The committee met at 11:20 a.m.

Election of Chair and Deputy Chair

S. Sourial (Clerk Assistant, Committees and Interparliamentary Relations): Good morning, committee members. As this is the first meeting of the Select Standing Committee on Crown Corporations for the third session of the 41st parliament, our first order of business is to elect a Chair.

Are there any nominations?

S. Chandra Herbert: I would like to nominate Bowinn Ma as Chair.

S. Sourial (Clerk Assistant): Bowinn, do you accept?

B. Ma: Yes.

S. Sourial (Clerk Assistant): Any further nominations? Any further nominations? And a third time, any further nominations?

Seeing none, congratulations, Bowinn.

[B. Ma in the chair.]

B. Ma (Chair): Thank you very much.

Thank you so much, everybody, for coming down here today. We’re gathered, of course, on the traditional territories of the Coast Salish peoples — the Squamish, the Tsleil-Waututh and the Musqueam First Nations.

We’re here today for the convening meeting of the Select Standing Committee on Crown Corporations.

The second item on our agenda is the election of a Deputy Chair. I open nominations for Deputy Chair.

J. Sturdy: I’d like to nominate Stephanie Cadieux.

B. Ma (Chair): We have a statement from Stephanie that she will accept the nomination?

S. Sourial (Clerk Assistant): We do.

B. Ma (Chair): Fantastic. Are there any other nominations? A third time, any nominations?

Seeing none, Stephanie Cadieux will be our Deputy Chair. Yay, Stephanie. Fantastic.

For the rest of the agenda, we’re intended to be reviewing the committee’s terms of reference, the committee’s draft workplan and proposed meetings dates and reviewing the proposed list of expert witnesses in camera.

Can I get a motion to move in camera? Moved by Jas Johal. We don’t need a seconder, do we?

All right, this committee will….

Oh, pardon me, Jordan, before we move in camera.

J. Sturdy: I’m just curious as to why the discussion of terms of reference would be an in-camera item.

S. Sourial (Clerk Assistant): It’s entirely up to the committee members if they want to put this on the public record.

B. Ma (Chair): Okay, yeah. Is there a preference for the terms-of-reference discussion to be not done in camera?

J. Sturdy: Well, my default tends to be going with an open session, where possible. I don’t see that this is something that is up for a lot of debate, is it? The terms of reference were set by government.

B. Ma (Chair): Point taken. Thank you.

Are there any objections to staying out of camera for the discussion on the terms of reference? Thank you so much.

Okay, let’s proceed with the discussion on the committee’s terms of reference, then.

Susan, did you want to lead this discussion?

Committee Terms of Reference

S. Sourial (Clerk Assistant): Sure.

Committee members, in your package you have a document called the draft workplan, and the first page in the document is the terms of reference.

Before we start, I wanted to introduce Nicki Simpson, who is the committee researcher in our committee research services who will be supporting committee members through­out this consultation.

The motion the House adopted on November 27 authorizes the committee to meet up to three days to hear from expert witnesses, so we have three days of public hearings with witnesses, and it authorizes the committee to make recommendations regarding regulations on four areas.

One was establishing boundaries. Another was regarding supply versus demand and criteria for establishing price and fare regimes as well as the classes of drivers’ licences. So that’s, in essence, the basis of the committee’s terms of reference.

Any questions regarding the terms of reference?

S. Chandra Herbert: Just to be clear, this is coming from government and the Legislature, I guess, officially, since we all passed it. Just to be clear, this is about how it’s done, not should it be done.

B. Ma (Chair): That’s correct.

S. Chandra Herbert: Thank you.

B. Ma (Chair): My recommendation, similar to how we approached the first Select Standing Committee on Crown Corporations, as Chair would be that we very much focus the discussion on these four questions before us and not venture too far away from the terms of reference as written here.

Are there any other concerns or questions about the terms of reference?

All right. Moving on, the next discussion is on the draft workplan.

We have a motion to move in camera from Ravi.

Motion approved.

The committee continued in camera from 11:25 a.m. to 11:48 a.m.

[B. Ma in the chair.]

Committee Draft Workplan
and Meeting Schedule

B. Ma (Chair): The conversation that committee members just had on the workplan was primarily centred around schedule availability, which we opted to do in camera so that people’s personal details weren’t being captured on the record.

We can now have a discussion about the proposed workplan before us. Let me just read it out loud, generally, in order to kind of allow that information to go into the record.

Our key tasks are to hear from expert witnesses on the four topics set out in the committee’s terms of reference. We need to identify expert witnesses, invite expert witnesses to meet with the committee or provide a written submission. We’re going to hold up to three days of meetings with expert witnesses. These are also known as public hearings.

The committee research services will also help us summarize oral and written submissions. When we are developing and approving recommendations and drafting and finalizing the report, we need to consider the submissions received and the possible recommendations that are coming out of the submissions.

We will discuss and draft recommendations through conversation together. Committee research services helps us prepare the report, which is then reviewed in detail and approved into a final report for presentation to the Legisla­tive Assembly.

[11:50 a.m.]

The presentation of the report is due March 28, 2019, and today is December 13, 2018. Oh, my apologies. It is due March 31, 2019.

S. Sourial (Clerk Assistant): Except that it’s a Sunday. That’s why we put the….

B. Ma (Chair): Ah, there we go. Susan has explained that because March 31, 2019, is a Sunday, we’ll be aiming to release the committee’s report by March 28, 2019.

The preliminary workplan right now proposes that today we approve our list of expert witnesses and that next week we have the Clerk of Committees send letters of invitation to those expert witnesses for them to come and present to us on January 30, January 31 and February 1. At the same time, we have, at least for now in this draft workplan, set a deadline for written submissions from these expert witnesses for February 1, 2019.

Committee research services staff will complete their sum­mary of input from expert witnesses on February 8, and starting February 11 the committee will start to discuss potential recommendations, starting with a full-day meeting in Victoria on February 11.

Other proposed dates, based on our discussion previously, include a meeting on February 19 in Victoria, two meetings on February 25 in Victoria, another meeting on March 7 in Victoria and March 4 — I’m sorry; I’m giving those dates out of order — and then a proposed meeting for March 12 in Vancouver with an expected release of the committee’s report March 28, 2019.

Are there any comments or discussion on what’s being proposed here? I don’t see any comments from the table.

Any comments from over the phone? Nope. Okay.

With that, do we need to adopt this workplan? Can we get a motion to adopt the workplan as read out?

R. Kahlon: So moved.

Motion approved.

B. Ma (Chair): That is our workplan for this round of Crown Select Standing Committee work.

Review of Proposed List
of Expert Witnesses

B. Ma (Chair): Our next agenda item is to discuss the proposed list of expert witnesses. Similar to the first Select Standing Committee on Crown Corporations dealing with the topic of ride-sharing, the recommendation is that we move in camera in order to have those discussions about the expert witnesses on our list before us.

Can I get a…? So moved by Ravi. Thank you so much.

We will continue our discussion in camera.

The committee continued in camera from 11:53 a.m. to 1:26 p.m.

[B. Ma in the chair.]

B. Ma (Chair): All right. We are back out of camera. We have completed our discussions on the witness list, and invitations to those witnesses will be going out within the next week.

That concludes today’s agenda.

There is a motion to adjourn. Do I need a seconder? I’m sure there is a seconder. Excellent.

Motion approved.

B. Ma (Chair): We will reconvene on January 30 for the first day of public hearings.

Thank you very much, everyone.

The committee adjourned at 1:27 p.m.