The committee met at 8:08 a.m.

[B. D’Eith in the chair.]

B. D’Eith (Chair): I’d like to bring the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Service to order, Thursday, May 9. Today we are continuing with statutory offices finance and operational updates.

First up we have the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner and office of the registrar of lobbyists — Michael McEvoy.

Welcome.

Financial and Operational Updates
from Statutory Officers

OFFICE OF THE INFORMATION
AND PRIVACY COMMISSIONER

M. McEvoy: Good morning, and it is a good morning. Thank you, hon. Chair and members of the committee. I am very pleased to be here at this point in the year to report back on our budget and provide you with an update on the activities of our office.

My remarks this morning will address the need for legislative reform to enhance public body accountability as well as to meet the privacy challenges of the digital age. Joining me this morning are Deputy Commissioners oline Twiss to my immediate right and Jeannette Van Den Bulk to my further right. And making his 33rd appearance before this committee is Dave Van Swieten, our executive director of shared services.

I also wish to recognize in the gallery this morning, behind me, Noel Boivin, our senior communications officer, as well as the members of our OIPC team back at 947 Fort Street.

[8:10 a.m.]

I want to begin by reporting on the budget for the fiscal year just ended. I’m pleased to share with you that we ended the most recent fiscal year within our targeted surplus of no more than 2 percent of our allocation. Due to the careful fiscal management, we are pleased to report a modest surplus of 1.4 percent or $87,000 on our operating budget of $6.252 million.

As to fiscal year 2019-2020, I wish to thank the committee for recommending that government approve our budget request as submitted. Government approved your recommendations, including funds to support the implementation of the Lobbying Registration Amendment Act, 2018, which will bring fundamental changes to registration requirements for lobbyists in B.C. The cost allocations in the amounts of $287,000 for operational costs and $400,000 over two years for capital costs to rebuild the lobbyists registry will support our preparations for this important legislation. I will speak a little more about this in a moment.

I also want to thank the committee for recommending continued support for the office’s work as Secretariat to the Asia Pacific Privacy Authorities. As I discussed last November, APPA facilitates cooperation with our counterparts across the Asia-Pacific, a significant trading region for B.C. business. Where trade goes, so goes data, often sensitive personal data, and our regulatory collaboration enables us to better address challenges that result from British Columbians’ data being shared across borders.

I now turn to my responsibilities as the registrar for lobbyists in B.C. As I noted, my office is now charged with the responsibility to implement the Lobbying Registration Amendment Act, 2018. The legislation received royal assent on November 27 last year, shortly after I appeared before the committee, and it does represent a significant priority for the office.

These important amendments will require a comprehensive restructuring of the current on-line registry. The best advice I had received prior to my last committee appearance was that the process to rebuild the existing registry would be a lengthy one, perhaps up to 24 months. I was concerned by this time lag, and in the interim, my team has taken steps to shorten it.

I reached out to my federal counterpart, Nancy Bélanger, Commissioner of Lobbying for Canada, who generously agreed to license the use of the federal registry system to us at no cost. This system, widely seen by lobbyists and public as robust and user-friendly, can be modified to ensure complete alignment with B.C.’s legal and operational requirements. Rather than rebuilding our current system, we will be able to modify a far superior one that will better support lobbyists in fulfilling their obligations set out in the new act.

This means that instead of rebuilding the current system over two years, we now estimate that we will complete the work this fiscal year. I anticipate this will mean advancing next year’s capital funds into this fiscal year. Preliminary estimates show that the capital costs will be similar, though our detailed planning work is not yet complete. I will return to the committee to finalize this re-profiling of the capital spend when the details are confirmed, most likely in early fall. To ensure that lobbyists and the public are aware of the coming changes, we are also developing an extensive education and outreach program.

Turning to my responsibilities as Information and Privacy Commissioner, the priorities that we outlined for you last November remain unchanged. Our primary focus continues to be delivering more timely service to British Columbians. We have experienced an increase in demand for services again this year. We remain committed to continuous improvement, which has so far enabled us to manage these increases within our existing resources. This improvement reflects the dedication of the truly professional team of individuals I work with and their commitment to serving the public.

Our other priority is to increase the private sector’s awareness of their responsibilities to properly protect the personal information that they hold. We recently launched a significant education campaign aimed at the more than one million British Columbian organizations that collect and use personal information. PrivacyRight, as we have titled it, will assist private organizations with understanding their obligations under the Personal Information Protection Act.

This initiative goes far beyond our traditional guidance documents and offers a number of educational tools to raise awareness and compliance with PIPA. We are rolling these out every month. Our message is clear: that privacy compliance is good for business. Committee members can actually see this work for themselves. Following this meeting, I will convey a link that takes you to the initiative — provide that to the Clerk of the committee.

Since my last appearance, I released an investigation report on the privacy practices of B.C.’s three main political parties. As you may be aware, I am the only privacy regulator in Canada whose jurisdiction exists to investigate political parties. The report addressed how the B.C. NDP, Green and Liberal parties managed the personal information of British Columbians. It found that political parties need to make improvements in how they collect and use the personal information of potential voters.

[8:15 a.m.]

I want to repeat what I said following the release of the report. Political parties may be allowed to collect and use personal formation under PIPA, however, for most of the circumstances that we reviewed, political parties would need to get the clear and meaningful consent of voters to do so.

My colleague the Chief Electoral Officer and I, along with representatives of all three political parties, are exploring the possibility of a voluntary code of practice. We believe such a code will enhance the public confidence in our political campaign system.

My report is being cited by my counterparts and legislators across Canada in support of improved regulation of political parties. It is a credit to B.C.’s legislators that our private sector privacy law built independent oversight into the personal information practices of political parties in our jurisdiction.

I conclude my remarks today with an appeal for legislative reform respecting both freedom-of-information legislation and the law governing privacy. The list of required changes is defined and achievable, in my view, in the next six to 12 months. Much of it is contained in the painstaking work done by members of this assembly through your most recent legislative review committees.

I will zero in on two matters this morning, beginning with the joint letter sent to members by the Merit Commissioner, Ombudsperson and me. We propose changes to the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act so that it would apply to the administrative functions of the Legislative Assembly. It is our view that these amendments can be accomplished while ensuring long-standing legislative privileges are respected. These and other proposed reforms will contribute to a more transparent and accountable Legislative Assembly.

The second issue concerns the hyper-digital age in which we live. I believe it incumbent on all of us to ensure that British Columbia’s laws, meant to protect the personal information of our citizens, are fit for purpose. The issues now facing us were barely imaginable to your predecessors, who passed FIPPA and the Personal Information Protection Act into law. The pace of change is all the more remarkable when one considers that PIPA became law in only 2005.

The digital age means vast amounts of often sensitive personal information are being harvested, stored and analyzed for purposes that are sometimes good and sometimes very harmful. Reducing that harm is, in large measure, what strong privacy laws are aimed at. More data means the potential for major data breaches, whose ramifications can be very far-reaching and very harmful.

How is it, then, in 2019, that there is no requirement to report such harmful breaches to my office or to the individual citizens affected, whether the breach occurs in the public or private sector? It should not be acceptable to any of us that the B.C. Pension Corporation, for example, waited more than five months to notify my office about a missing box containing sensitive personal information, including date of birth, social insurance numbers and income information of more than 8,000 people.

Mandatory breach notification would require public bodies and organizations to report breaches or suspected breaches to my office within days of discovery. This will enable my office to assist them in dealing with the breach and minimizing the negative impacts to the public. Mandatory breach notification exists federally, in Alberta, in almost all of the United States and in Europe. The B.C. public deserves equal protection.

The last matter I want to address is my recent investigation into Facebook, undertaken with my colleague the Privacy Commissioner of Canada. This investigation underscores an urgent need for legal reform to ensure private sector actors like Facebook meet their obligations to properly protect, collect and use the data of citizens. Our report is clear that Facebook failed to do so. I should note that there were some 90,000 British Columbians affected by that breach.

However, it is also clear that my ability to bring companies like Facebook to account for their actions affecting B.C. citizens is severely constrained by a lack of modern regulatory tools. This includes strong powers of audit and inspection, in conjunction with the authority to levy significant fines. We must aim for a strengthened system of regulation that is interoperable with benchmarks set by other jurisdictions, such as the European Union’s general data protection regulation.

I want to conclude by thanking the committee again for the opportunity to update you on the budget and the work of our office. We continue to serve the people of B.C. with timely and relevant service, access to information and privacy and on the sound implementation of legislative reforms in our lobbyist regulation.

I’d be happy to take questions from the committee.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you very much. Given the international scope of these issues, such as Facebook, we really appreciate the work that you’re doing on this and your leadership on this, not only provincially but nationally, and your work internationally as well.

[8:20 a.m.]

I did want to ask you about Facebook and social media generally and its impact on elections — now that we’ve seen, with the U.S. report that recently came out, that Russia did interfere in that election. Now, I’m not sure Russia would want to interfere in our B.C. election. However, the fact that that tool can be used to interfere with elections may open it up to potential abuse. I’m just wondering if you have looked at that piece in your investigations.

M. McEvoy: Our investigation actually related to the Cambridge Analytica–Facebook matter, wherein millions of Facebook users’ data was vacuumed and used by a company, Cambridge Analytica, in conjunction with a person by the name of Dr. Aleksandr Kogan, where Facebook users’ data was analyzed and people were psychologically profiled. It was used for targeting and election purposes.

There were some almost, I think, 85 million Facebook users that were involved — 660,000 Canadians, almost 90,000 British Columbians. That clearly was a violation of British Columbia law; it was a violation of Canadian law. Again, the tools which can be used to sanction them are certainly missing, we believe.

There are two elements, in a sense, to your question — about the data collection in the first place, about individuals, and then how that platform can be used by forces that may be external to British Columbia, but they may be internal as well. Those are of joint concern to my office on the data collection side of things and also to the Chief Electoral Officer of British Columbia. We are talking together about those issues and about how British Columbians might be better protected. I believe that coordinating and cooperating between the two offices is the appropriate thing to do to ensure that that happens.

N. Simons: There’s a sense of urgency that I get from this. I appreciate that being conveyed, because I think legislative change needs to sort of catch up to the pace of change that exists. It surprises me that the disclosure isn’t required somehow, even if it’s not specifically mentioned — that it would be presumed under the legislation. Maybe you can just explain that and maybe also remind us of the importance of the timeliness of disclosure — what can happen to mitigate the impact of a breach.

M. McEvoy: Right, and increasingly….

I mean, basically, there are very businesses today that exist that I would say are not in the business of data collection, are not data businesses, whether it’s even a mom-and-pop retail store, when you’ve got credit card transactions going, to something much more significant. That information can be lost. It can be stolen. It can be hacked. That can be used for all kinds of things from identity theft, blackmail…. The kinds of sensitive information that could exist, from financial to health information, is of considerable significance.

What’s important when those breaches occur is that, first of all, my office be notified, because we can actually assist. We do get voluntary notifications to our office from time to time, and that number is rising. I have an expert team in my office that helps assist to stop the breach, identify what the damage is, notify people if that’s necessary. Besides notifying my office, notifying the individuals is absolutely critical. That’s because in order to take measures, take steps to mitigate the potential damage….

For example, if it’s financial information that’s gone missing, or your passwords or something like that, you can change them. You can do something about your credit card information. You could put a credit watch on your accounts to ensure that they’re not being improperly dealt with. How would you know how to do that if you don’t know? This is why mandatory breach notification has been brought in, virtually around the globe, in most of the western industrialized countries — to ensure that people are properly protected. That’s a matter of critical importance, and I would say, by the way, that both in the private sector and the public sector, those laws need to apply.

[8:25 a.m.]

B. D’Eith (Chair): We do have questions from other members. I just wanted to follow up on that — a couple of things. In terms of our role as the Finance Committee, I appreciate the request for legislation and putting that on the public record in Hansard, but our role is not to necessarily suggest legislative changes per se.

My question to you, just following up on what Nick was saying: have you talked to the Minister of Citizens’ Services about this urgent need, and where is she in terms of that priority? Have you had those discussions?

M. McEvoy: I certainly have had those discussions with the minister. I meet with her almost on a monthly basis. There’s not a meeting that goes by that I do not talk about the urgency of this and the series of other reforms. At this stage, I do not know what the government’s intentions are in this respect. But anytime I get the opportunity to be in front of a body of legislators, including this very important committee, I will not let the opportunity pass without making reference to what we believe is a very important issue.

B. D’Eith (Chair): As you should. I just wanted to make sure that we’re clear about our role in this. We wouldn’t want you to think that we have that ability to push that, even though it’s…. Fair enough.

R. Leonard: Two things, since we’re on this exciting topic. I appreciate how you have a balance to play. When somebody is interested in privacy issues, they’re the dog with a bone on that issue. If it’s interest in gaining information, they totally don’t get the privacy side. I appreciate the balance that you bring to this job.

On the question of the breaches. When you talk about notifications to individuals — because that’s obviously the outcome that we need: that people know when there’s been a breach — is there a cost apportionment to those businesses or agencies who have…? If you’re taking on a job, they’re the ones…. Well, we don’t know if they’ve been negligent or if there’s an accidental thing because of lack of understanding. How do you deal with that particular cost — this being a Finance Committee?

M. McEvoy: Not every breach results, necessarily, in significant harm. That’s generally the threshold for breach notification across the various jurisdictions. The breach itself has to result in some significant harm before there’s a requirement, for example, to notify. Notification can be very expensive. I think there have been examples within government, but also in the private sector, of how communicating to sometimes hundreds, sometimes thousands of people — individual communications with them about a breach — can be a costly thing.

In some cases, a company might have to put credit monitoring or give that, make it available, to consumers who might be affected. That’s obviously a cost. There are all kinds of numbers that circulate about the cost of breaches. It’s in the multi-millions of dollars across the corporate sector and certainly to government, which is why you want to have in place, in the first instance, privacy management programs that will prevent that kind of thing from happening in the first place. That’s something else their office is promoting, both in the private and the public sector, to ensure that we don’t see those kinds of breaches.

R. Leonard: Thank you. The second one is more of a comment. You started off talking about the lobbyist registration and obvious cooperation and generosity of your federal counterpart. I just want to acknowledge that you’ve built those good relations and extend my thanks for making sure that we have something that’s really viable. I appreciate that generosity.

M. McEvoy: I certainly will. We’re delighted that our counterpart has offered that, and I will pass that along to their office. Thank you.

R. Coleman: We just did the spec tax mailout, input information and that sort of stuff. I would imagine you gave some input on this, but notionally, government will have collected somewhere north of one million emails with regards to that and somewhere north of one million social insurance numbers. I would assume you had some conversation with government with regards to that.

[8:30 a.m.]

The question I have is: what can be done with those emails now, relative to the privacy of people or sending information to them, versus whether they’ll be kept private only for the purpose of the tax piece?

M. McEvoy: Our office received several complaints about the speculation tax, in particular about the collection of SIN numbers but also about emails that you have just referred to.

We are actually conducting an inquiry, at the present moment, into that issue, dealing with those complaints. That matter is one being adjudicated now.

Everybody in this room will appreciate that government is only allowed to collect information that is properly authorized — authorized by law. There may be other authorizations. So that is what the adjudicator will be looking at in terms of receiving submissions from both the complainant and the government about whether that was properly collected in the first instance.

I don’t want to speculate on the outcome of that. But what I would say, in general terms, about the collection of information, including things like emails, is that when they are collected for a certain purpose, they can only be used for that purpose. If they have been, again, properly collected in the first instance, there can’t be an inconsistent use. It can’t be something that was…. Essentially, it has to remain consistent with the purpose for which it was collected.

R. Coleman: To that, I get about ten emails a day from government because I actually subscribe to their thing where they make announcements every day.

Some of the people that have asked me about this have all of a sudden been on that email list. All of a sudden — they’re not knowing whether they are subscribed or not. Submitted, on the one form…. My concern is that the million-plus emails that government has will be used to communicate other things versus just the tax rules.

Will you, in your adjudication, be looking at that?

M. McEvoy: This adjudication will be looking, I believe, just at the issue of whether there was authority to collect the information at first instance. Certainly, if anybody has any information or believes that they received information and they’re not sure how their names or emails were acquired, that’s a complaint that my office would entertain, for sure.

R. Coleman: I think they’re canvassing in Finance estimates right now what the use of those emails will be. But one of the biggest concerns that came out of it is, “What will they use my information for? Because I really didn’t want to have to give out my email” — that sort of thing.

M. McEvoy: I’ve taken note of that. Thank you.

M. Dean: Thanks for the presentation, Michael.

If FOIPPA is extended to the Legislative Assembly, will that then lead…? Do you anticipate, too, a need for an increase in resources in your office or in the Legislative Assembly staffing to be able to respond to request for information, etc.?

M. McEvoy: I would say, at the end of my office, that no, I would not anticipate that would require more resources. In terms of the assembly’s work, that’s something that’s difficult to predict, but I would say this. I would say that if the assembly is proactive in disclosing the kinds of records that we’re more or less talking about, which are travel expenses, those kinds of administrative expenses…. Let’s be clear. That’s what we’re proposing that the act would apply to. Proactively disclosing those things would then negate the need for all kinds of requests and having to deal with those requests, because the information would be out there publicly.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Nicholas, did you have another question?

N. Simons: I was going to ask about the….

Michael, you were talking about sanctions and the tools available to address or prevent, deter improper use of data. Can you just maybe summarize what sanctions are lacking and what jurisdiction those sanctions would best be located?

M. McEvoy: At the present time, there is no administrative fining power that resides with, actually, any privacy jurisdiction in Canada.

The federal commissioner, not surprisingly, is making the same pleas to legislators in Ottawa that we are talking about here. So administrative fining power, I think, would be consistent with what is happening in Europe. More U.S. states are looking at it.

[8:35 a.m.]

The power to fine…. I would describe it as scaleable. Obviously, you would not generally be imposing significant, huge fines on smaller companies, but for the larger companies, where their global turnover is significant, the penalties have to be proportionate.

In Europe, for example, those fines can be up to 4 percent of global turnover. So you can imagine for companies like Google and Facebook, that’s a significant amount of money.

I think when we are looking at penalties in British Columbia, we’d want to be looking at other jurisdictions, how they’ve dealt with things. And we want to be looking at a system that’s interoperable so that if Facebook is fined in Europe with respect to European citizens, we have the ability here in British Columbia to fine Facebook to a proportionate degree, relative to, say, the number of British Columbians affected by a breach, for example.

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

Thank you for the thoughtful questions and very thoughtful answers. We really appreciate everything that you’re doing, and it’s very important work — extremely important work, especially in the digital age. Appreciate your passion for this, because it’s clear that you’re very passionate about protecting the public, and we really appreciate that.

Seeing no more questions, do you have anything else to add?

M. McEvoy: I do not. As always, we appreciate the opportunity to appear more frequently. This is, I think, a good opportunity to have an exchange of views. Thank you, and I thank the members of the committee.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Great. Thanks so much.

Okay, short recess.

The committee recessed from 8:36 a.m. to 8:45 a.m.

[B. D’Eith in the chair.]

B. D’Eith (Chair): We are dealing with statutory offices, financial and operational updates. Next up we have Elections B.C. — Anton Boegman.

Welcome. We’d love to hear what you have to say.

ELECTIONS B.C.

A. Boegman: Good morning, Mr. Chair, Mr. Vice-Chair, committee members. Thank you for scheduling the meeting for us today. I’m joined at the table by my two deputies, Charles Porter, who is two seats to the left, Deputy Chief Electoral Officer for electoral finance and operations, and to my immediate left, Yvonne Koehn, Deputy Chief Electoral Officer for corporate services. Also present in the gallery behind are Tanya Ackinclose, director of finance, and Jodi Cooke, executive director of electoral finance.

I’ll make a number of comments to begin our meeting, following which we are happy to respond to questions or comments from members of the committee. My comments will focus on three areas.

First, I would like to provide a high-level update on key administrative findings and costs expended to date and forecasted for the three most recent events that my office has administered — the 2019 by-election in Nanaimo, the 2018 general local elections and the 2018 referendum on electoral reform. I will also notify the committee of a supplementary funding request relating to election expense reimbursements for the Nanaimo by-election. As campaign finance reviews are still ongoing for all three events, you can anticipate that this update represents our most current assessment. Final numbers and analysis will not be available until my official reports on these events are finalized this summer.

Next I’ll provide a financial update on our ongoing capital projects. As might be expected, due to the on-demand event requirements of 2018, Elections B.C. was not able to move forward with several of the projects that had been planned to be initiated last year.

Finally, in line with my understanding of this committee’s desire to meet with legislative officers in the period between our regular budget presentations to provide an opportunity to raise issues of interest with members, I would like to make comments on two issues.

To begin, I’ll reiterate the items that were raised in the 2018 Report of the Chief Electoral Officer on Recommendations for Legislative Change. This report, tabled following the 2017 provincial election, contained many items that are technical in nature relating to the process of election administration, as well as several priority recommendations on ways in which British Columbia can improve voting and voter registration. I will close by highlighting a topic that my office has been examining closely this winter, that of digital threats to election integrity.

The Nanaimo by-election. This event was held on January 30, 2019. My office had proposed, and this committee had recommended, funding of $605,000 to conduct the by-election. As mentioned, the full costs of administering the by-election have yet to be determined and will be presented in my report later this summer. Currently, by-election costs are forecasted to total $576,000, representing 95 percent of the overall $605,000 budget that was allocated for the event.

As mentioned to this committee when we met in January, our budget request of $605,000 did not include the required funding for the reimbursement of eligible by-election expenses for candidates and political parties. Under section 215.04 of the Election Act, the Chief Electoral Officer must pay election expense reimbursements to the candidates and the political parties that received at least 10 percent of the vote in a by-election.

For the Nanaimo by-election, two candidates and two political parties received sufficient votes to be eligible to receive election expense reimbursements. These entities have filed election expense reimbursement claims totalling $108,453.49. The actual amount may differ once my staff have audited the claims and the associated receipts. I have brought with me here today a letter for the committee, requesting supplementary funding of $108,000 for the 2019-20 fiscal year for these election expense reimbursements.

From an administrative perspective, the by-election was a success. There was a much higher voter interest in the by-election than is typical in these events, with voter turnout over 52.6 percent. Continuing the trend of voters choosing to vote using more convenient opportunities, over 38 percent of voters voted at advance voting, with 12 percent voting in the district electoral office or through an absentee method.

[8:50 a.m.]

Less than 50 percent of voters voted at their assigned location on general voting day. This 52.6 percent turnout was the highest level of voter participation in a by-election in over 20 years.

The voting place technology, voter-lookup laptops and label printers that were introduced during the 2017 provincial election to automate administrative aspects of advance and absentee voting, and to enable next-day reporting of advance voting turnout to candidates, was also successfully used in Nanaimo. This innovation enabled officials to look up voters and to print out labels for the voting books and other voting documents, replacing the previous manual processes. As advance voters voted, they were then struck off the voters list and reported to candidates the following day. The lookup system also greatly reduced the opportunity for most election official administrative errors, and in the context of a single by-election, it acted as an additional screening tool to prevent non-eligible voters from participating.

The 2018 general local elections. The campaign period for the general local elections began on September 22 and continued to Saturday, October 20, 2018. During this period, Elections B.C. administered the campaign finance and advertising requirements of the Local Elections Campaign Financing Act for 3,393 candidates, 64 elector organizations and 97 third-party advertising sponsors. As you know, Elections B.C. has no role in administering voting and counting in local elections.

Much work continues to be done to complete the administration of this event. We are working through our review of the disclosure statements filed by the each of the local election participants. As of May 8, reviews have been completed for 1,535 of the 3,554 total statements, or 43 percent.

Significant work goes into supporting participants with their filing requirements. For example, during this time period, local election campaign finance staff have sent over 7,400 reminder letters, made over 8,200 filing assistance phone calls and responded to questions on over 2,600 inbound calls. We anticipate completing the disclosure statement reviews by fall 2019. Concurrent with this activity, the local election team is also administering campaign finance requirements for 11 local by-elections and a non-election assent vote.

From an overall local elections event budget of $2.598 million, which spans three fiscal years, actual expenditures to date are over $1.26 million, and we are forecasting a total event expenditure of around $2.03 million, or 78 percent of budget. This is a substantial variance and is driven mainly by an unexpectedly high attrition rate for the temporary campaign finance staff.

The referendum on electoral reform. The voting period for the referendum on electoral reform ended on December 7, with results reported to the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly and announced provincewide on December 20. Overall, 1,403,074 ballot packages were returned to Elections B.C., representing a participation rate of 42.6 percent. During the campaign period, in addition to the official opponent and proponent, 27 advertising sponsors were registered with Elections B.C. As of the financial filing date of March 7, 2019, all reports were filed as required and are currently undergoing review. It is anticipated that this review will complete by the end of June 2019.

From a financial perspective, out of an overall event budget of $14.561 million, actual expenditures to date are $13.1 million, with an overall event forecast anticipated at $13.2 million. This represents total event costs at 91 percent of the planned budget.

While the post-event review of referendum administration is still ongoing, a number of salient observations have been made. These include…. Of the initial mailout of over 3.2 million voting packages, 120,000, or 3.6 percent, were returned to Elections B.C. as undeliverable by Canada Post. The undeliverable rate for voters where Elections B.C. has a B.C. driver’s licence on file and, hence, for whom we receive address change updates from ICBC, was 3.3 percent. How­ever, for voters who do not have a driver’s licence, the undeliverable rate was, really, nearly three times higher, at 9.2 percent. This highlights the administrative challenge of maintaining address accuracy on the voters list for those voters for whom we do not have access to reliable secondary sources of information in this area.

[8:55 a.m.]

Despite the challenges encountered by the rotating strikes at Canada Post throughout the extended voting period, the number of voting packages received after the deadline of December 7 was quite low. So 7,200 packages were received late, representing only 0.2 percent of all packages sent out. This compares favourably with the late return rate from the 2011 mail-based HST referendum, which had late returns of 0.3 percent.

Of the 1.4 million voting packages that were returned to Elections B.C., the vast majority were opened and accepted for counting, with 10,653 certification envelopes that could not be accepted, representing 0.76 percent of all packages received. This is, however, a significant improvement from the past two vote-by-mail events, and I believe that this improvement was directly attributable to enhancements in voting package design, including layout and instructions.

The correction process for certification envelopes that Elections B.C. put in place for the referendum proved successful. Through this process, voters who had made inadvertent mistakes in completing their certification envelopes, such as forgetting to include their date of birth, were contacted by mail and enabled to correct their mistake. Close to 5,000 certification envelopes were accepted through the correction process that otherwise would not have been counted.

In terms of capital, I’d like to now provide the committee with a high-level update on the Elections B.C. 2018-19 capital spending plan. As I mentioned and was anticipated, due primarily to the on-demand event delivery requirements of last year, Elections B.C. was not able to complete all planned capital projects and ended the fiscal year considerably under budget. Of the total capital budget of $1.2 million, Elections B.C. spent close to $700,000.

In terms of capital projects, we were able to complete necessary Bills 3 and 15 system changes to our electoral information system and the financial reports and political contributions system, as well as updates to the vote-by-mail tracking system required for the referendum. The scope of other projects, however, was reduced. While the on-line voter registration system, user interface, address entry and accessibility responsiveness were improved, other aspects to enhance on-line self-service options for voters were de­ferred.

Similarly, we were not able to engage a vendor for work on the planned on-line candidate portal, so we’re now looking at an alternate procurement approach to get this work completed. Despite these changes to our capital project plan, these projects remain an important part of Elections B.C.’s envisioned future service delivery model and will be a focus in our current non-event period.

The last two items that I will comment on before concluding my presentation stem from section 12(2) of the Election Act, which enables the Chief Electoral Officer to make recommendations to the Legislative Assembly on amendments to the Election Act or other enactments related to electoral matters.

In May 2018, Elections B.C. tabled a report on recommendations for legislative change, following the conclusion of the 41st provincial general election. I have followed up this report by meeting with the B.C. NDP, Liberal, and Green Party caucus chairs. I offered to meet more broadly with members of each caucus to discuss the recommendations that we have made. I’d like to re-emphasize with this committee what the key report recommendations were, and why I feel they are important to the administration of British Columbia elections.

The priority recommendations were provisional voter registration for 16- and 17-year-olds to remove administrative barriers to youth participation in election; greater access to voter registration data held by other public bodies to improve the quality of the voters list; a longer election calendar for an on-demand provincial general election; and modernizing the voting process, including greater but prudent use of technology to better serve voters and other electoral participants.

Provisional voter registration for 16- and 17-year-olds is about increasing accessibility to voting. The lowest voter registration rates provincially are for 18- to 24-year-olds. They are significantly lower than other age categories, with approximately 60 percent registered out of this eligible population versus 95 percent plus in most other age categories. This group, not surprisingly, also has the lowest voter turnout rate — 46 percent, which is up to 20 points lower than the highest age group participation.

[9:00 a.m.]

There is a positive correlation between being registered and voting. The challenge is that there is no proven way to identify and prompt 18-year-olds to register, unless they are interested and motivated to take that step. Approaching youth before they graduate from high school would be an effective way to ensure that they are registered to vote when they become eligible.

Provisional registration of 16- and 17-year-olds is a voter registration best practice already done in Nova Scotia, Alberta, Ontario, Quebec and federally, where their provisional list captures 14- to 17-year-olds. This step may also have a greater long-term effect on voter engagement and turnout.

Having greater access to voter registration data held by other public bodies is key to increasing the currency of the voters lists and, therefore, to providing better service to voters and more accurate voters list information to parties and candidates. This is the most effective method of maintaining the voters list.

Currently Elections B.C. receives name-change and change-of-address updates from ICBC as well as from Elections Canada. But a significant percentage of B.C. voters do not have a driver’s licence, and it’s difficult to ensure currency of their voter record. It’s not surprising, as mentioned, that during the mail referendum, the undeliverable rate for voters who do not have a driver’s licence attached to their voter record was significantly higher than for those linked voters.

Election agencies having a greater access to voter registration information held by other public bodies is also becoming a voter registration best practice. Alberta, Manitoba and Nova Scotia all have access to voter information held by any public body in their province, while Quebec has access to voter information from their provincial health insurance agency. Of course, any information accessed would be limited to information required to update the voter record — name, address and date of birth — and would only be used for electoral purposes.

Adopting a longer election calendar for non-scheduled or on-demand provincial general elections would improve Elections B.C.’s ability to effectively and efficiently administer such an event. Many electoral activities occur pre-writ for a fixed-date election: renting offices, shipping supplies, standing nominations.

This is not possible for an on-demand provincial election with little notice and would incur significant costs for rushed service. Most Canadian jurisdictions have longer campaign periods than B.C., with almost all having longer campaign periods for non-scheduled elections than for scheduled ones.

The last party recommendation is about modernizing the voting process, including the use of electronic poll books with near real-time voter strike-off and reporting as well as vote tabulators to count ballots in voting places. The full detail of this recommendation is described in the appendix to our report.

However, I believe that if these changes were enacted, it would provide important benefits to British Columbians, including better service to voters through a first-come, first-served or bank teller model; the ability to provide close to real-time voter participation data for most locations to campaigns to facilitate the get-out-the-vote effort; a more efficient administrative staffing model, with few officials required in a technology-enabled voting place. Elections Ontario, which implemented this model in 2018, achieved close to 35 percent staffing efficiencies.

Lastly, more timely results by using tabulators, voter strike-off and a ballot-on-demand system. Absentee ballots could be tabulated where cast, and results could be reported on election night, while maintaining current voting accessibility.

The other key area that Elections B.C. is researching right now is the issue of digital threats to our election integrity. In the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal and substantiated reports of foreign interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and the 2016 U.K. Brexit referendum, there’s a real concern about potential interference with electoral campaigning and processes through digital disinformation, non-transparent digital political advertising and cyberattacks.

This is potentially the biggest current challenge to our democratic institutions. The scale of the threat is significant, and our knowledge and ability to meaningfully respond to this challenge is only developing.

A number of jurisdictions have started to address these challenges. A Canadian parliamentary committee has published two reports on this issue, and the recent changes to federal election law established in Bill C-76 have included some measures to counter disinformation and increase transparency of digital campaign ads.

[9:05 a.m.]

The U.K. Parliament has thoroughly investigated the risk and proposed legislative changes to both privacy and electoral laws. Many other European nations have also taken meaningful steps, including policy and practice shifts to address disinformation.

Elections B.C.’s work in this area has been to fully understand the extent of the digital information risks to B.C. elections, to assess how the Election Act currently addresses these risks and to identify possible solutions, including recommendations for legislative change. I anticipate completing a report on this issue by the end of the summer, such that the report can be tabled in the Legislature at the beginning of the fall 2019 session.

I mention both our 2018 report on recommendations for legislative change as well as our recent work to understand the risk of digital disinformation in order to emphasize the importance of these issues with committee members. I would be pleased to have further discussions on these issues with committee members or with your respective caucuses if you would like to learn more. That concludes Elections B.C.’s presentation to the committee.

I would now like to turn the floor back over to you, Mr. Chair. We would be pleased to respond to any questions or comments that committee members may have.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you very much. As we discussed in the break before your presentation, it was actually good timing that you came today, right after the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner, especially in re­gards to the digital challenges that we’re facing in regards to election tampering, in a sense, and use of digital technology and social media.

I’m wondering if you could elaborate a little bit more on your work with the other office so that we can just get a little bit more perspective on that.

A. Boegman: Certainly. There are a number of, I would say, joint initiatives that we have been doing. The first was in relation to the review and report of the Privacy Commissioner on the use of personal information by political parties in British Columbia. Of course, the use of the information and how that’s used by the parties is under the purview of the Privacy Commissioner, but Elections B.C. is required to provide that information, under law, to the parties and candidates.

We have developed, in conjunction with the Privacy Commissioner, a privacy policy that those entities are required to file with our office prior to receiving the personal information.

Our work with the commissioner was really to understand how that combination of the policy, giving the information to the parties and then their use of it worked. Were there any gaps in that? How could we work together to, perhaps, better ensure that the practices entailed in the policy are adhered to — whether that’s a voluntary code of practice, whether that’s developing training materials that could be used or things of that nature.

Certainly, in relation to the last part of my presentation about the digital threats to election integrity, that’s an area that we’ve actually been engaging in a number of discussions over the winter. Mr. McEvoy, of course, was working with the U.K. privacy commission office when the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke and was a key part of that investigation.

I’ve been able to learn from his insight in there, not only both how the privacy was impacted but also the areas that could potentially impact election integrity. On an ongoing basis, we’re going to continue to work closely on these issues. Certainly it’s an area that I think, because of the overlap between the mandates of our offices, it only makes sense to do so.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Fantastic. Well, it’s really great to see that cooperation in a very important area of elections. Any questions from the members?

M. Dean: Thanks very much. I’m interested in whether you’re able to break out the voting by ethnic origin or Indigenous identity so that we can actually have a look at how we’re engaging with different sections of the British Columbian population.

A. Boegman: In terms of that type of information, we don’t track that on the voters list. It’s not part of the information that is collected. So the reporting that we do is quite simply broken down by age group. Right now, we don’t have the ability to track and report voter participation by different demographic categories.

M. Dean: Does that include gender as well? We don’t break down by gender.

A. Boegman: We don’t break down by gender, no.

[9:10 a.m.]

R. Leonard: Thanks for your presentation. It’s a lot to go through.

Back in 2011, I was involved in three different campaigns: a nomination for a federal candidate…. I was a federal candidate, and then I was a local government candidate. At the last campaign, there was a breach of privacy when my mother had died. She received some campaign literature from one of the other candidates — another group, actually, a third-party group that had illegally accessed the Elections Canada list which local candidates weren’t entitled to.

As you’re talking about accessing other data from different agencies, I’m very aware of how the more agencies that are involved, the less likely you are able to track down where breaches occur, because it took the folks in Ottawa quite a while to come to their conclusions around it.

I guess it makes me a little bit reticent to see any agency having access to multiple sources of private information. I’m just wondering if you can comment on how you see that being able to be protected — that privacy being protected.

A. Boegman: Certainly, I’ll have some comments. I’m not sure, Charles, if you would like to add to that. Please feel free.

Obviously, protecting the privacy of that information is very, very important. That’s another area where, of course, I’ve had discussions with the Privacy Commissioner on the balance between the greater good of having access to more information — to having a more accurate and complete voters list — and then the risk and mitigating the risk.

I like to look back at how we’ve developed our relationship with ICBC over the past, I would say, two decades, to use the driver’s licence files as our greatest source of updates to the voters list. In that, we developed a process at the beginning that ensured that the information we were accessing was very clearly defined and was only related to that which was necessary for matching a record and updating the voter’s information. Then we developed a link between the records that we jointly shared, and then information was only updated on those linked records that we had.

If there were people who had indicated previously that they didn’t want to be on the voters list, let’s say for example, but had a driver’s licence file, we wouldn’t receive any of that information. It was only those individuals who were on the voters list and wanted to be on the voters list and also were on the driver’s licence file.

Through that relationship, we developed methods to secure sites and secure portals in order to enable that information to flow. The information…. Because of the link address that’s in there, when that information is passed between the agencies, typically, that link is enough to enable us to receive the change without having to have all of the data related to that individual in that particular transaction.

I think, with the proper thought into the design of how the information is shared, the parameters around that, the limitations on which information is not shared and proper design of the systems within which the information is shared, that the risk to a privacy breach certainly can be mitigated to an acceptable standard.

Charles, do you have anything additional to add?

C. Porter: The only thing I would add is that as you mentioned earlier in your comments, Anton, this is also a widespread practice in Canada and other jurisdictions as well, to date. We’ll have the opportunity to learn from their best practices in protecting privacy, which we do take very, very seriously.

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

Was there anything else that you’d like to add, anyone — Anton?

A. Boegman: No, I would simply repeat my earlier comment that, especially in relation to the recommendations for legislative change, I’m very happy to meet further with committee members or with caucuses if they would like to further discuss both of those — the report that was out in April 2018 as well as the issue of digital risks, disinformation risks through election integrity.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Great. Well, thank you very much for the presentation. We appreciate the opportunity to meet with you again. We’ll see you again soon. Thank you very much.

Okay. We’ll just take a short recess. Then we’re going to have to go in camera and discuss the supplementary funding.

The committee recessed from 9:15 a.m. to 9:16 a.m.

[B. D’Eith in the chair.]

B. D’Eith (Chair): Can I have a motion to go in camera?

D. Ashton (Deputy Chair): So moved.

Motion approved.

The committee continued in camera from 9:16 a.m. to 9:26 a.m.

[B. D’Eith in the chair.]

.

Votes on Supplementary Funding

ELECTIONS B.C.

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

Would someone like to make a motion? Dan, did you want to make the motion?

D. Ashton (Deputy Chair): Yes, I’ll make the motion:

[That Elections BC be granted access to supplementary funding up to $108,000 in 2019/20 for legislated reimbursement of election expenses for the Nanaimo by-election.]

B. D’Eith (Chair): Okay. The motion is on the table.

Motion approved.

B. D’Eith (Chair): There’s a second motion.

D. Ashton (Deputy Chair): I also move:

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

Motion approved.

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

Can I have a motion to adjourn?

Motion approved.

The committee adjourned at 9:27 a.m.