The committee met at 3:59 p.m.

[B. D’Eith in the chair.]

B. D’Eith (Chair): All right. I’d like to call the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services to order, Tuesday, January 15, 2019.

Today we have Elections B.C.’s supplementary funding request.

Anton Boegman, you have the floor, if you’d like to introduce your staff, and we can go from there.

Supplementary Funding Requests

ELECTIONS B.C.

A. Boegman: Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chair and Mr. Deputy Chair, via teleconference, and committee members, for the invitation to meet with you this afternoon to discuss the supplementary budget request required for Elections B.C. to administer the current by-election in Nanaimo.

[4:00 p.m.]

I’m joined at the table today, on my left, by Jill Lawrance, executive director of electoral operations and, on my right, by Jodi Cooke, executive director for electoral finance.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Did someone come on the line?

S. Furstenau: Yeah, hi. It’s Sonia here.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Oh, okay. Thank you. Hi, Sonia.

Okay, Anton. Go ahead.

A. Boegman: Tanya Ackinclose, our director of finance, is attending in the gallery.

As indicated in my letter to the Chair of January 4, we are presenting the Nanaimo by-election budget request of $605,000 over two fiscal years. We anticipate the vast majority of this amount, $595,000, will be required to administer the event this fiscal year, 2018-19, while the remainder, $10,000, will be required in 2019-20.

I would like to note this budget request does not include any funds that will be required for the reimbursement of eligible by-election expenses for candidates and political parties. As you know, the provision for these reimbursements is that candidates and political parties that receive at least 10 percent of the valid votes in the by-election can apply to have 50 percent of their eligible election expenses reimbursed.

Per the protocol established last year for the Kelowna West by-election with this committee, I will send a notice to the committee of the required funding for these reimbursements after the by-election financial reports have been filed. The deadline for these reports to be filed is April 30, 2019. Assuming that all eligible candidates and political parties file by this deadline, I anticipate being able to send this notice in early May.

This by-election arose following the resignation of Leonard Krog as MLA for Nanaimo on November 30, 2018. Following an order-in-council ordering a by-election, the writ of election was issued on January 2, 2019. Advance voting will take place over six days from Tuesday, January 22, through Sunday, January 27. General voting will take place on Wednesday, January 30.

We have presented the anticipated budget requirements for the by-election by expense category in the third column of pages 3 and 4 of our budget proposal. Page 3 breaks down the anticipated budget of $595,000 for the current fiscal year, while page 4 shows a similar breakdown for the $10,000 that will be required in 2019-20.

Looking at page 3, you will see that the largest budget item is that of $240,000, or approximately 40 percent of the total by-election budget, for salaries and benefits. This is primarily for the temporary staff that will be hired by the district electoral officer to work as election officials during advance and general voting.

The other significant cost categories are information systems at $117,000 and office and business expenses at $96,000, which includes the where-to-vote card, postage and printing. The information systems budget is mostly attributable to making sure our voter service applications are updated and ready for the by-election. This includes the where-to-vote app; on-line voter registration; and the e-poll book, voter-lookup system, used at advance and absentee voting.

The 2019-20 budget, in column 3 of page 4, shows relatively minor anticipated expenses in support of post-event data processing and the financial reports review.

To provide a comparative perspective, page 2 of the budget document presents a table showing the proposed budget required for the Nanaimo by-election in relation to the actual costs of the last three provincial by-elections — of Kelowna West last year and of the concurrent by-elections in Coquitlam–Burke Mountain and Vancouver–Mount Pleasant in 2016. Typically, budgeted costs are higher than what will actually be spent in a by-election, as the budget has to account for all possible activities that may be necessary for the administration of the event, some of which end up not being required.

[4:05 p.m.]

For example, we must budget for any investigations that may arise out of the by-election; however, often none end up being necessary. Similarly, because of our reliance on technology for the administration of the event, we must budget for backup and redundancy in information systems, in case of any unanticipated technical issues. If no issues arise, this budgeted amount is not spent. You will see this reflected in the higher budget estimates for professional services and information systems in the table, compared against what was actually spent in the past three by-elections.

I must also note that the numbers for information systems in the Coquitlam–Burke Mountain and Vancouver–Mount Pleasant by-elections are somewhat misleading as an accurate comparator, as these by-elections occurred concurrently, and Elections B.C.’s overall information systems costs for those two events were split between those two electoral districts. For Kelowna West and for Nanaimo, the costs are all attributable to a single district.

The other main variance in the comparative table is building occupancy, which is higher due to the fact that office rental is more expensive in Nanaimo than it was in Kelowna in 2018 and in the other two districts in 2016. Outside of these variances, the budgeted costs for Nanaimo are largely consistent with past events.

That brings my brief comments on the supplementary budget request to a close, Mr. Chair. I’ll end my remarks here and will be pleased to respond to any questions that members of the committee may have on this request.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you very much. A quick question with regards to the information systems again. To reiterate what you were saying in terms of Coquitlam–Burke Mountain and Vancouver–Mount Pleasant, those were concurrent, so there was a split of costs, but I noticed that it’s significantly higher between Kelowna West and Nanaimo. I’m wondering if you could explain the information system increase there a little bit more.

A. Boegman: Sure, I would be happy to. As I mentioned in my notes, when we prepare a budget, those numbers are often going to end up higher than what the actual costs are, and that’s because the budget has to account for risk or for the occurrence of unanticipated events.

The variance you see there is largely because there is some redundancy built into the budget. We have some additional budgeted funds allocated for information technology support, should there be a technical issue. Our anticipation is that the costs will largely be in line with what was done in the previous election.

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

Any questions from the telephone?

S. Cadieux: Anton, the professional services — can you explain that a little bit?

B. D’Eith (Chair): Could you say that again, Stephanie? It got jumbled.

S. Cadieux: The professional services.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Professional services, okay. Is that comparatively, or just generally discuss them?

S. Cadieux: Well, it’s doubled from the last go round.

A. Boegman: Again, that’s an example of where we will tend to put more money in the budget than will actually end up being spent in the by-election. As a result of trying to compare…. It’s a bit of apples to oranges, comparing a budget request to actual costs in an event.

Professional services includes amounts for investigations, for legal services, for things of that type of nature. We must put money into the budget in the event there ends up being investigations arising out of the conduct of the election. There is money in the budget that makes it look higher, but similar to the previous question, our anticipation is that the actual spend will be in line with what the previous by-election was at.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Anything else, Stephanie?

S. Cadieux: I guess I’m a bit concerned, budgeting higher than we’ve ever spent before in a number of categories, given that we don’t know what the end spend will be on the varied requests for the reimbursements later anyway.

[4:10 p.m.]

B. D’Eith (Chair): Right. Those will be coming back later as well.

Anything else, Stephanie?

S. Cadieux: No, thank you.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Anything else from the phones?

Okay, I think we’re good.

Was there anything else from your staff at all, or anything else you’d like to add, Anton?

A. Boegman: No, I think our, as I said….

B. D’Eith (Chair): We’re good? Okay. Well, thank you very much for coming in.

If we could go in camera, maybe take a short break to allow Elections B.C. to decamp.

A. Boegman: Thank you for being there.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you very much. We appreciate it. And thank you very much for all the work you did on the referendum and all the work you’re doing on the by-election. I know having those done back to back is a lot to ask from Elections B.C. We really appreciate that effort.

D. Ashton (Deputy Chair): I would concur with Bob. Thank you very much for doing such incredible work.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thanks, Dan.

Okay, a short recess.

The committee recessed from 4:11 p.m. to 4:12 p.m.

[B. D’Eith in the chair.]

B. D’Eith (Chair): We’re back with the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services. Can I have a motion to go in camera?

N. Simons: So moved.

Motion approved.

The committee continued in camera from 4:13 p.m. to 4:17 p.m.

[B. D’Eith in the chair.]

B. D’Eith (Chair): We’re now in session. We are back with the select standing committee.

Votes on Supplementary Funding

ELECTIONS B.C.

M. Dean: I move:

[That the Committee recommend Elections BC be granted access to supplementary funding up to $595,000 for operating expenditures in 2018-19 and $10,000 for operating expenditures in 2019-20 for the administration of the Nanaimo by-election.]

Motion approved.

M. Dean: I move:

[That the Chair advise the Minister of Finance, as chair of Treasury Board, of the recommendation adopted earlier today and that the Committee’s recommendation be formally recorded and included in its report on its annual review of statutory office budgets in 2019.]

Motion approved.

Other Business

B. D’Eith (Chair): There was just one other piece of business, but I’d probably like to deal with it in camera, if that’s okay.

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Acting Clerk of the Legislative Assem­bly): Sure. You can go in camera.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Sorry, guys. If we could have a motion to go back in camera.

N. Simons: So moved.

Motion approved.

The committee continued in camera from 4:18 p.m. to 4:25 p.m.

[B. D’Eith in the chair.]

B. D’Eith (Chair): We are back with the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services.

Is there any other business?

If not, a motion to adjourn.

Motion approved.

The committee adjourned at 4:25 p.m.