The committee met at 8:02 a.m.

[B. D’Eith in the chair.]

B. D’Eith (Chair): Hello, everybody. I’d like to call the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services to order, Wednesday, May 8. We are listening to the statutory officers’ financial and operation updates.

First up, but next up this week, is the new Office of the Human Rights Commissioner — Kurt Sandstrom, Carmen Zabarauckas, Stephanie Garrett.

Welcome. It’s nice to have you here.

Financial and Operational Updates
from Statutory Officers

OFFICE OF THE
HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSIONER

K. Sandstrom: Thank you, Chair. I’d like to begin by thanking the committee for their time and positive reception last November, as reflected in the approval of the start-up budget for the Office of the Human Rights Commissioner. I’d also like to acknowledge that we are on the traditional territories of the Lkwungen-speaking people and of the Songhees and Esquimalt First Nations.

I’m joined by Dr. Carmen Zabarauckas, executive director of tribunal transformation and supports office within the justice services branch, who is the project sponsor for the operational aspects of setting up the office. You will recall that she provided a presentation to you on November 27, 2018. Her team developed a proposal to this committee for the setup of the Office of the Human Rights Commissioner.

I’m also joined by Stephanie Garrett, chief operating officer of the Office of the Human Rights Commissioner, the first hire of the AG launch team. She started mid-February and has been familiarizing herself with the key elements of this early phase, as she plans for and leads the setup of the office in anticipation of the commissioner’s appointment.

As you’re aware, the Human Rights Code Amendment Act, 2018, received royal assent November 27, 2018. The act established the Office of the Human Rights Commissioner as an independent office of the Legislative Assembly, the same day that Deputy Minister Richard Fyfe and Carmen Zabarauckas had the honour of coming before this committee to request a first-year, start-up budget to hire a launch team and establish the office.

[8:05 a.m.]

Dr. Zabarauckas will provide updates from when she presented last to this committee, in November, to when the COO was hired a couple of months ago, and then Ms. Garrett will provide a progress and planning update from there.

C. Zabarauckas: Good morning, Chair and committee. It is a pleasure to meet with you once again.

I’ll provide a brief overview of the activities following budget approval by the committee last November. As the committee will recall, the justice services branch team of Ministry of Attorney General requested $2.96 million operating and $1.66 million in capital for the 2019-2020 initial start-up phase of the office. In December 2018, the office was approved for $2 million in operating and $1 million in capital. With the committee recognizing the commissioner — once appointed — we’ll return in November of this year with a budget proposal for 2020-21 fiscal period.

The ministry’s 2018-19 year-to-date actual spend on the Office of the Human Rights Commissioner totalled $211,409, which the ministry absorbed as a pressure. A significant portion of this went through setup costs, through the utilization of our relatively new project delivery division, and a small portion of salary costs for the chief operating officer.

The approved year 1 budget for the office included provisions for salary and benefits for the launch team, the commissioner’s compensation, engagement activities and various costs associated with the operational setup. At present, the Ministry of Finance is creating the office’s financial entity, which is near completion.

Until a commissioner is appointed, the ministry provides oversight to the AG launch team, including budget and staff. The ministry, through justice services branch, will continue to take on and track the expenditures of the Office of the Human Rights Commissioner team, which, should they be accepted by the commissioner, will then be transferred or journal vouchered at a later date — once the commissioner, of course, is in place.

For the appointment of the commissioner, on November 26, 2018, and February 21, 2019, the Legislative Assembly appointed a special committee to select and unanimously recommend the appointment of a human rights commissioner. As far as I am aware, because of course I’m not allowed any of the details, the process is underway.

Following budget approval last year, we focused on the recruitment of the chief operating officer, and we are very delighted to now have Stephanie Garrett on board to steward the next phase of the office’s evolution. While we did anticipate a small team of six in place in tandem with Stephanie’s appointment, this did not take place for a few reasons. Given how important the team composition and development is in the start-up phase of the organization, it was determined that the COO should lead the recruitment efforts to the office’s start-up team, and Ms. Garrett will provide you that update.

When the act was amended, only the provisions that relate to the appointment and the powers of the commissioner were brought into force by royal assent. Regulations will bring in the rest of the provisions into force in two phases.

Phase 1. Once the commissioner is appointed and the commission is up and running, a regulation will bring provisions relating to the operation into force. These include allowing the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal to share information with the commissioner, transferring power to approve special programs for the tribunal to the office and requiring review of the code for a special committee of the Legislative Assembly every five years.

Phase 2. Approximately one year after appointment, a regulation will bring the inquiry powers of the commissioner into force. That will prescribe the forms, manner for service and details of applications for variation or rescission of the commission’s orders as part of the inquiry process.

The timing and scope of both sets of regulations will be subject to direction from cabinet, of course, and government will work closely with the office on timing and details.

The Ministry of Attorney General recognizes the important and unique relationship between our ministry and the Office of the Human Rights Commissioner, which will, upon appointment of the commissioner, be an independent office, as you know, of the Legislative Assembly.

I will now happily turn it over to Stephanie Garrett, chief operating officer, who leads the AG launch team.

S. Garrett: Thank you, Carmen. Good morning, Chair and members of the committee. I’d also like to acknowledge that we’re gathered on the territories of the Lkwungen-speaking people and of the Songhees and Esquimalt First Nations.

It’s a privilege to be a part of history in the making, here in B.C., during this exciting time in our province. Paramount to my role is setting the commissioner up for success to fulfil his, her or their mandate and ensuring the impeccable reputation of the office from this nascent stage. This includes identifying what the office will need at each stage in its early development, from start-up to operationalization, to support the commissioner in creating a sustainable office, capable of making a difference in the lives of British Columbians across the province.

[8:10 a.m.]

Early preparations, prior to the commissioner’s arrival, are devised with the goal to create an operational foundation upon which the commissioner can seamlessly overlay his, her or their vision and quickly, yet thoughtfully, get to work on establishing the office’s strategy and service plan for the next few years.

Since commencing my role, my work has focused on a few areas: reviewing the preparatory work completed by the justice services branch team that developed the proposal to this select standing committee, including the key recommendations flowing from Parliamentary Secretary Kahlon’s consultation and report, and recommendations provided by human rights organizations, thought leaders and other stake­holders.

This process also involves understanding and appreciating the history and the context of the soon-to-be office. Analysis of the practices of other independent offices in British Columbia and human rights commissions across the country to learn what is working, the success and replicability of good operational practices and the early identification of potential opportunities and challenges for the commissioner’s consideration have also been top of mind for me. Establishing relationships with peers in other independent offices and commissions continues to be invaluable in order to glean information that will inform the office’s operational design and development.

This engagement is ongoing and creates a bridge for the commissioner to efficiently establish relationships with other independent officers and commissioners. Liaising with coun­ter­parts, independent officers and commissioners pro­vides excellent guidance on how to achieve a balance between the office setup, during the start-up phase pre-commissioner, the independence of the office once the commissioner is in place and future considerations for the office. It will also enable the office to have the opportunity to learn from the challenges and best practices of other offices and commissions and to tailor and test the best of these practices to the office’s unique mandate.

I’ve also invested time in building relationships with relevant leaders in government and human rights thought leaders to understand priorities and initiatives and develop a high-level understanding of the stakeholder landscape. Any consultation with these stakeholders at this early stage is clearly scoped with an emphasis on informing operational considerations only, not the mandate or vision of the office, which will be fully owned by the commissioner.

It’s recognized that consultation with external stakeholders, including B.C. communities and organizations interested in rights consideration, from the public, private and non-profit sectors, will be led by the commissioner and take place only once the commissioner is appointed and has determined his, her or their strategic priorities and engagement strategy. The purpose of any engagement, pre-commissioner, is to inform operational considerations only.

In addition to gaining valuable context for the commissioner’s consideration, I’ve been identifying and piecing together the early operational elements, recognizing that there are a lot of moving pieces at play and that each informs and influences the other. I’m in the process of preparing an operational briefing for the commissioner, once appointed, which will include options for operational areas from human resources to information management, information technology, facilities, finance and other areas, along with a high-level analysis of each.

The intention is for this to facilitate the commissioner’s careful, yet timely consideration and decision-making on critical elements of the office’s setup so that they can officially get to work on the important strategic matters of their mandate.

With an acute attention to fiscal responsibility and leveraging good practices of other independent offices here in British Columbia, along with the recommendations of this committee, various operational models are being assessed, which include the potential to leverage shared services with other independent offices, use government services where appropriate and operate independently where appropriate, as well as hybrid combinations of these options.

Building relationships with other independent offices has supported the identification of a few possible shared-service options. Those are to be explored further by the commissioner, once appointed.

The goal, at this stage, is to ready these options as much as possible and feasible in the absence of a commissioner, such that when the commissioner is in place, he, she or they will be able to determine which option will be most sustainable, responsible and aligned with the independent nature of the office and his, her or their strategic vision and mandate for that office.

[8:15 a.m.]

This will include a phased approach to operational modelling, where a start-up model shifts as the office matures and grows.

With respect to the budget, we’re working with what has been provided and making adjustments to start-up considerations as necessary. Once the commissioner is in place, he, she or they will have a clear picture of operational requirements to fulfil their strategic vision and mandate. The 2020-2021 budget will be built around this. It’s expected that the commissioner will present a more robust budget to the committee in November.

The highest priority, at this stage, relates to the organizational structure and staffing. Giving careful consideration to an effective and nimble organizational structure will offer the commissioner latitude to adjust as needed upon their appointment. Building a strong start-up team is critical for the early success of the commissioner.

We’re currently recruiting for key positions that will facilitate progress on this office’s setup. This is a unique, complex and very exciting process, given we seek to minimize turnover while maximizing flexibility for the commissioner to develop the organizational culture that he/she or they will envision, aligned with their strategic vision for the start-up, and as the office grows exponentially over the next year and beyond.

The three opportunities that have been presented to us include: the unique mandate of the office, focused on human rights, education, research and inquiry; the independent nature of the office; and the fact that this is a start-up.

Budget constraints have been, in part, offset by delays in hiring and associated staffing costs, turning early recruitment challenges into opportunities. We’re taking a creative approach, identifying leaders who are seeking short-term professional development opportunities in a start-up focused on human rights promotion and protection and who are comfortable with temporary assignments.

By developing early phased, collaborative relationships with independent offices, the office was able to recruit a director of human resources, who I’m pleased to have here today with us, on temporary assignment from the corporate shared-services team at the Office of the Ombudsperson. This means we have someone with deep expertise not only in one but four independent offices with a shared-services model and with a strong understanding of the Public Service Agency, as well as fair administrative practices, given the mandate of the Office of the Ombudsperson. We’re grateful and delighted to have her on board.

It’s anticipated that once the commissioner is appointed, he, she or they will determine the operational model going forward — that is, whether or not to leverage shared services with another office and, as such, the operational roles that we will need to staff for the next phase of the start-up. Different scenarios will be prepared so that when the commissioner is in place and ready to make that decision, an efficient and effective transition will follow.

Expedited recruitment activities for other key positions have been initiated. We expect to have those positions staffed up as efficiently as possible.

In addition to the development of a phased human resources strategy, the director of HR is preparing a confidentiality oath, office policies and immediate recruitment materials that align with the best practices of other independent offices and the Public Service Agency and that are tailored to the mandate of this office.

The office is currently liaising with real property division and other service providers to explore location and facilities options for the office space, based on accommodation requirements developed following a high-level review of facilities arrangements at other independent offices, some human rights commissions across the country and the Human Rights Tribunal, given the overlap in the stakeholder base.

As new space — with planning, design, construction to occupancy — ranges from 18 to 24 months when working with real property division, they’re concurrently developing a request for proposal, which advertises for space following government’s procurement policy and based on several possible locations and scenarios. Upon the commissioner’s appointment, the RFP will be ready and posted, to compress the timeline. Other options are also being explored to provide maximum flexibility to the commissioner in relation to facilities and location options.

There are many operational elements for consideration in determining office locations. All of these are being considered and will be shared with the commissioner for his, her or their decision-making.

[8:20 a.m.]

With respect to information management and information technology, I’ve engaged with my counterparts at other independent offices to establish collaborative working relationships on administrative processes. We’re discussing and planning for back-end work that is required to set up an office’s IM and IT needs, even when leveraging government shared services, as we are for the time being. This ranges from domain acquisitions to web hosting and includes a range of privacy and other considerations.

In the absence of a dedicated resource, the other independent offices have stepped up greatly to support some of these early needs. This has included support from the chief information officer with the Representative for Children and Youth. This has the dual benefit of supporting IM-IT progress while we staff up, and it also draws on the experiences, the challenges and the opportunities of other offices in order to apply best practices to this office while remaining attuned to the budget.

Thank you, Chair and members of the committee, for your time and shared enthusiasm for the success of this office and of the Human Rights Commissioner. Our small but growing team waits in anticipation for the announcement of the commissioner’s appointment. We’re working hard to prepare the setup of the office. I’m looking forward to receiving any questions you may have.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Great. Well, thank you so much. It strikes me how difficult it must be for the launch team to be setting up this operation without the commissioner and trying to keep that flexibility. I commend all of you with the team on being able to do that. Obviously, it sounds like you have it well in hand. That’s great to hear. We’re all very excited about the imminent announcement when it comes. I think we’re all very excited about it.

I did see some hands go up. A question from Mitzi.

M. Dean: Thanks for all the work. I really appreciate…. The strong message that we got today was that you’re setting things up to be flexible so that when the commissioner comes, then they can make all those decisions, which was something that we’ve discussed in this committee.

I thank you, as well, for your non-binary-gendered approach. I find that really refreshing and validating, and I really appreciate that you included that consistently throughout how you made your presentation.

B. D’Eith (Chair): I was going to say that. I thought it. I just didn’t say it.

N. Simons: Don’t argue.

B. D’Eith (Chair): I’m not arguing. Well, Mitzi and I were talking about….

M. Dean: It’s okay. I don’t need the male validation.

B. D’Eith (Chair): I know you don’t. I just wanted you to know that my frame was actually there. I just wanted you to know that, on the record.

Interjections.

B. D’Eith (Chair): It’s all good. I appreciated that too, the use of pronouns.

Sorry, Mitzi. That’s the Chair getting totally out of line. The Chair is out of line. I’ll have to reprimand him.

M. Dean: I have one question. I really appreciate you engaging with stakeholders. You were doing the research around other offices similar to this. I was just wondering whether you had any feedback. Have people been giving you any feedback on your approach and how you’ve been trying to make progress? You’ve had those engagements. What have they been saying about how we’re moving forward in British Columbia?

S. Garrett: I can say that unanimously, British Columbia has become the envy of the nation in terms of the government choosing to make this an independent office of the Legislature. That’s been unanimous just in terms of providing the commissioner an opportunity to truly fulfil the mandate of the office as based on the legislation.

I would say that collaborating closely with other independent offices…. There’s a keen desire to support this commission and this office in the early start-up phase and to set us up for best practices and doing things as the gold standard would be. What that means is that there’s tremendous expectation on the office, but it’s also balanced by a desire to collaborate with the commissioner when he, she or they come into their position in order to fulfil their mandate quickly.

There has been a lot of discussion about the complexity around a start-up and how you evolve quickly in order to ensure that the commissioner is in a position to quickly be able to consult with British Columbians across the province and to identify strategic priorities while ensuring that we do not sacrifice expediency for a very thoughtful approach to this early phase. All of those considerations are being taken into account. I’m just delighted to be able to support the commissioner, who I’m delighted to meet in, hopefully, a few weeks’ time.

[8:25 a.m.]

D. Ashton (Deputy Chair): To the three of you, thank you very much for your presentation today. And young lady in the back, thank you for coming.

I’ll direct my questions to you, Ms. Garrett. First of all, I was ecstatic to hear that you’re looking at shared services. It’s something that I’m a staunch advocate of — the opportunities of efficiency that that provides to government and to the taxpayers of British Columbia.

I’m also encouraged to hear you talking outside of British Columbia and talking to the rest of Canada, but I would also say that maybe it’s time to break the mould. You, yourself, had made a comment about how B.C. is being singled out as being the leader in this, and I concur wholeheartedly. It’s a great step forward. But it may be an opportunity to break the mould in how those services are delivered by her, him or they being the commissioner in place. So just a point of opportunity.

We are blessed in British Columbia with some very, very good standing offices here in government. There’s a gentleman and a group of gentlemen behind you that are exemplary in the services that they deliver. I’m glad to hear that there is a lot of talk going back and forth between the various offices about opportunities that will ensure that this office is set up to be the premiere office in the country, so thank you very much.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Just for the people listening this morning — the many people listening, I’m sure — I just wanted to mention that that is the Office of the Ombudsperson…

D. Ashton (Deputy Chair): Sorry.

B. D’Eith (Chair): No, it’s fine.

…to make sure that they get the credit where credit’s due.

So thank you very much, Dan.

R. Leonard: Thank you for your presentation. The difference between November and today is quite evident. You are really taking up the challenge of teasing out the parts that are very functional from the vision and direction that the commissioner will be taking. I really, really appreciate that. I think you’re hearing that from everybody that’s speaking.

At the same time, you made the comment about being expedient. My eyes kind of popped when you said it would be 18 to 24 months before you’re going to get into an operational mode on the ground. Can you clarify that for me?

S. Garrett: Sure. That was more in relation to locations and facilities in discussions with real property division, the government service provider for leasing. So it’s from the point at which they’re looking at putting out a request for proposals and moving, if there’s any tenant improvement required in a location, because space is at a premium in certain locations in the province. That is their outlook.

They do understand the nature and the unique nature of this office and the expediency that our expectation is, in terms of getting into spaces. We’re applying, again, innovative and creative approaches to looking at a phased approach to the start-up — options for immediate locations in different areas of the province — as well as looking at other service providers outside of real property division, as needed, and if they’re able to find good locations.

Just to clarify, everything is being teed up at this point for the commissioner. No decisions will be made. It’s just to present them with the options available.

R. Leonard: My question, then, to you is: where are you operating out of right now?

S. Garrett: Currently I operate here in Victoria.

R. Leonard: Okay, but not here in this Legislature — outside.

S. Garrett: No, in a shared space.

R. Leonard: In a temporary location.

S. Garrett: Yeah, a temporary location.

R. Leonard: Okay. I’m just thinking. Is there going to be an interim? I’d hate for the commissioner to be sort of lagging behind with the problem of not having that space.

S. Garrett: Right, and we’re exploring at this moment. I have meetings this week, actually. We’re exploring some space locations, both here in Victoria and in Vancouver in particular, for the commissioner so that they’re able to hit the ground running. The day they arrive, they have their setup. They’re not working out of a coffee shop.

R. Leonard: Thank you so very much. I really appreciate that. The public will be happy to hear that you’re doing such good prep work so that he can hit the ground running.

B. D’Eith (Chair): All right. Any other questions?

Anything else that you might like to add? We’re good?

Well, thank you again very much to the launch team for all your work. We really appreciate it and keeping that flexibility while allowing a very complicated, difficult but ultimately rewarding plan. That’s wonderful. Thanks for your presentation.

We’ll take a short recess.

The committee recessed from 8:29 a.m. to 8:36 a.m.

[B. D’Eith in the chair.]

B. D’Eith (Chair): All right. We’ll bring the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services back to order.

We are hearing from statutory offices’ financial and operational updates, and next up we have the Office of the Ombudsperson — Jay Chalke, John Greschner and Dave Van Swieten. This is his 31st presentation in front of this committee.

You know, I think you have the Guinness Book of Records for the largest number of presentations so far.

Interjection.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Well, it’s a special category for presentations that you hold.

Anyway, Jay, the floor is yours.

OFFICE OF THE OMBUDSPERSON

J. Chalke: Good morning, everybody. Thank you for the opportunity to present to you today. It gives us a chance to tell you a little bit about the work we do at the Office of the Ombudsperson, and it gives you a chance outside of budget time to hear about how the service plans that you look at every year are being implemented.

As the Chair said, with me today is the deputy ombuds­person, John Greschner, and our executive director of corporate shared services, Dave Van Swieten.

I want to take the time today to talk to you about five things. First, provide the committee with some highlights from our main-line service: investigating complaints from ordinary British Columbians. Second, outline for the committee our most recent systemic report titled Committed to Change, which looked at statutory compliance regarding involuntary commitment under the Mental Health Act. Third, describe our monitoring program, which seeks to provide you as legislators and the public with information about how public bodies are doing in living up to commitments they make in response to our various systemic reports. Update the committee on our preparation for the coming into force of phase 1 of the Public Interest Disclosure Act. And lastly, just advise the committee of an interim evaluation that we have received — an update on our prevention initiatives program.

First, individual complaints. In previous meetings, I’ve provided this committee with a fairly detailed overview of the Ombudsperson’s core mandate and services, so I won’t go into that same level of detail. But before I start, I’ll just remind you of a few key features. Subject to the act and various other statutes, we have the authority to investigate every decision or recommendation made and any act done, omitted or procedure used by a public authority in the province. In a landmark judgment issued in 1984, the Supreme Court of Canada stated that these terms encompass virtually everything a governmental authority could do or not do and went on to state that it was difficult to conceive of conduct not caught by those words.

The list of public bodies that we can investigate is long. It includes ministries, Crown corporations, health authorities, school districts, professional regulators, regional districts, hospitals, colleges and universities, tribunals, pension boards and many others. It means that we can investigate on a complaint, or, on my initiative, just about anything done or not done by many hundreds of public bodies in the province. We have extensive statutory powers to conduct those investigations and can, for example, enter and inspect the premises occupied by an authority, require persons to provide information, whether or not they are a current or former employee of an authority, and we can issue summonses and examine people under oath.

We typically receive 7,000 to 8,000 complaints and inquiries each year, and that trend continues. At the earliest opportunity, we make referrals to internal review or appeal mechanisms within the public authority that we believe are adequate in the complainant’s circumstances.

[8:40 a.m.]

That comes from our perspective that it’s better for a public authority to have every opportunity to deal with an unhappy customer first and to try and make it right, and reserve our resources for those individuals who have availed themselves of those opportunities and are still unhappy.

Our early resolution officers look for opportunities to resolve communication and other more straightforward issues without the need for a full investigation, and cases that are identified for early resolution are to be wrapped up within ten days.

Jurisdictional complaints that are not appropriate for referral or early resolution or are not resolved within that ten-day time frame are forwarded to one of three investigation teams. Those complaint files are then assessed for relative priority and assigned to an investigator as our capacity allows.

I’ve spoken previously about the number of complaint files in this waiting-to-be-assigned queue. Although we’ve substantially reduced the number of files waiting to be assigned, as well as the time they’re waiting, there’s still more work to be done on that front.

Our investigation process underwent a comprehensive review at the beginning of 2018, and we’ve now implemented almost all of the changes recommended from that review. While some of the changes are already improving our efficiency, we anticipate further benefits, so there’s further implementation to complete on that front.

The individual complaint–driven investigations are a primary means through which we achieve our strategic goal of promoting fair public administration. We typically don’t publicly report on every one of those cases, but in our annual report, we do provide a sample of cases that we’ve investigated in the prior year. I’ll mention just a few of the outcomes of those cases from our last annual report to give you a sense of the kind of results that can occur from a single complaint.

In one case, our investigation resulted in a change of Ministry of Health policy that allowed our complainant, and many others in her circumstances, to receive health coverage while their applications for permanent residency were under review by Citizenship and Immigration Canada.

Following another investigation, the Ministry of Children and Family Development agreed to provide training to their staff to improve the timeliness of permanent placement decisions for children in care.

In a third case, the Ministry of Social Development and Poverty Reduction revised its public information and took other steps to ensure that applicants were aware of the implications of receiving hardship assistance while also receiving federal employment insurance benefits.

In another case, B.C. Corrections amended its operating procedures so that an officer in charge reviews and saves video footage of use of force and other incidents.

As a result of another investigation, the town of Gibsons took steps to help councillors avoid possible conflicts of interest.

In the event we determine that a public authority has acted unfairly and propose a resolution, we’re always watchful for opportunities to apply that solution not just in the complainant’s case, but also to all other members of the public who are similarly situated. That’s why we always say that a single complaint can benefit many.

Those are just a few examples of the hundreds of improvements that were made to public administration every year as a result of our investigations.

I’m going to turn from our individual complaint work to our most recent systemic investigation. These investigations are initiated by me and consider issues from a broad, systemic perspective. As you know, the office has a small systemic team that plan and carry out these systemic investigations, provide support to our complaint-handling teams and contribute significantly to the publishing of all of our reports.

Since we appeared before this committee last November, we’ve released one major systemic investigative report. It was a complex investigation that involved a review of a large number of medical legal records relating to involuntary admissions at some 70 psychiatric facilities across the province that are designated under the Mental Health Act.

Special report No. 42, Committed To Change: Protecting the Rights Of Involuntary Patients Under the Mental Health Act, was released in March. You have copies of that report, I believe, in front of you today. As you know, the Mental Health Act allows for the involuntary admission of British Columbians to a psychiatric hospital for the purpose of treatment.

Given the extraordinary nature of involuntary commitment — the deprivation of liberty without consent — the act contains certain procedural protections to ensure civil rights are respected. Our investigation set out to determine whether those rights’ protections contained in the act were, in fact, being followed. To do so, we reviewed every involuntary admission in British Columbia over a one-month period. That amounted to some 1,500 involuntary admissions.

Our investigation found that the legally required steps were completed approximately 28 percent of the time. This included widespread failure to provide forms outlining reasons for detention, obtain or document consent in description of treatment, notify a patient of their legal rights and notify relatives.

[8:45 a.m.]

Since involuntary admission under the Mental Health Act means that a person’s liberty and other rights are taken away, lack of adherence to statutory rules and absence of proper documentation is obviously an extremely serious matter. It was apparent to us that, by and large, being in a position to demonstrate that these basic human rights protections had been observed had not been a priority in the health system. We were asking basic questions and requesting records that it was clear had not previously been asked or reviewed within the health authority or the ministry.

Committed to Change makes 24 recommendations directed at the health authorities and the ministries of Health, Mental Health and Addictions, and Attorney General, all of which have been accepted by government and the health authorities.

They focus on three key areas: increasing oversight and accountability through regular compliance audits, setting 100 percent compliance targets and increasing public reporting about involuntary admissions; training staff and physicians regarding the necessity of form completion and the codification of standards of compliance with the Mental Health Act; and third, developing an independent rights adviser service that would operate in psychiatric facilities across the province and provide advice to involuntary patients about the circumstances of their detention and their options if they disagree with the detention or a related decision.

This latter recommendation was accepted in principle, and the Ministry of the Attorney General still needs to secure the necessary resources to bring it into force.

While I’m encouraged by the acceptance of our recommendations, I am at the same time concerned, in this case, about the risk of implementation failure. There are nine public authorities primarily involved and another four who also have a significant role to play. Coordination among over a dozen public bodies of 24 recommendations obviously is not a straightforward task. I’m pleased that the Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions has taken a leadership role coordinating and facilitating the implementation phase. Solid planning and project management can obviously mitigate the risk of failure to implement. My team looks forward to working with the Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions through the upcoming months.

That’s probably a good segue into the third area I want to talk about, which is to discuss our monitoring of public authorities and their commitments to implement our recommendations. The other function of our systemics team is to monitor the implementation of recommendations from past investigations to ensure that public bodies are taking adequate and appropriate action to remedy the instances of unfairness identified in our reports. This is a critically important function of the office. It ensures that public bodies are accountable.

It’s common for public bodies, when we release a report, to say that they thank the Ombudsperson for their thoughtful report and will implement the recommendations. If we just left it at that, we’d see, probably, pretty mixed outcomes. So by following up and monitoring, we help to ensure that public authorities do what they say they intend to do.

Where a public body accepts one or more of the recommendations we make in a public or a special report, we monitor that. That starts with obtaining a clear and unambiguous written commitment to implement the recommendation. We typically will publish those commitments with a report. As an example, you can see various letters from the nine principally impacted public authorities at pages 100 to 113 in Committed to Change, which you have.

Shortly after a report release, we will request a written action plan from the authority. That’s a useful reference tool for ministers, for deputies and ministry staff in my office, not only to reinforce the seriousness of their public commitment to implement but also to make sure there’s an actual, real-world plan to implement the recommendations and not just a press release promising to do so.

Then typically we will contact the ministry at the six- or 12-month mark and ask for an implementation update. Where an authority indicates that, in their view, a recommendation has been implemented, we will typically ask for the key evidence to satisfy ourselves that, in fact, that recommendation has been implemented in letter and in spirit.

We continue this process until we’re satisfied that all ac­cepted recommendations are implemented or, if not implemented, that so long has passed that the recommendation is no longer relevant or it’s apparent that implementation work is no longer taking place. That outer time period is typi­cally five years, although with some larger reports, we’ve monitored implementation for longer. We prepare update reports during the monitoring period, which we release publicly, and that update report includes our assessment of whether the authority has satisfied the recommendations.

Overall, we continue to monitor government’s implementation on nine past public reports. Of these nine, over the past number of months, we’ve released three update reports, all of which you have in front of you. I’ll touch briefly on those three.

[8:50 a.m.]

Working Within the Rules: Supporting Employment for Income Assistance Recipients — we released an update in January, which provided an update of our May 2018 report that found that the Ministry of Social Development and Poverty Reduction failed to follow the law in relation to the calculation of income assistance benefits.

We found that the ministry has fully implemented three of our four recommendations, but still outstanding is one recommendation to identify all recipients who were wrongfully denied benefits and reimburse them in the amount that they were entitled to have received under the employment and assistance regulation. The ministry has found about two-thirds of the individuals and reimbursed them, but as of the date of our update, there were still nearly 1,000 individuals who the ministry had not yet reimbursed and who are still entitled to benefits. So we will continue to monitor that.

Turning to The Best of Care: Getting It Right for Seniors in British Columbia (Part 2), that was a report we released in 2012, and we released the update this past February. This Best of Care was a comprehensive investigation into programs delivered to British Columbia seniors. In that report, there were 143 findings and 176 recommendations aimed at improving the provision of home support, assisted living and residential care to seniors.

On the positive side of the ledger, our update noted a number of best of care recommendations that had been implemented since our previous update. This included recommendations in the following areas.

The seniors advocate now identifies, collects and publicly reports on key home and community care data, highlighting trends in senior services. The advocate reports on systemic issues impacting seniors and assists seniors and their families by providing information and referrals.

The assisted living registry, which oversees the registration of, and investigates complaints about, assisted-living facilities in British Columbia has improved its internal procedures for investigations, including time limits for responding to complaints. The Ministry of Health and health authorities have developed some standardized performance management requirements to measure the quality of home support services. And information has been enhanced for seniors who are facing financial hardships in regard to how they can have home and community care services fees reduced.

There are a number of actions taken to date, and they’re welcome. But they’ve mostly, I would say, focused on smaller, incremental improvements. As a result, seven years after our original report, many key recommendations aimed at improving quality of seniors care in British Columbia are still not implemented. As of January 2019, the update in front of you finds that the Ministry of Health and the health authorities have implemented less than half, 68, of the 176 recommendations.

Unfortunately, after seven years, it was apparent to us that many of the recommendations no longer fit the current operating model, and thus, for this monitoring report we focused on a few key unfulfilled recommendations that were still relevant and, with commitment, we believe, still achievable. These key recommendations that, in our update, we called on the report and the health authorities to implement include enacting several pieces of legislation that have been passed by the Legislative Assembly but still not brought into force.

Firstly, changes to the Community Care and Assisted Living Act that would allow seniors to live in assisted-living settings longer by receiving additional care.

Secondly, part 3 of the Health Care (Consent) and Care Facility (Admission) Act that would add safeguards to the residential care admissions progress, ensuring capable seniors are not being admitted against their will. It would provide for legal substitute decision-making by family members where the senior is not mentally capable.

Third, changes to the Residential Tenancy Act that would give tenancy protections to assisted-living residents. Currently, where an assisted-living resident is in a dispute with their landlord, the only legal and effective recourse is to go through the courts, a time-consuming and expensive option. Fourth, additional changes to the Community Care and Assisted Living Act to include all residential care homes currently governed by the Hospital Act. Two different legislative frameworks have meant different standards and fees for residents of each type of facility.

Another recommendation that we highlighted in our update that is yet to be implemented is conducting a full systemic evaluation of the effectiveness and cost of the home support program. This has not occurred, and my office continues to receive complaints about the home support services, including hours of service provided and overall quality of care.

Ensuring sufficient staff to meet seniors care needs in residential care. In 2012, our office recommended that a minimum standard of 3.36 daily direct care hours to each resident be achieved by 2014-15. These standards were to be monitored, enforced and publicly reported. In September 2018, the government committed to providing funding that will allow the 3.36 hour standard to be met but only as an average across each health authority and not until 2021 — a weaker target that’s almost a full decade after our initial recommendation.

Enforcing standards of care in residential care. The report recommended that, by April 2014, regulatory standards would apply to areas such as bathing frequency, dental care, call-bell response times and culturally appropriate services. That has not yet been implemented.

[8:55 a.m.]

This update at the seven-year mark marks the end of our regular monitoring process on the Best of Care report, which we extended well beyond our typical five-year limit, given the breadth of the original report. Having shone a light, I think, on this vital area, I’m confident that advocates and community organizations, seniors and their families and the public will continue to push for ongoing improvements to seniors care. We got a request yesterday for a number of copies of Best of Care, so obviously there’s still lots of interest in the report.

My office will continue to receive and investigate individual complaints from seniors and their family members, and I expect we’re going to return to those matters as we issue summaries of reports of future investigations.

The third monitoring report I wanted to mention is our interim assessment of the implementations of recommendations related to Misfire, the 2012 Ministry of Health employment terminations report. Misfire is a report that was issued by us in April 2017, following our investigation into matters referred to us for investigation. That referral came from this committee.

Misfire was the most resource-intensive and complex investigation in the 40-year history of our office. Our investigators received over four million records and reviewed, under oath, 130 witnesses. Our investigation found that government had acted wrongly in, among other things, firing seven Ministry of Health employees, suspending or terminating contracts and access to health data and announcing that the fired employees were the subject of an RCMP investigation.

Government accepted all of the 41 recommendations in Misfire. These recommendations sought to address both individual harms and broader systemic issues. Our interim assessment update report, issued last year, highlighted that the vast majority of the 41 recommendations had been implemented, as of the date of our report, with only four recommendations outstanding. Three of those related to individual redress payments, and the fourth arose from the Ministry of Health’s initiative concerning organizational reconciliation. That latter process is still ongoing.

My office is continuing to monitor government’s implementation of the four outstanding recommendations. In addition, there were four other recommendations assessed by us as implemented that we will further review, as we’ve called on government to give a more robust effect to those recommendations.

These three recent reports demonstrate that monitoring is critical to ensure that our reports don’t just gather dust on bureaucratic bookshelves. It reinforces the importance of making principled and practical improvements to public administration.

I want to turn now to the fourth area, a major implementation responsibility of our office. In May of last year, Bill 28, the Public Interest Disclosure Act, received royal assent, and it’s expected to be brought into force later this year. PIDA, or Public Interest Disclosure Act, is a statutory scheme for public servants and former public servants to bring forward disclosures of wrongdoing that arise within their workplace. So just to pause and say that most of our work, under the Ombudsperson Act, involves complaints from the public, whereas PIDA involves allegations of wrongdoing made by public servants.

PIDA requires that disclosures of wrongdoing be managed and investigated in accordance with established procedures. Where wrongdoing is found at the end of a PIDA investigation, recommendations for corrective actions are made.

PIDA establishes a choice model. Employees can make disclosures internally, to their employer, or externally, to my office. Persons who make disclosures or who cooperate with an investigation are protected from reprisal.

Government has indicated its intent to apply PIDA to the broader public sector, but it will do so in phases over the next five years. The first phase of PIDA will apply to ministries and the independent officers of the Legislature.

As you will recall, my office has a small implementation team, which has been working to prepare for PIDA’s implementation. The work of the team includes both readying our office for carrying out our responsibilities to assess and investigate disclosures under PIDA but also working with external stakeholders and organizations to coordinate successful implementation. The team has been working closely with the ministry of the Attorney General and the Public Service Agency to prepare for the first phase.

My office has been consulting extensively with the Public Service Agency regarding the appropriate approach to assessing and investigating disclosures. I think this exercise has proven useful to both groups. We’ve also been working with other independent officers of the Legislature to provide them with support in preparing for PIDA’s implementation as well as to establish protocols with those offices for referring disclosures, when appropriate, as that is provided for under the act.

We’re also developing reporting and investigation protocols with law enforcement bodies because the act has intersection points between our disclosure investigations and criminal investigations.

[9:00 a.m.]

We’re also creating procedures for receiving and investigating reprisal complaints. Fear of reprisal is internationally recognized as the greatest barrier to employees making wrongdoing disclosures. Notably, while PIDA establishes a choice model for making disclosures — that is to say, one can disclose to your employer or to our office — our office alone has the mandate for investigating complaints that an employee has been the subject of reprisal, so effective procedures on our part in carrying out these investigations is critically important.

As PIDA’s in force date approaches, we will be consulting with the Public Service Agency in relation to providing training to staff about PIDA and, more generally, on the development of a launch plan, as public servants are made aware of their rights and how to exercise them.

As you will recall from our discussions last November, in addition to the implementation work, we’re establishing an operational investigation team, of course, tasked with assessing and investigating disclosures and reprisal complaints once the act comes into force. This team will be responsible for providing advice to employees who are considering making a disclosure. We’re just in the process of staffing up for that operational work.

The last area I want to touch on relates to our prevention initiatives pilot program. As you’re aware, we’ve just completed year 2 of our three-year pilot. We will be bringing forward full results and an external evaluation when we present our budget for the next year to you this fall. Authorities are seeing our office as a resource and asking for assistance and advice as they establish new policies and processes. That’s one of the objectives of the pilot.

Our prevention initiatives team is engaged with a number of authorities to provide feedback and assist them as they develop new processes and enhance their complaint-handling procedures. Some of the organizations we’ve completed voluntary consultations with include the B.C. Coroners office; court services; Land Title and Survey Authority; Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General, community safety unit; Ministry of Advanced Education; Community Living B.C.; the Provincial Health Services Authority; and the office of the superintendent of real estate.

We’ve also released four webinars on topics related to administrative fairness. The next webinar is planned on bylaw enforcement, which is one of the most commonly reported issues in local government complaints. We’ve released a fairness in practice guide as well as several quick-tip fairness resources.

Our face-to face workshops have been well-attended and resulted in a number of requests for individualized training to specific organizations. We’ve tailored our training programs to a number of specific entities and delivered across the province to organizations such as: WorkSafeBC, the coroners office, the Public Guardian and Trustee, B.C. Hydro, the Agricultural Land Commission, B.C. Housing, liquor and cannabis regulation branch and the Mental Health Review Board. We continue to receive many requests for this type of tailored training support.

As part of our prevention program, we’re trying to maximize the information we give to authorities about the public complaints we receive about them, while still respecting the statutory limits on doing so. Our enhanced electronic tracking and reporting process has enabled us to share complaint data more openly and proactively with public authorities. We now provide specific data about the issues identified and complaints we’ve received. This enhanced reporting is intended to help public bodies identify trends or broader service issues. It’s just really management information for them.

Some statistics about the prevention program for the past fiscal year. Over 1,300 employees of public bodies have received in-person training. Over 3,600 people watched our four webinars live or on YouTube, and 13 public authorities have consulted with us on improving their processes and complaints handling.

Looking forward to the final year of the pilot program. In the near future, we’ll be releasing three prevention publications: a fairness self-assessment guide for public bodies to use when developing and designing programs; an update to our complaints handling guide; and a new administrative fairness guide for public servants.

Later this month, I’m very excited that we’re going to be launching our on-line training program called fairness 101, which is a one-hour course targeted to new public servants about the basic principles of administrative fairness. That’s certainly been something that’s struck us in all the in-person training we’ve done. Often, people just…. I think, given tight budgets for the past many, many years, training on some of the basics of administrative fairness and statutory decision-making that one might have expected just isn’t there in some parts of the public sector.

In the coming months, we continue to undertake targeted consultation and education initiatives with our high-volume complaint authorities.

As you will recall, the pilot project is being evaluated by an external evaluator. This third-party evaluator Malatest completed a mid-term evaluation in February of this year. The evaluation indicates that public servants who participate in the program reported significantly higher levels of awareness and understanding of administrative fairness compared to those who had not participated. I pause to say that’s obviously a good thing. That shows that our training is having some impact. Also, 83 percent of respondents who participated in the program said they would recommend it to others.

[9:05 a.m.]

The next evaluation period will commence in June. The comprehensive report will be submitted to this committee in the fall, when we appear before you. I look forward to our discussion in the fall once the committee has had a chance to review that evaluation report.

I think that completes my remarks. I’d be happy to answer any questions the committee has.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Great. Well, thank you very much. There’s obviously a lot going on in your office. We really ap­preciate all the work that you’re doing, Jay.

I was wondering. We did have some discussions about how to follow the implementation of recommendations. The examples you gave us were ministries and things like that. But of course, as you mentioned earlier, your mandate is much broader than that. I’m just wondering if you could maybe talk to the committee a little bit about how to monitor those types of successes or those stories.

J. Chalke: Absolutely. I think a couple of things. I would say that we certainly…. I think the biggest limiter on our ability to conduct systemic investigation is resource-based. We’ve had this discussion with this committee in the past, and I expect that we’ll have it again in the future.

Systemic investigations allow us to, I think, leverage individual complaints often into a broader, more significant look at a particular area and allow us to assist public bodies in making real, substantial change. I think it’s efficient. But it does take significant effort to conduct systemic investigations. We have a long list of systemic investigations we’d like to do.

I think increasing our capacity to do those would help, particularly as it relates to — and I think this is implicit in your question, Chair — the parts of the public sector beyond our higher-volume complaint areas, where we’re just not able to conduct systemic investigations with a sufficient-enough frequency that we can really demonstrate that we are doing so with any regularity. It’s many, many years since we’ve conducted an investigation, for example, in the K-to-12 education sector, at a systemic level. We’d like to, in some of those areas in the broader public sector, be able to conduct investigations more frequently.

The other comment I would say is — I have raised this issue previously in front of this committee and elsewhere, as has my predecessor — the importance of making sure that when we do a systemic report, we make it easy for you to be involved.

I just note that for two of my colleagues, the Auditor General and the Representative for Children and Youth, their reports, by terms of committee or statute, are referred to a legislative committee for consideration. That’s not the case with our reports. Our public, special and annual reports are tabled by the Speaker in the House but don’t necessarily come here or to any other committee for discussion.

When I look at the kinds of interactions that happen following reports of the Representative for Children and Youth and of the Auditor General, where public authorities are called in and have to explain why a particular scenario has occurred and what they’re going to do to address the recommendations of that particular officer, I think that’s a good model. I think it engages legislators in a way that’s important. I, for one, would think that that’s something that, in the longer term, I’d like to see happen with our reports.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Without taking away the obvious benefit of the reports that you provide, is there an issue around the mandate of the office, in regards to broadening what the Ombudsperson’s office does in terms of those systemic studies? I mean, that’s part of the push-back. Is the Ombudsperson’s office stretching that scope of authority, so to speak, or work?

J. Chalke: The Ombudsperson Act basically says that our investigations come from three places: complaints from individual British Columbians; this or another committee — or the Legislature itself can refer matters to us — or investigations initiated on our own motion.

We only do investigations initiated on our own motion a few times a year. As I said, that’s largely limited by our resources. We look very much for those opportunities where we see an upward trend in individual complaints or a new program that is particularly concerning.

[9:10 a.m.]

Our hope is that through a systemic investigation, ultimately, we can see a reduction in individual complaints. In other words, it should be more efficient in the long run for us to have conducted a systemic investigation and cleaned up an area. One would hope that, with the changes we’ve recommended with respect to involuntary commitment under the Mental Health Act, we’ll see a longer-run decrease in the number of people who complain to us that their rights weren’t respected when they were admitted to a mental health facility — just as an example.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Great. Thank you very much.

R. Leonard: Thanks for your presentation. It’s a lot to report out on.

I’ll just go to the question of monitoring and the evaluation — what you described, in terms of prevention — the impact of the training, for instance. With all of the actions that you take, between the systemic reports, the training and the prevention work, in closing the loop, are you able to track…? You just started to talk about reducing the number of complaints you get, say, around seniors or the issues around this one. To me, that’s the ultimate evaluation — is it actually being effective in reducing the number of complaints? Have things changed for the people of British Columbia?

J. Chalke: I would agree. I think that, historically, we’ve tracked complaints in a couple of different ways, but not necessarily within a public body. The issue is that we’d be able to say, “Okay, here is the number of complaints we receive about ICBC,” but not necessarily what ICBC topic those complaints are about. We’ve started doing that. That’s helped us, and I think, helped authorities, because we’re reporting quarterly to authorities now — say, for example, within ICBC: how many are related to motor vehicle licensing? How many are related to accidents? How many are related to driver’s licences, etc.?

Being able now, at a more discrete level within authorities, to subdivide, as it were, the nature of the complaints we’re receiving I think certainly contributes to that. Obviously, in the long, long run, if we can put ourselves out of business by making public administration great, that would be the ideal. It hasn’t happened yet….

R. Leonard: It’s a work in progress.

J. Chalke: A work in progress. But I think that’s making light of what your question was. It’s a very serious question. We do need to do a better job of trying to figure out exactly what has happened in a particular area. I did have a discussion with the Chair recently, with respect to work we’re doing currently, because I have said to this committee that I’m interested in developing outcome performance measures for our office. That, I think, is kind of underlying your question: “What’s actually the impact of what it is you do?”

That’s an incredibly difficult thing to measure for an office like ours. You’re measuring the absence of bad things happening — because if we do our work well, bad things don’t happen. That’s not easy when we’re a tiny little team, out there in a big world. If bad things don’t happen, was it really because we did a particular report? Was it because of other things that occurred? Was it a derivative thing? We wrote a report that resulted in concern about a particular area of public administration. There was law reform. There were resources attached. There was a reorganization, etc. Some public body did a bunch of things, some of which were precipitated by us.

Having said that, we haven’t given up the task. I’m hoping to be able to return with at least a preliminary suite of outcome-based performance measures as they relate to us. It has bedevilled ombuds all over the world. We’ve looked everywhere. There really aren’t ombuds who have really great outcome performance measures anywhere. I think it is a perfectly reasonable question: “Why should we give you $8 million to do things? What is it you’re actually delivering?” That’s what I’m trying to answer.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Great. I appreciate you bringing that up. I wasn’t sure whether you were ready to talk about those issues. I appreciate you bringing those up now, because I think it’s really important for the committee to hear your efforts to try to really measure those outcomes — as you mentioned, a very difficult thing to do.

R. Coleman: We gave you $8 million?

J. Chalke: Yeah, apparently.

R. Coleman: Jay, I’ve got three questions, actually, for you this morning. The first one is that it seems to be a difficulty, cross-government and in agencies, to actually get to a consistent respectful workplace policy.

[9:15 a.m.]

It seems to me, and my experience has been, that it’s al­most ad hoc — that everybody wants to write one, wants to debate one and not come up with a consistent policy on a respectful workplace. That includes sexual harassment and those things. Have you ever come across something that would actually be a boilerplate for government to be able to be given to, let’s say, a caucus or to a constituency office operation or to a ministry so that there was some consistency with regard to that across the public service? We don’t seem to have that consistency.

J. Chalke: If I could take that under advisement. Of course, most of our complaints come from the public, so less are about the workplace. Certainly, it is something we have encountered — complaints that relate to that. It’s something we anticipate in the context of public interest disclosure.

Certainly, if you look at other public sector workplaces in Canada that have public interest disclosure legislation, there is a significant component of the wrongdoing that is alleged to be bullying, harassment-type complaints that arise, so serious, to the point that they become gross mismanagement. I would say that it would be at that more significant end of a respectful workplace misconduct that one could hit the threshold of wrongdoing under public interest disclosure. If you let me take it back, I’ll talk to my colleagues and see if we’ve had cases where we’ve actually found anything that’s been particularly useful — or modelling, if I can put it that way.

R. Coleman: Okay. As you came through the health firings, for instance, some of that was basically: did anybody have a really good understanding of how they should proceed with a situation like that?

J. Chalke: To the extent that you’re talking about investigatory policy, how investigations are to be done in a respectful manner, yes. Certainly in response to Misfire, the Public Service Agency has done considerable work in that area.

R. Coleman: My second one. Because I have experience with reports from every office of the Legislature at one point in time or another, one thing that’s always struck me is if you write an extensive report with 100-plus recommendations. Have you ever thought of saying: “Let’s have an implementation plan with it and put it into chewable chunks. Here’s our first priority, the first 20 priorities, by such-and-such a date; then we’ll get to your next priority over the next such-and-such”? I find that a lot of it sticks to the wall when somebody says: “Where do we start?” Have you ever thought of doing that in your recommendations?

J. Chalke: Yes. If you look at Committed to Change, you’ll see that we’ve attached time limits. We’ve tried to think about sequencing.

R. Coleman: I think, for me, it’s more sequencing than it is time. You need to have a sequence in what comes first in your recommendations to get to the end goal of what you’re trying to achieve.

J. Chalke: I agree completely. I’m part of a course. It’s a five-day course for ombuds investigators. I teach that element on recommendations. Actually, one of the things that we talk about is time and how there is a temptation in ombudsworld to reinforce the importance of a particular recommendation by not giving the authority much time: “This is important, so you have to do it right away.”

I caution against that, because sometimes the important things happen to be pretty complex, and also they can’t go first, right? Sometimes other things have to happen first, so that the really important thing might be third or fourth down the road, and the only way you can get to that is by doing some other things first. Particularly, any time you’re recommending anything that involves the legislative process, that just takes a considerable period of time.

So yes, I agree completely. We do try, where possible, to think about sequencing and think about timing in our recommendations.

R. Coleman: My third question is: with these broad powers that you have — which are very, very broad as to what you can do — do you ever touch on federal statutes?

J. Chalke: We don’t have jurisdiction over the government of Canada, but we live in a complicated federal world. A couple of those case examples I’ve talked about before involve the interaction — in both cases, actually — of provincial benefit programs with federal benefit programs. Our investigators have to have a good understanding of how federal systems work. We can’t effectively change those federal systems or even recommend that they be changed. However, we do often find ourselves bumping up against federal situations.

[9:20 a.m.]

I was in front of another committee earlier this week, talking about things that relate to the RCMP. We do have a lot of involvement with federal entities. Our number one non-jurisdictional area of complaint is the federal government. In other words, people come to us with complaints about any other thing that we don’t have jurisdiction over — and number one is the federal government. Our intake staff have a pretty well-developed referral network at the federal level so that we can help people even if we don’t have jurisdiction — “Here’s who can help you at the federal level.”

There is no general jurisdiction ombudsman at the federal level, but there are a number of specific ombuds-like offices at the federal level, so often we’re referring it to somebody at that level.

R. Coleman: Having said that, are you receiving any odour issues relative to the cannabis file yet?

J. Chalke: Any odour issues?

R. Coleman: Odour, yes.

J. Chalke: We have received some cannabis issues. I think I’ll just leave it at that in terms of what the nature of them are.

My goal early on with respect to cannabis was really to take a bit of time and let a bit of understanding happen first. Now that we’re kind of getting a little bit further down the road, I think it’s something that we’re going to be interested in a little bit more.

R. Coleman: Okay, thank you.

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

Well, thank you very much for your very thorough presentation and all the work that you do in your Office of the Ombudsperson. I would look forward to seeing you again shortly — if not, certainly in the fall. Thank you very much.

J. Chalke: Great. Thank you very much.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Could we take a short recess?

The committee recessed from 9:21 a.m. to 9:28 a.m.

[B. D’Eith in the chair.]

B. D’Eith (Chair): All right. We are meeting with statutory offices with financial and operational updates, and next up we have the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner.

I wanted to welcome Clayton Pecknold, who’s the new commissioner. I think this is the first time you’ve appeared in front of our committee. We really appreciate you being here, and Rollie Woods and also Dave Van Swieten — No. 32, and counting.

The floor is yours.

OFFICE OF THE
POLICE COMPLAINT COMMISSIONER

C. Pecknold: Thank you, Mr. Chair, and good morning, committee members. I am indeed the rookie officer before you, so perhaps take that as an invitation to be gentle on me today. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you.

I understand the convention at this meeting is that you’d like to hear about what we’re up to, what the office is doing and some of the issues before us. We have provided you with a bit of an interim report that has some statistics, and between myself and Mr. Woods, we can perhaps answer any of those questions and dig into those a little bit, should you wish to. Certainly, if there’s anything lacking in the presentation that you can perhaps guide me for the next time and the next opportunity or perhaps in the fall, I’m happy to take that away and do something for you.

[9:30 a.m.]

On the very important issue of budget, you’ll note that, with the able assistance of Dave, we’ve come in with a whopping surplus of $833 this year. That was a bit of a learning curve for me, as Mr. Van Swieten will tell you, because in my last position, I operated about a $400 million budget. The numbers are considerably smaller, but the margins are a little smaller as well. I won’t be asking for that much money in the fall. I just wanted to make sure you understand that.

I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that hopefully the other officers who received services from Mr. Van Swieten and his crew, and one of them who just left earlier…. I’ve been most impressed with the quality of the services that we’re getting from our shared-services folks and the attentive service we’re getting. The testament is, I think, that Dave is here today to support us. So thank you very much.

As I said, it’s early days for me. I’m climbing the learning curve. I did have a quite a bit of experience with the Police Act previously, but, of course, taking on this role brings a new orientation to it and a different perspective that I’m busy being educated on by the able staff in the office.

On that matter, and dealing with first things first, I would note for the committee, if you don’t know this, that Mr. Woods will be retiring at the end of this month from the office as deputy commissioner. He was with the office for 11 years and served eight of those years as deputy commissioner with the prior commissioner, Mr. Lowe.

Again, for those of you who may not know, Deputy Commissioner Woods comes with a very extensive background in policing, both with the Vancouver police department and with the RCMP — 30-odd years, 35-plus. So it’s been my pleasure, both in this short tenure that I’ve had but definitely in the eight years that I was director of police services, to work closely with Mr. Woods. Although I’m sorry to see him go, change happens, and we must move on. I’d offer congratulations on his retirement.

We have appointed Ms. Andrea Spindler as the new deputy commissioner. Andrea has been working with the office for about seven years. She joined the office in 2010, after receiving her master’s degree in criminology from Simon Fraser University. Ms. Spindler couldn’t be here today. She’s on a trip to Iceland, a well-earned vacation before Mr. Woods retires. You’ll be seeing her at the next opportunity for us to meet, if you haven’t met her already. I’m certainly excited to be working with Ms. Spindler, who comes with a wealth of knowledge and will bring a new and unique perspective that I think we can value from in advancing the role of the office.

I noted in the report that we provided you that I’m spending some time…. I’ve met with everybody in the office individually. It’s a small office, 20-something people. We’re spending some time to take a little bit of a measure of where the organization is and how people are feeling about their organization.

We’re going to be using the WES survey tool, which some of you will certainly be familiar with. It has not been done in our office. Statistically, we’re on the cusp of our ability to actually use WES to its full extent, but we’re going to implement the WES to take a bit of a baseline temperature test of how the public servants in the office are feeling about their office, about the support they get, about the leadership, about the respect they get in the workplace and about how we support them in the very challenging job they do.

I’m looking forward to the results of that. It’s always an interesting opportunity to sort of hold yourself up to the mirror, but I think that level of self-reflection for the organization is probably healthy at the outset of my tenure. We’re looking forward to seeing where that goes. We expect that to close sometime this month, and it will be some time before the numbers are crunched and we understand what the results are.

In terms of the makeup of the office, we presently have a mix of full-time and auxiliary employees, with about 60 percent who are civilian. That’s always an area of discussion in police oversight, as you know. It’s not dissimilar to the discussion that takes place with the independent investigations office. What is the right mix of former police officers to purely civilian personnel?

We’re operating right now at about a 60 percent mix. It seems to be working well. The recruitment generally comes from recent law school graduates with a bit of time under their belt — usually called to the bar. We have an in-house training program that takes them through the complexities of the act and assists them in understanding their role.

The work can be demanding for them, partially because the timelines that are mandated under the act mean that they have to meet certain legislated statutory timelines. So it can be stressful for them and demanding.

[9:35 a.m.]

We’re trying to spend some time making sure that they feel supported in that role and that we’re not — how should I put this? — allowing them to always focus on widget-making but also giving them the opportunity to think more broadly and develop as public servants. That’s part of the reason I wanted to bring in the WES program.

We’re also implementing a version of the MyPerformance system, which operates within government generally. We did, in the office, historically, have a performance process that was more end-of-the-year assessment. The advantage from my perspective about the MyPerformance in our office — and I think people can debate about how effective it is or is not — is that it encourages an ongoing dialogue with the employee and with the developing employees as to their development, their needs for development. Where they might be falling a little bit short of expectations, we can help boost them up and, certainly, give them that positive reinforcement when they’re doing well.

For obvious reasons of privacy and confidentiality, which are paramount within our office and mandated by the statute, we can’t actually use the government’s server, because if we’re going to be mentioning how well they did on a particular file, we can’t use the government’s server that is accessed by the PSA. But we’re, essentially, using what we might call a shareware paper-based, semi-electronic process that mirrors the MyPerformance.

In terms of matters that continue on from my predecessor, Mr. Lowe, you’ll note in our report and in prior reports — and, I’m sure, in appearances before this committee — that Mr. Lowe moved the office farther and farther down the road to encouraging alternative dispute resolution within the act. I think, when you look at our stats, you’ll see that we continue on that trajectory. We have dedicated staff towards that now.

Part of it, of course, because it’s not mandated and mandatory under the act, is that we have to get full buy-in from the police departments. But I’m informed that we are getting significant buy-in from the majority of the police departments, and we’re working with others where that’s not happening.

I do think that they are seeing the value in early resolution. I spoke yesterday to the B.C. Police Association, which is the umbrella organization for the police unions. I encouraged them to encourage their members towards early resolution of matters, so that not only can we save the procedural complexity that comes from moving it through every section of the act but also so that we can improve the outcomes for the complainants.

It’s often difficult for people to suffer, perhaps, an incident at the side of the road where there was rudeness that then, essentially, takes a long time to resolve. I’d like to spend some time on outcome-orientation in the office — respecting, of course, the rights and responsibilities under the act.

I think I would just mention — I did mention it yesterday, when I talked to the associations — and it probably goes without saying that maintaining that public trust, I think, comes from ensuring that, as far as possible, we restore the relationship between the police officer and the public at the earliest opportunity. It’s not always possible, but certainly something that we strive to do through the ADR process. I’d like to continue with that work.

I’d note, parenthetically, that I believe the police boards association appeared the other day before the special committee reviewing the Police Act, and they also were supportive of the ADR process.

Just to be clear: ADR does not mean that we abandon our oversight role. Clearly when a matter goes through an alternative dispute resolution process, there’s reporting to our office, there’s oversight of our office, and there’s an opportunity for us to take that away if we think it’s headed in the wrong direction or if it’s just such a serious matter that it needs the oversight of our office and our attention.

I did mention the statutory audit that’s underway and the special committee that’s been appointed, which I’m sure you’re aware of. That is a statutory audit required under the Police Act to do an audit of a sampling of random complaints. That’s underway. The committee has chosen to look more broadly at the Police Act process generally.

[9:40 a.m.]

We’ve had one appearance before them. We’re looking forward to working with the appointed auditors and taking them through some of the files that they can…. Well, they’ll choose the files. We’ll do them randomly. Also, having a discussion with the committee about some areas where we can, perhaps, provide some further value to the process.

I listened with interest to the discussion with Mr. Chalke about systemic reviews. In our section 177, the one that provides general powers to the office and to myself, there are some opportunities to do informational reports, and there are some opportunities to work with the director of police services on things. But if we can improve the orientation towards outcomes and towards preventative measures to get the best result out of what is, really, a rift in trust, then there may be an opportunity to improve the lessons learned — opportunities in this section of the act for police agencies, governing agencies like police boards and others — through a more systemic analysis.

It’s a small budget. I don’t have the capacity right now, but I have seen the benefit in the past of having deep dives into statistical analysis and into files to look for trends so that we can then inform other decision-makers about how they can prevent those trends.

It’s well settled in professional standards practices — throughout, I think, North America, but in Canada — that effective organizations with professional standards offices do early identification of those behavioural issues that can then translate into more serious matters such as gratuitous use of force, excessive force or violence on the street, by looking at and paying attention to the officers’ cues early on, both in their training and development. The earlier you get involved in that, the earlier you have an opportunity to remediate those behaviours and prevent the more serious conduct later.

I hope to give you more information on the results of the audit, perhaps in the fall, depending on the timing.

One area that I would mention, and this goes to my comments on systemic, is the issue of street checks. The committee may be familiar with the discussion and the dialogue that’s happened in the public with respect to street checks, mostly coming out of Ontario, but more recently in Nova Scotia; there is some dialogue here. That is the practice in some police agencies to stop persons on the street, ask for name and ask for identifying information with, at times, questionable authority to do that.

Mr. Justice Tulloch has produced a report from the Ontario government that we’re presently analyzing. There is an outstanding matter that the Vancouver police board is looking at, studying their use of street checks.

I will acknowledge that there is some confusion as to what is a street check versus what is an officer simply operating under the lawful authorities that they have in a particular instance — for example, stopping somebody who’s speeding or otherwise. That work is going on, but what it brings forward are discussions around unbiased policing and about overpolicing certain racialized groups or overpolicing certain sectors of the community and the practices that, intentional or unintentional, result in that overpolicing of those communities.

It’s an area that I was particularly interested in working on. In my previous role, we had work underway on unbiased policing. It’s an area, in the parameters of the present role, and service and policy matters, that we would like to advance a dialogue forward with the policing community.

That accords with a bit of a theme that we see emerging. I take you back to the sort of early warning discussions where, if we see early Charter breaches — for example, unlawful detentions by police officers, albeit they may be on the lower end of the spectrum — we may have a training issue. We may have an issue that needs to be identified, and we may recommend to the department that that officer receive remedial training in an earlier way.

I’ve also, and I mentioned this to the police association yesterday, been encouraging our staff — and I’m encouraging the police leaders and the police associations — to consider the different lens that they need to apply when looking at interactions with the public. For example, when they’re dealing with somebody who may, perhaps, be suffering from an addiction or from mental illness, and the power imbalance that results from that interaction on the street. If they are not applying that lens and considering the particular unique circumstances of that individual, especially if they’re vulnerable, then they may be missing an opportunity to avoid an issue in the future.

[9:45 a.m.]

I’ve been encouraging that dialogue. I’ll continue to encourage that within our staff. We’ll be looking for training opportunities. I’ve already spoken briefly with the chief provincial medical officer, Dr. Bonnie Henry, about an opportunity for our staff to go out and spend some time with outreach workers in the Downtown Eastside, for example, to get that perspective and understand that perspective.

On that line, we’re having a discussion on how we can improve our accessibility. By that, I mean how accessible we are to various sectors of society. Are we accessible in other languages? Do communities and community members have the opportunity to both understand what our office does and engage our office in the appropriate times? To that end, we’re going to be bringing in some expert advice to assist in improving our accessibility to the broader public.

Now I’d like to spend some time, if you don’t mind, identifying one thing that’s on the horizon that I think is important. It’s going to impact the office and may be something that we come back to you to discuss at budget time. That is the pending possibility that the municipality of Surrey may go to a municipal police force. That will be a significant increase to the footprint of municipal police officers in the province, depending on the numbers, of course. If you use the ministry’s own statistics, we’re looking at a police department probably about the size of Vancouver’s as it is now, if not larger. As a result, that’s going to increase the inputs into our office.

More broadly, I’ve written the director of police services and the deputy minister to both ask that we be involved but also to encourage them, when they’re thinking about the recommendations to government on the approval process, to think very carefully about the quality of the governance, to think very carefully about the quality of the training programs that are going to be approved and to think very carefully about the leadership and the relationships between the associations — the leadership, the structures for the professional standards processes, hiring and human resources.

It’s all of those things that, if you pay attention early on, in the long run, you’ll avoid trying to repair them later, when the organization is up and running. We can think of examples where organizations didn’t pay attention, and systemic issues came in and took root. They’re very difficult to turn around in the long run.

We’re spending some time on that. I was in touch with the director, and she assures us that we’re going to be consulted when the proposals come forward. In my respectful view, slow is fast in something as important as this. Of course, that’s now a little bit outside my lane.

I think that’s probably all I have to discuss with you today, other than, of course, answering any questions you might have. I would just reiterate that I’ve been most favourably impressed with the quality of the staff in the office, the quality of processes and the work that Mr. Lowe spent, in his time, to secure the structure of the office. Should we have to take on the new challenges of a larger municipal footprint — or even an expanded role, if, indeed, the committee makes that recommendation and the Legislature approves it — I feel that we’re well positioned, from an organization, to do that in a way that would maximize our chance of success.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Great. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Pecknold. I really appreciate it, and it sounds like you’ve actually hit the ground running, so well done. Thanks for the report.

I’m sure, on behalf of the entire committee, we wanted to say best of luck, Rollie, with your retirement. All the work that you’ve done over the years — we really appreciate your service. Thank you.

M. Dean: Yes, good luck, Rollie, and welcome, Clayton. Thank you for your presentation.

It will surprise nobody on this committee that I’m interested in the composition of your staff group. Do you keep records of gender and diversity, just to start with? Then I have some follow-up, if that’s okay.

C. Pecknold: It’s such a small office. I think I can go around in my head and tell you what our gender balance is.

Do you know it, offhandedly?

[9:50 a.m.]

R. Woods: No. I know there are more men than women.

C. Pecknold: I would hazard a guess at this point. I’m certainly happy to send the exact figures to you, but we’re probably about 70-30 men to women.

M. Dean: I guess another question is, then: do you actually keep those data, in terms of, like, ethnic origin or identity, gender identity? Do you keep those?

C. Pecknold: I’m sorry, of staff or of complainants?

M. Dean: Of staff.

C. Pecknold: Of staff. I don’t believe we do. In terms of our human resources, no, we don’t.

M. Dean: My thinking would be that if we’re wanting to make sure that the office is able to respond to issues like unbiased policing, unbiased card-checking, having some kind of benchmark of the composition of the office would at least give a starting point. That might also facilitate, then, some targets or measures for the future.

C. Pecknold: Yes, and that is well taken. I will say that at our last town hall, which happened last week, I introduced to the whole office the gender-based assessment plus program that, notwithstanding that they are public servants, had not filtered out to the independent office.

What I said at that meeting was that independence should not mean isolation for them. So I would like to bring some of those broader public service approaches into the broader group within our office. But your point is well taken, and we’ll certainly take that away.

M. Dean: Thank you. Yes, all ministries now apply a gender-based analysis plus lens. There are great materials out there. That would be wonderful to see that applied across independent offices as well.

It kind of speaks to my next question. Applying the WES tool — I see that it’s applied to the Public Service Agency. I guess that’s one of the reasons that you’re applying it. But applying a tool needs that selection to be based on that kind of gender-based approach as well. What was the process you went through for choosing the tool that you’re going to be using for the employee reflections?

C. Pecknold: The WES survey?

M. Dean: Yeah.

C. Pecknold: Simply that that’s the tool that is broadly used within the public service up to now, and that it was accessible to us. And frankly, it was affordable, because it’s already there.

R. Coleman: Well, Clayton, I know you haven’t been there very long, so congratulations.

Rollie, I just wanted to give you my personal thanks for all your service, from a perspective of seeing your work over the years, and to recognize you personally. Have a good retirement. Let us know how it goes. Some of us might be thinking of it in the not too distant future.

R. Woods: Thank you very much.

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

Well, thank you very much for the presentation. We look forward to seeing you again in the fall, if not earlier.

Can I have a motion to adjourn?

Motion approved.

The committee adjourned at 9:53 a.m.