The committee met at 4:02 p.m.

B. D’Eith (Convener): I’d like to turn the floor over to Susan, the Clerk.

Election of Chair and Deputy Chair

S. Sourial (Clerk Assistant, Committees and Interparliamentary Relations): Thank you, Members. Good afternoon. As this is the first meeting of the committee for the third session of the 41st parliament, the first order of business is to elect a Chair.

Are there any nominations?

D. Ashton: I would like to recommend to the committee that Bob D’Eith become the Chair, or return as the Chair, of this committee.

Sorry. I should say “member.” I apologize.

S. Sourial (Clerk Assistant): Mr. D’Eith, do you accept the nomination?

B. D’Eith (Convener): Yes, thank you very much, and I thank my nominee.

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

Motion approved.

[B. D’Eith in the chair.]

S. Sourial (Clerk Assistant): Congratulations, Mr. Chair.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you. I guess the second part of the agenda is the election of the Deputy Chair. Do I have a motion?

R. Leonard: I move that Dan Ashton be the Deputy Chair.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Okay. Do I hear any other nominations? No? Once, twice, three times.

Motion approved.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Welcome.

D. Ashton (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you, Dan.

Okay, so the next thing. Should we turn it back to Susan on upcoming work on the committee?

Appointment of Audit Firm
for Office of the Auditor General

S. Sourial (Clerk Assistant): Kate will join us shortly to talk about the work with the statutory officers, but I wanted to briefly update committee members. I have a backgrounder prepared by Lisa and research, regarding the appointment of an auditor to audit the Auditor General.

You may remember we passed a motion in the last session appointing the Chair and Deputy Chair. We need to redo that motion because we’re in a new session, a new committee. We’ll do that motion shortly, but in the interim, I’ll pass this around.

[4:05 p.m.]

We’ve been in contact with the Office of the Auditor General, and they’re recommending that we do an RFP process. But that will be up to the Chair and Deputy Chair. The committees don’t have to follow the procurement processes of government. But as I said, it’s up to the Chair and Deputy Chair. We have done RFPs in the past each time we’ve appointed an auditor. So again, it’s up to committee members.

T. Redies: Can you remind us how long Grant Thornton has been the auditor?

S. Sourial (Clerk Assistant): I think since 2006. It has been since the beginning, and they were appointed through an RFP process each time. There was one period when they were, just like the committee did last session, reappointed interim. Otherwise, it’s been through an RFP process that they’ve been appointed.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Do we need a motion?

S. Sourial (Clerk Assistant): I have here a draft motion to appoint the Chair and Deputy Chair to undertake the RFP process on behalf of the committee so that it’s like a subcommittee to review all the paperwork, rather than having it keep coming back to the committee — the idea being that the Chair and Deputy Chair would then come back to the committee with recommendations.

M. Dean: I move that the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services task the Chair and Deputy Chair to develop and implement a proposal for the selection of an auditor for the Office of the Auditor General for the remaining fiscal years of the 41st parliament, as per section 23 of the Auditor General Act.

B. D’Eith (Chair): We’ve heard the motion. Any discussion?

Tracy seconds, okay. I hear no discussion.

Motion approved.

B. D’Eith (Chair): We’ll just take a quick recess.

The committee recessed from 4:07 p.m. to 4:08 p.m.

[B. D’Eith in the chair.]

B. D’Eith (Chair): I’ll turn it over to Susan.

Committee Workplan

S. Sourial (Clerk Assistant): Committee members, you have before you a workplan looking ahead for the rest of the year.

We’ll talk with the Chair and Deputy Chair to schedule a debrief for the fall 2017 budget consultations, as members expressed an interest, at the end of the budget consultation process, to review that process for next year. We’ll also provide an update on the appointment of the auditor process.

We will be undertaking sending letters of invitation to all the statutory officers to invite them to the committee for a spring update.

Elections B.C. is going to provide us with an update on the supplementary funding for the electoral legislation changes, as well as for the fall referendum. So they’ll be appearing before the committee again.

Then other supplementary funding requests, as we receive them. I don’t believe we have notice of any at the moment, except for Elections B.C.

[4:10 p.m.]

B. D’Eith (Chair): Have we had any indication as to how things are going to go with the increased salaries to the commissioners, at this point?

S. Sourial (Clerk Assistant): I have not heard anything.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Nothing yet. Okay, I’m sure we’ll hear about that.

S. Sourial (Clerk Assistant): I haven’t heard anything. I know we’ve been in touch with Treasury Board to determine how it’ll play out. If I remember correctly, in the budget documentation, it wasn’t recorded for this fiscal year.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Okay.

S. Sourial (Clerk Assistant): In May, we’ll start the budget consultation planning process for the coming year and also finalize the audit.

The B.C. Bid process is a minimum of four weeks. So once we get the bid up, it’ll be a four-week process. Then we’ll come back with recommendations.

Budget consultations in September. As members may remember, the budget consultation paper has to be referred to the committee by September 15. That’s typically our start date. The committee has to report by November 15, so we’ve got those two months required.

In the fall, once we’ve finished the budget consultations, we’ll go into the statutory officer budget process again.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Fantastic. Any questions?

S. Cadieux: My only question is the statutory office financial and operational updates that I know we were all pretty keen on having.

I’m wondering, though, if April and May is too early and if we shouldn’t be trying to wait until June, because it’s only a couple months into their budget. Does it matter? Some of this was about how they are using money over this year and the plan and where they’re at sort of midyear, was my recollection. But if people aren’t concerned about it, that’s fine. I’m just questioning.

B. D’Eith (Chair): I think part of it is when we had made some approvals, we had actually put it back on the officer to come back and report. We put a bit of a timeline on it, so I think that’s part of this.

S. Sourial (Clerk Assistant): In addition, members are here in April and May. It may be harder to get committee members together in June, though not impossible, if that’s the committee’s wish.

B. D’Eith (Chair): That’s a good question. I mean, they have to have something to report, right?

S. Cadieux: Yeah, exactly. If we’ve just told them this, and now they’re two months into their budget year and we’re asking them to report on how is everything going, will it have any legitimacy after two months? That’s my only question.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Fair enough.

J. Brar: How has it been done historically, Susan? Do you know about that?

S. Sourial (Clerk Assistant): Historically, it’s been done in April and May. The practice started, I think, a couple of years ago, if I remember correctly. We haven’t done that spring process for that many years.

J. Brar: Okay.

S. Sourial (Clerk Assistant): I think they started a couple years ago. Do you remember? I know who will remember.

J. Brar: We can push it to the latter part of May, which can give them some time.

S. Sourial (Clerk Assistant): Actually, Kate may have some additional information. The question is would it be too soon to have the statutory officers come in April and May to provide an update, when they’ve just had their budgets.

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Deputy Clerk and Clerk of Committees): Oh no, not at all.

Good afternoon, Members. Sorry I was late for the start of your meeting.

I think it would actually be ideal to invite the officers in the coming weeks, with a view to having them appear in April. I think that would be ideal.

I did receive a note from Keith Archer a day or so ago, just inquiring if there would be an opportunity pending. I know he’s looking forward to providing an update to members. So I think April would be an ideal time.

We would also continue to work, as well, on the tasks that we had discussed at the close of the December deliberations, with respect to some enhancements to your statutory officer budgetary process, to strengthen the information that you receive and to ensure that we have a productive exchange of information.

I think that would be ideal to offer the opportunity. In the past, not all eight offices have opted to take the opportunity. But for those who either have a significant operational change or other financial pressures that they’ve recognized and need to manage towards, I think it would be a helpful discussion.

B. D’Eith (Chair): All right.

D. Ashton (Deputy Chair): Mr. Chair, before the end of the meeting, could I ask that we just have a quick in camera? Could we just roll in camera for a sec?

B. D’Eith (Chair): Absolutely. Could we have a motion to go in camera, please?

Motion approved.

The committee continued in camera from 4:15 p.m. to 4:25 p.m.

[B. D’Eith in the chair.]

B. D’Eith (Chair): That’s about it. A motion to adjourn. Okay, Tracy, seconded by Jagrup.

Motion approved.

The committee adjourned at 4:25 p.m.