with public auto insurance companies have provided or are looking to provide insurance to both transportation network companies and the taxi industry.” Point 2: “Assessing the impact transportation network companies would have on different communities across the province.” And point 3: “Considering the regulatory regime that may be established between the province and municipalities, including looking at the issue of public safety.”

I just want to make sure that all committee members agree that these three points are the full scope of the work of this committee — that discussions, submissions and expert witness testimonies must be restricted to these three points. Are there any comments, suggestions?

S. Chandra Herbert: I would just say that it’s important that we recognize that and agree to that, but in the end, we don’t have a choice to agree or disagree because those are the terms of reference that have been dealt us. I think that’s…. The Legislature has empowered us to look at these three points. So it’s good to be aware of that, but we don’t have much choice.

B. Ma (Chair): Absolutely.

[10:15 a.m.]

I guess it’s just to make sure that all committee members understand that there are limitations placed on these terms of reference, and we are bound to them, and that, in communications out to expert witnesses and, perhaps, even during the public hearings, we will be restricting, asking — politely, of course — expert witnesses and testimonies to be very focused on these three points.

All right. Fantastic. Are there any other comments on the terms of reference? Any other questions?

Seeing none, we will move to agenda item 2, review of committee’s draft workplan and proposed meeting dates. I will turn the mike over to Susan to give us a general run-through.

Committee Draft Workplan
and Meeting Schedule

S. Sourial (Clerk Assistant): Thank you, Madam Chair. In your package, the second document you’ll have is the draft workplan. The first page of the draft workplan is a copy of the terms of reference.

Moving on to page 2, there are three aspects of the terms of reference that we would look at. The first was undertake a jurisdictional review of how the provinces with public auto insurance companies have provided or are looking to provide insurance to both transportation network companies and the taxi industry.

Committee research services will undertake a jurisdictional review of the provinces in Canada that have public auto insurance and that provide ride-hailing or are looking to provide it. We know that Quebec does, Manitoba has just passed legislation to do so, Saskatchewan has just introduced legislation to do so and B.C., of course, is looking at it. Those are the three jurisdictions we will look at in terms of research and jurisdictional review.

A. Weaver: In some provinces, the jurisdiction lies within a municipality, like in Alberta. I understand that cities there have approved it and in Ontario as well. Is it within the mandate to explore that which was brought in place in cities where jurisdictions download it to them?

S. Sourial (Clerk Assistant): That’s where the third bullet point comes in, which was to consider “the regulatory regime that may be established between the province and municipalities, including looking at the issue of public safety.” So there we could look, under that bullet, at what Alberta has done or Ontario has done, where they don’t have public auto insurance. There are the two models — one with public auto insurance, one without — and one where they’ve delegated to municipalities. We’ll be looking at both of those.

In terms of the next two bullet points, those were the ones that we were going to ask input from the expert witnesses to assess “the impact transportation network companies would have on different communities across the province” and consider the regulatory regime that may be established between the province and municipalities, including looking at the issue of public safety.

Steps to achieve this would be what we’re doing today: develop the list of expert witnesses. We would then invite expert witnesses to meet with the committee or to provide a written submission. So those witnesses that aren’t invited to appear can be invited to send a written submission. We would coordinate and organize up to three days of meetings with expert witnesses.

Following that, committee research services would summarize the testimony received by the expert witnesses, as well as any written submissions received, and also compile the jurisdictional review regarding the other provinces without public auto insurance.

On the next page, you have some timelines, some of which have been already been met. We had asked by December 6 for members to provide the Chair and Deputy Chair with a list of proposed expert witnesses. We’re having a meeting today to determine and finalize that list as well as to adopt the draft work plan.

The week of December 15 to 22…. We are hoping that, if all goes well today, we will be sending the letters of invitation out by the end of this week. We are proposing that we hear back from witnesses by December 21. Anyone we do not hear back from we’ll follow up with on the days after Christmas. It’s a short week. That’s the 27th, 28th and 29th. We’ll follow up with witnesses then. Then, the week of January 1, which is also a short week of only four days, we will confirm all the meeting details and schedule with the witnesses.

[10:20 a.m.]

We had proposed January 8, 9 and 10 as meeting days. One of the decisions for the committee to make is where we will hold those meetings, if we want it in downtown Vancouver or elsewhere. We need to determine a deadline for the written submissions. We had proposed January 15, but of course, that’s open to committee members.

Because we have such a short deadline where we have to report by February 15, we’re proposing that we start the in-camera meetings to review the submissions the committee has received on January 15. In consultation with the Chair and Deputy Chair, we’ve come up with January 15, which is a Monday; January 22; possibly January 25, which is a Friday, I believe; January 29, another Monday; February 5; and February 9, which would be the final meeting of the committee before adoption of the report and tabling of the report on February 15.

S. Cadieux (Deputy Chair): Just one note on the 15th. I think we were just saying that would be the deadline for written submissions. We wouldn’t meet that day. We wouldn’t meet till the 22nd.

S. Sourial (Clerk Assistant): Correct, yes.

Any questions on the workplan or the proposed dates?

P. Milobar: Just on the dates, the only one I’m coming up against a conflict on would be the 22nd. I’ve been trying to schedule a meeting with the local band council for a while, and because the House sits, it doesn’t work with theirs. So I’m supposed to be up the valley that day. At 3:30, I have to leave town. If it’s in the morning and I can phone in, that’s fine.

B. Ma (Chair): Well, let’s go through the dates from the top, moving downwards, and see what conflicts we come up against.

First off, are there any questions on the workplan overall? Concerns? Okay.

Looking at dates, then. Today, of course, is December 12. This is our organizational meeting. The next time we are proposing to meet is when we are hearing from expert witnesses, and that is January 8, 9 and 10. Are all committee members’ calendars totally free those days, as much as possible? Are there any conflicts around the table? I am seeing absolutely none, so I think that it would be safe for us to set January 8, 9 and 10 as our expert witness days. All right.

Are there concerns about setting a deadline for written submissions of January 15? That doesn’t require a meeting. It’s simply a deadline for written submissions from expert witnesses.

S. Chandra Herbert: As for written submissions, are those out of the experts we choose or a wider list?

B. Ma (Chair): They would be experts that this committee has solicited submissions from.

S. Chandra Herbert: I do think January 15…. I understand why we would choose that date, but I know if I was an academic expert, getting a request for expert testimony December 12 for January 15 is kind of difficult.

I know it’s the hand we’ve been dealt, but one month to develop your written testimony over Christmas and New Year’s is certainly not how I’d love to spend my time. But I know some of these experts already have papers written on these subjects and can probably pull it together.

I just would say that I don’t know if there’s a possibility for a one-week delay on that. It might get us a slightly better result. I don’t know what others’ thoughts are on that. Maybe our professor here might be able to tell us how academics work it.

A. Weaver: I understand where Spencer is coming from. I would say that, in fact, this is the one time that they would have to do it because teaching term starts in the second week of January, and nothing is going to get done from January to April in the teaching term for most academics. So, in fact, a lot of the work could be done between Christmas and the new year and the first week, and that’s not atypical for academics to do it then.

Recognizing Spencer’s comment that it is a short period but….

A Voice: It is what we’ve got.

B. Ma (Chair): Susan, was there any room for a delay? We were pretty tight up against it, weren’t we?

S. Sourial (Clerk Assistant): It would depend when the committee’s first meeting is after that. We need to allow time for committee researchers to summarize the submissions, and depending on volume, that, as well, can have an effect.

B. Ma (Chair): From what I understand, from the date prior to when we have our first meeting, committee research requires about a week to gather up all the evidence.

[10:25 a.m.]

P. Milobar: I’m just wondering. Obviously, if we’re going to have in-person presentations, there’s going to be a cap of time for presentations and questions and answers.

B. Ma (Chair): We will get there, yes.

P. Milobar: Are we not going to have a similar cap for written submissions? The last thing we need is a 300-page dossier presented by each expert. If we cap it, that might speak to some of Spencer’s concerns about the timeline, if they actually have to keep it condensed down to a certain number of pages or whatever. We might save them from themselves, at some point, too.

B. Ma (Chair): I think that that’s a great idea.

Susan, maybe you could recommend…. How long are these sorts of written submissions normally? I guess there’s a huge range, is there?

S. Sourial (Clerk Assistant): We’ve had written submissions that are a couple of paragraphs, sometimes a couple of sentences. Then we’ve had submissions that have background documentation, reports inches high.

What will focus the written submission are the committee’s questions on those two bullet points. That may help to focus the submission a bit narrower.

S. Cadieux (Deputy Chair): I think it would be fair, also, to consider that fact that if we’re looking at verbal submissions of probably about 15 minutes, plus questions, then we would be looking for written submissions to those same questions to not exceed that length, which would be approximately ten written pages. I think there’s probably a way to word our requests around that, saying: “Here we want you to address these two questions in a maximum of ten pages. Thank you.”

That gives everybody a chance. I mean, it forces them to be concise, but it also allows…. It’s an easier task for research, then, to be reviewing and condensing that information further for us, if they’re working from a similar sort of scope.

B. Ma (Chair): Reading for about 15 minutes is about 3,000 words. Does that sound…? Are there any concerns about setting a written submission limit at about 3,000 words?

A. Weaver: Even that’s large; 3,000 words is pretty big. If you can’t say it in 1,500, you probably shouldn’t be saying it. But I’ll go with 3,000.

J. Johal: Yeah, ten to 12 pages. That’s about right — 3,000.

B. Ma (Chair): As an upper limit?

J. Johal: An upper limit, yeah.

B. Ma (Chair): All right. We’ll set a 3,000-word limit.

A. Weaver: Not including figures, because people like figures.

B. Ma (Chair): Of course. Figures are much easier for us to take a look at. Although including the little captions underneath the figures….

A. Weaver: Absolutely. You can tell she’s got an engineering background.

B. Ma (Chair): So given that they are limited to 3,000 words, a deadline of January 15. All right. Moving on.

January 22. It sounds like, Peter, you’ve got a conflict.

How’s everyone else on the 22nd? I’m going to look at my calendar as well.

P. Milobar: It’s just because it’s a Monday, and that’s when their band council meets. Because then we go back into session, I wouldn’t be able to meet with them again for another six months, and we’ve already postponed it twice.

As long as I can phone in, then I can still make it work until about 3:30 that day when I have to start driving up.

S. Chandra Herbert: Yeah, we could do the morning.

B. Ma (Chair): The morning? The morning of the 22nd.

R. Kahlon: Are we not able to set up the webcam for Peter, if he wants to…? If we’re meeting in Vancouver, we’ll have the capacity to do so. That way he can plug in from wherever he is.

S. Sourial (Clerk Assistant): I believe easier would be conference call. A member who isn’t available can call in to the meeting.

P. Milobar: That’s fine. Depending on the time, I may be able to even fly back home in time to be in person and go back and forth, as long as it’s in the morning. That would be my only request on the 22nd.

A. Weaver: Will that be an option? I should be able to make it on the 22nd. I will be able to make it, but I get in late on the 21st. Will telephone be an option? I’ll make the other ones no problem. It’s just…. I should be fine on that.

B. Ma (Chair): It’s probably one of those things where it’s not preferred, but it is an option if we need to.

All right. It sounds like the morning of January 22 is set. Everyone please mark that in your calendars.

[10:30 a.m.]

What about the afternoon of January 25?

S. Cadieux (Deputy Chair): I think if we’re looking at morning, afternoon, then we’re probably changing the number of hours that we would be meeting. Six hours or seven hours a day is a full day. It’s not a half day. So I think we just, Chair, would want to be cognizant of whether or not we are blocking days or half days, because it will limit the number of presentations we can accept.

B. Ma (Chair): For clarity, the presentations have been set for January 8, 9 and 10.

S. Cadieux (Deputy Chair): Oh, sorry. This is deliberations.

B. Ma (Chair): These are in-camera discussions.

S. Cadieux (Deputy Chair): Sorry. I need more coffee.

B. Ma (Chair): Not a problem. I guess I had assumed that we, probably, were not going to have discussions longer than four or five hours.

S. Chandra Herbert: On January 25, the afternoon, I’ve already booked an open house. So the challenge will just be what time we wrap on the 25th, if it’s going to be an afternoon as opposed to a morning. Morning would be fine by me, but afternoon from three onwards, I’m booked.

B. Ma (Chair): I wonder if maybe we should, given that there are several conflicts, do this by email. What do you think?

S. Sourial (Clerk Assistant): I will send an email to all members after the meeting with the dates. In terms of timing, just to get a rough idea, for the public hearings — January 8, 9 and 10 — are we looking at ten to five or nine to four? How many hours are…?

B. Ma (Chair): On your package that shows the proposed expert witness list, on the very last page, there are some varied scenarios for organizing presentations for expert witnesses. I think that’s probably what Susan is referring to. Sorry, page 7 — last page, yeah.

S. Sourial (Clerk Assistant): Depending on how much time the witnesses are allotted and how long the committee is meeting, we can incorporate, perhaps, a half-hour lunch instead of an hour’s lunch into the committee’s meeting.

P. Milobar: I think it’s safe to say on behalf of the three of us that are just finishing up with the Finance Committee and the public presentations that you don’t need anything more than 30 minutes. It just gets really bad. So a 15-minute presentation and a 15-minute Q and A is…. Right? It starts to get repetitive. Some of them won’t be saying the same things and stuff like that.

A. Weaver: I’m wondering, on the eighth, ninth and tenth, if we could extend the eighth and ninth to have longer days — Peter and I and Jordan, presumably, will be staying in Vancouver — so we can actually get home on the tenth. Maybe end it so we can get the Harbour Air before it gets dark.

B. Ma (Chair): Basically, we front-load the….

A. Weaver: I mean, I don’t mind doing — we did this with the Finance Committee — long days on the first couple and then getting home on the tenth. I don’t know. I don’t want to be overly selfish here, but I leave it up to others.

B. Ma (Chair): All right. Well, I think one of our decisions will be, on average, how many hours per day we are willing to listen to expert witnesses and then see how we can rearrange that to favour the Monday and the Tuesday.

S. Cadieux (Deputy Chair): I would, for Susan’s planning purposes at this moment, probably suggest we’re looking at a nine to five with probably an hour for lunch, to get a good mental break in the middle. But depending on how we need to adjust to accommodate members’ travel or whatever, we may have to flex that a little bit. But I think that’s probably what we’re looking at.

B. Ma (Chair): All right. Again, for organizing purposes, nine to five with a one-hour break is about seven hours’ worth of expert witness testimony, which would give us about 36 expert witness presentations. How do committee members feel about that?

P. Milobar: Well, if you’re doing the half-hour, that’s actually…. You could max out at 42. So you could actually do the seven hours each of the first two days — like the eight-hour day with an hour break. That would give you 28 through the first two days, and then the third day, you could make it a little bit shorter and wrap up by four or something so that people could travel and get back on planes or whatever.

[10:35 a.m.]

B. Ma (Chair): Is there any objection to that?

Sorry. The 42. I’m just looking at Susan’s calculations here. How did we get there?

P. Milobar: Well, if you have two an hour and you have seven hours, that’s 14 a day.

S. Sourial (Clerk Assistant): Yeah. I think this calculation, the seven hours in there, included an hour for lunch. It’s really only six hours.

B. Ma (Chair): Oh, I see. So we’re being even….

P. Milobar: You said nine to five, which is an eight hour…. Yeah. An hour break.

B. Ma (Chair): We’re working even harder. All right.

S. Sourial (Clerk Assistant): So nine to five on the eighth and ninth, and nine to four on the tenth.

B. Ma (Chair): Was that the…? Great. Fantastic.

That would give us what total number of expert testimonies — 40?

A Voice: Up to 40.

B. Ma (Chair): Up to 40.

P. Milobar: Well, if you threw in a half-hour coffee break in the morning, somewhere in there, you could still be at 37.

B. Ma (Chair): So an absolute max of 40.

S. Cadieux (Deputy Chair): Yeah. I mean, it allows us a little bit of flexibility. Should we decide, “Oh, well, gee. Great, we’ve got 36. That gives us lots of flexibility and timing,” or, “Oh, you know, we can’t get to agreement today. We’ve got to go with 40,” we’ve got a little bit of room.

B. Ma (Chair): Understood.

All right. We’ve agreed upon 23 hours of expert witness testimony, at most, which is the equivalent of…. That will happen on the eighth, ninth and tenth of January. For the specific dates and times for our discussions, Susan will send an email out. We’ll work with your LAs and your calendars to try to find us some time.

According to this workplan, it proposes three in-camera discussions and two report review sessions…

S. Sourial (Clerk Assistant): …which would be in camera as well.

B. Ma (Chair): …which would also be in camera. Is everyone comfortable with that?

S. Sourial (Clerk Assistant): If we’re looking at about a five-hour meeting for those dates, is that agreeable, except for the day where we want a morning meeting and the day where we want an afternoon meeting?

B. Ma (Chair): That’s right. We can adjust the hours of each specific conversation if we find that there are limitations in the committee members’ schedules.

All right. Any other comments on the terms of reference?

Review of Proposed List
of Expert Witnesses

B. Ma (Chair): Given that we have space for about 40 witnesses, I’m thinking…. I had sent an email out last night suggesting that people pick their top 20, but there’s probably room, actually, for everyone to pick their top 36.

We’re going to call a ten-minute recess now and allow you to just look over your lists, grab something to drink and take a break. When we return, we will return in camera, and we will begin the witness list discussions.

We will start this recess now.

The committee recessed from 10:38 a.m. to 10:48 a.m.

[B. Ma in the chair.]

B. Ma (Chair): Welcome back to the committee, everyone. Before we proceed to the discussion on our expert witness list, can I have a motion to move in camera?

S. Cadieux (Deputy Chair): I’ll move the motion to go in camera.

Motion approved.

The committee continued in camera from 10:49 a.m. to 12:07 p.m.

[B. Ma in the chair.]

B. Ma (Chair): Now we’re out of camera. I have a motion to adjourn. Thank you so much, everybody.

The committee adjourned at 12:07 p.m.