The committee met at 8 a.m.

[B. D’Eith in the chair.]

B. D’Eith (Chair): Welcome, everyone. It’s Thursday, October 24. We are in annual reviews of the statutory offices of British Columbia — the three-year rolling service plans, annual reports and budgetary estimates for fiscal ’20-21. We’re very pleased to have the Office of the Conflict of Interest Commissioner. Acting commissioner Lynn Smith is joining us.

Thank you for taking time from your busy teaching schedule, and all the other things you do, to act as our commissioner. It was a pleasure meeting with you yesterday. Thank you very much. We’ll turn it over to you.

Review of Statutory Officers

OFFICE OF THE CONFLICT
OF INTEREST COMMISSIONER

L. Smith: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. We appreciate this opportunity to come and talk about the Conflict of Interest Commissioner office. With me is Carol Hoyer, who is the office’s executive coordinator. She has worked very hard with me to put together the numbers and the budget proposal.

I’ve been honoured to serve as the acting commissioner following the very sad and untimely passing of Paul Fraser. It’s been remarkable how, as I make my rounds of the disclosure meetings, over and over again I hear from MLAs how highly Paul was regarded and how much the work of the Conflict of Interest Commissioner office is actually appreciated.

That work, as you know, consists in helping MLAs to understand the conflict rules and to avoid running afoul of them; giving quick advice, often in writing, when issues arise; helping navigate the financial disclosure requirements of the act; of course, responding to members of the public; and interacting across Canada in developing best practices around ethics and conflicts issues.

As you know, after Paul’s untimely death on March 29, the conflict commissioner’s office carried on without a commissioner or acting commissioner until June 20, 2019, when I began part-time as the acting commissioner. I was interested in looking back at the history a bit and noticed a striking fact, which you’re all aware of, I’m sure. Since the Members’ Conflict of Interest Act came into effect on December 21, 1990, there have been only three permanent commissioners — Ted Hughes, 1991 to ’97; Bertie Oliver, 1997 to 2007; and Paul Fraser, 2008 to 2019 — with some thespians, or acting commissioners, here and there in between.

I know that a selection committee is currently at work, I believe, on the task of finding a new permanent commissioner. Although the conflict-of-interest office staff and I have developed what I believe and hope is a very positive and productive working relationship, I also know that they’ll be relieved when they have a new permanent commissioner. It’s been the custom to have a long-serving commissioner and to have long-serving staff, so there’s been really quite remarkable continuity and consistency in the Conflict of Interest Commissioner office over time.

We’re here to talk about our budget. I’ll just give you a few highlights and then do my very best to answer all of your questions. Our budget proposal, as you can see, shows a request that is the smallest of all of the statutory offices. This reflects a couple of notable features.

We have a kind landlord, the Legislature, and we work out of that red brick building at 421 Menzies that you’re all familiar with. We do practise duck-and-cover whenever a truck goes by, in case it’s an earthquake, although I’ve learned now that the clomping hooves aren’t an early warning of an earthquake.

[8:05 a.m.]

We enjoy the proximity to the Legislative Assembly. Indeed, we’re in on the bell system. I’m currently trying to learn the code for the bells. Because of our very reasonable rent, our discretionary expenses remain low.

Another reason that our discretionary expenses remain low is that we haven’t had to make a lot of capital expenditures. We’ve used furniture from other parts of the operation.

Our staff consists of three persons, with one person being at 60 percent time. So 2.6 FTEs.

If you look at page 5 of our proposal, there’s a brief history showing what’s happened over time. I won’t go through it, but I note that our budgets for 2018-19 and 2019-20 were exactly the same, at $718,000. In 2018-19, we received an allocation from contingencies, under the authority of Treasury Board, to cover an overage arising from special circumstances. That’s bullet G on page 5. Aside from that, our office has remained within the allocation for 2018-19.

For the current fiscal year of 2019-20, our operational budget is, again, $718,000. We should end up this year comfortably within that allocation. But for next year, our non-discretionary expenses have increased, and as a result, our budget proposal for 2021-22 has increased. We’re seeking an allocation of $833,000. I think that’s something like 16 percent up overall.

Now, what are the reasons for the increase? That’s the obvious question. There are three. The first one is that we have increased the time spent by our legal officer, the very able Alyne Mochan, who many of you will know. Alyne has been with the office for more than ten years. She started at about the same time Paul did. It’s fair to say she has its institutional memory. She’s an indispensable adviser to the commissioner. She’s often the point of first contact and first responder to requests for advice from members.

We had something in yesterday that we were calling a code blue. It was quite an emergency request. Alyne is often the first responder to questions like that.

The workload for the legal officer has increased over time. It’s gradually crept up and up and up, to the point where we decided to recognize that it is a full-time job. I think that one overarching factor is the increased scrutiny that all MLAs, ministries and government agencies are experiencing, resulting in a greater felt need to draw on the resources of Conflict of Interest Commissioner staff and, in particular, on its legal staff.

One metric is that the number of requests for advice this year, to mid-October, has been 210, but in all of calendar year 2018, it was 209. Thus, there’s been an approximate 20 percent increase in requests for advice, year over year.

I mean, this is just an impression, but it’s my impression — and I can report it’s also Alyne’s impression — that the requests are becoming increasingly complex or worrisome for the members.

Another couple of reasons why the workload for the legal officer is increasing is that we’re receiving more requests to work collaboratively, both with other offices in British Columbia and nationally. Other offices in British Columbia include the Office of the Registrar of Lobbyists and the Clerk’s office. We’ve been working with the Clerk’s office, and in consultation with the Information and Privacy Commissioner, on issues regarding the proposed on-line posting of members’ public disclosure statements; and with the Office of the Registrar of Lobbyists to coordinate guidelines on offering and accepting gifts and benefits.

We’ve seen not only an increase from MLAs themselves but from caucus, constituency and ministerial assistants for general information and guidelines. We’re working on some — what we hope will be — new, helpful informational bulletins and educational materials on issues such as acceptance and disclosure of gifts.

[8:10 a.m.]

Another change in the legal officer’s workload is that there’s been an increasing need to work on the preparation of work in the disclosure process to help clients with complex issues prior to members’ meetings. A full-time legal officer will, of course, give us greater capacity to respond promptly to requests for opinions, to meet with outside counsel when it’s required, if there is something where we have to retain outside counsel — but I’m hoping that a full-time legal officer will mean that we don’t have to retain outside counsel — and again, capacity to create information bulletins and guidelines and to set down the institutional knowledge and prepare some policy manuals and guideline documents for the office. That’s the increase from 0.6 to full time for the legal officer.

The second element to explain the increase is that the budget contemplates a return to a full-time commissioner with full salary and benefits, which has not been the case since Paul’s passing at the end of fiscal 2018-19. There was no commissioner for a time. Then, when I stepped in, I did so at 0.75 percent, and I declined some of the benefits. It will be going back with a new commissioner, presumably, to a full-time commissioner with full salary and benefits.

Secondly, it’s possible that the new full-time commissioner will be non-resident in Victoria. I don’t know. That’s up, of course, to the selection committee. If that’s so, there will be some increased need for travel.

Finally, the third element that explains the increase is the accumulation of salary increases from previous years and the knock-on effect on the benefits. Benefits are calculated as a percentage. Is it 24.7, or something like that?

C. Hoyer: It’s 24.8.

L. Smith: It’s 24.8 of salaries. So with a flat budget in 2018-19, 2019-20 but some increases for salary that came along, of course we’re going to need more for salaries in 2020-21. The salary increases to staff in 2018-19 were: in April 2019, the staff received a 1.5 percent increase, not 2 percent as did the BCGEU. It didn’t receive the BCGEU economic stability dividend of 1 percent plus two cents an hour. But we have budgeted for 2 percent increases for staff next year.

I should pause there and see if you have any questions about that, or I could just finish my remarks, which will take about another two minutes.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Why don’t you finish, and then we’ll have questions.

L. Smith: This is something that Paul Fraser said every year at this committee. There’s a caveat that arises from the fact that ours is a complaint-driven process, and it’s highly unpredictable what will come in the door and with what degree of urgency.

I can tell you, having been a judge and having done one of these Conflict of Interest Commissioner opinions, that conducting inquiries and delivering formal written opinions is very time-consuming but necessary. The public is, of course, entitled to know that the Members’ Conflict of Interest Act is being applied and understood by MLAs in their work.

I’ve had the occasion to deliver one formal written opinion while in office since June, and that was on a matter that had been pending since Commissioner Fraser’s death. It was about whether an MLA whose father is a taxi driver was in conflict by sitting on an advisory committee around the development of rules for ride-sharing — interesting issue. That was the one formal written opinion. My point at this juncture is that you don’t know what’s going to come in, and it may take a lot of time.

Of course, even more important is the work upstream to assist in preventing conflicts. That’s where we do want to be able to develop and update the educational materials and guidelines.

The caveat is this. We may need to come back to this committee if we need additional resources in order to deal with a high volume of complaints, should that occur, regarding inquiries and opinions.

[8:15 a.m.]

The second reason that might cause us to come back to this committee could arise from the terms of appointment of the next permanent commissioner, but those terms are as yet unknown. We did budget for, as I say, the speculative possibility that it would be a full-time commissioner with full-time salary and benefits, and possibly somebody who would have to do some travelling.

I will conclude by saying that it’s been a total honour to serve as the acting commissioner. I’ve very much enjoyed the work and the opportunity to help carry the important work of this office forward, and I’ve enjoyed meeting with you today. I’m very happy to try to answer any of your questions, and I have my able executive coordinator here to answer the hard ones.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Great. Well, thank you very much, Lynn.

We shouldn’t really go on without, obviously, mentioning how the committee — and everyone, all the members — was shocked by the passing of Paul Fraser. We all had very, very good relationships with Paul. He was a really good guy who actually worked really hard to make sure he took the time…. He always took the time with us to really explain everything and really dig into what we needed in terms of conflict. But not just that. He got to know us as people, and I really appreciated that, personally.

Thank you for stepping up and taking on this important commission role. I appreciate the fact that last year when Paul submitted, it was a quick one. He said: “Well, I’m not going to change anything.” But I appreciate the fact that there might be some budgetary issues that arise when we change to a new commissioner, and also inflationary issues.

If I could turn it over to members, if they have any questions. Any questions at all?

M. Dean: Not a question. Well, it may be a question. Sorry.

Thank you, Lynn, so much for stepping into the role. Really appreciate it, and we appreciate all of your work and everybody in the office.

I had one…. I guess it is a question. In the report, when you talk about members, you mention “his” or “her.” I wonder whether we could move towards “his,” “her” or “they,” or just “they,” because that would reinforce our commitment to a more gender-diverse approach.

L. Smith: Absolutely. Done.

M. Dean: Thank you.

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

Well, thank you very much for your presentation. We’ll deliberate on your very well-presented materials, and we look forward to working with you in the future.

So we have a short recess.

The committee recessed from 8:17 a.m. to 8:22 a.m.

[B. D’Eith in the chair.]

B. D’Eith (Chair): Next up we have the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner — Clayton Pecknold.

Welcome. Appreciate you and your staff being here. Thank you so much.

OFFICE OF THE POLICE
COMPLAINT COMMISSIONER

C. Pecknold: Thank you, Mr. Chair, and good morning, all. Thank you for the opportunity to appear — my second opportunity before you, I think. I was here in May, I believe it was, I guess — my debut occasion.

With me is Deputy Commissioner Andrea Spindler, to my left here. I think you know Mr. Van Swieten from prior presentations. Both Dave and Andrea will be available to answer questions, as well, when and if the committee has questions, and to throw me the odd lifeline when I need it.

I believe we did send you our recently released annual report. I hope you do have that. What you have before you is our budget request, as you know, and some supplementary asks.

I would like to point out that we have provided you with our existing service plan, and the service plan has not been updated as yet. The reason for that is that we are just completing a process with another committee of the Legislature, the special committee that’s reviewing the police complaint process. Part of that process was both a statutory audit, an audit of our compliance with the act, but also a performance audit against our service plan.

It seemed imprudent to start changing the service plan when we knew that there were going to be recommendations coming out of the committee related to our overall service plan and the renewal of it. I’ve also delayed, internally, some strategic planning processes awaiting the special committee’s report and their direction. We have seen an early draft of the MNP report, and we’re meeting with that committee Monday next. But obviously, the report is confidential and not mine to speak to at this point.

[8:25 a.m.]

Since I met with you last, we’ve been spending some time on organizational matters. We’ve done some internal work. We’ve done some work on our communications strategies, looking at some positions with respect to outreach, trying to align different STOBs within our budget to make the best use of the funding that we have and spend some time on revamping our annual report, as you can see, in terms of the product. If you were to compare it from last year’s to this year’s, you’ll see that our attempt is to make it more accessible to the general public.

One of the matters that preoccupies us and that you’ll find in our submission is the potential for Surrey to go to a municipal police force. That’s a pretty significant shift in the policing landscape in the province and may, if it comes to fruition, have a significant impact to our resource needs and our workload and, potentially, the various systems that we operate under, including our IT systems and our shared services.

That’s one of the drivers of the supplemental request before you. It’s a combination of our internal work that we’ve done in thinking about where the organization needs to go and the expected results of the special committee. We were informed somewhat by the submissions that were made to the special committee and our interactions with the auditors, MNP.

Before you, you have the budget requests. You have one request that covers inflationary costs, and I believe that probably, my colleagues have come before you with similar explanations about those pressures. Those are primarily related to the costs of salaries and PSAC increases and schedule A increases for employees. There are other costs associated with that, related to shared services costs, which I think Mr. Van Swieten can explain.

I thought I’d spend the bulk of my comments on the two supplemental requests, the other supplemental requests, if you don’t mind. That is the two new positions. What we are asking the committee to consider is one new position that is focused on research, audit and analysis. You’ll see in our submission that we explained the rationale for this.

One of the things I did when I came in is I looked at the section of the Police Act that laid out the general responsibilities of the office. In all candour, I found that we had a bit of an imbalance between what might be called the procedural, litigious side of the house and the other side of the house, which would be more preventative. Those are informational reports, recommendations to governing bodies such as police boards, recommendations to government, analysis of the data that we have in order to inform police leaders about trends they’re seeing in their organizations so that they can take remediative action.

Unfortunately, the workload is such that it’s externally driven. It’s driven by complaints. It’s driven by requests for orders from police organizations and other matters. To a large degree, we have to eat what comes to our plate. I didn’t have the luxury of essentially putting that work away and reorganizing the existing human resource structure to create a position like this.

We have done our best within the existing structure to improve our accessibility and outreach. We made some HR moves, and through some vacancies, have the opportunity to increase the position that’s available for intake and outreach to make it a position that is more attuned to program delivery, outreach to communities and improving the accessibility of our organization. There’s a competition going on right now for that position.

That also relates to the administrative position that we’re requesting, which is essentially an entry-level clerical position of band 9. The goal is to get some of the more routine, time-consuming administrative tasks off the more expensive resources and onto a more administrative resource at a less-per-hour cost. The two requests, in a snapshot, are one position — I think at band A027, is what we landed on — to do statistical data and analysis and produce reports with a proactive, remediation-oriented focus, and the other being a clerical position.

[8:30 a.m.]

I’ll get to the request, if you don’t mind, with respect to Surrey. That is really just some planning capacity for what could be a significant shift for us.

I’ve spoken a little bit about where our focus is, and I think it’s fair to say that…. I don’t want to guess what the committee will recommend, but based on the conversations with the auditors and others, I do think it’s fair to say that there is room for us to improve in the area of proactive work and early intervention and remediation so that we get at the front end of the complaint system and a little bit to the back end to improve the outcomes. Improving the outcomes, from my perspective, also includes expanding alternative dispute resolution and a better use of mediation.

The reality is that once you go through all the procedural complexities of the act in terms of misconduct, you end up with a fairly elongated process, and we do find at times that complainants disconnect and get tired, frankly, of waiting for the process and the outcome. I’d really like to focus on improving those outcomes for complainants, both in timeliness and in quality and value of the outcome, and to improve the ability of the organizations to learn from what they’re seeing in terms of misconduct.

I can say anecdotally where I think we’re seeing some issues. I can say frankly that we’re seeing some issues in terms of the use of police service dogs, particularly by the Vancouver police department, but we would like to assist them in understanding why that’s happening and how they can prevent it. From my perspective, that’s a better outcome for the complainants, and it’s a better outcome for the departments. It’s a more efficient outcome, and it also aligns with upholding the public trust of the community.

I used this comment the other day. The challenge we have, of course, is that we’re so busy running the widget machine, we haven’t had the opportunity to stop and say: “Should we be producing widgets?” and “Do we need something different?” One of the challenges I found, coming from government into this, is that I did not have those sorts of resources available to research and analyze things and decide: “Are we doing it the right way?” I suppose I had the luxury of a larger budget last time. That’s not a complaint. It’s just an observation.

One of the things in terms of following up on the proactive strategies is I’d like to move the organization to a point where, when we see shifts in policing strategies, when we see increases in police resources or large shifts in the service delivery models of policing, we’re able to quickly understand how that may impact our workload and how we can address any of the unintended consequences of that.

The example I might give is that police departments a number of years ago decided to move away from full-fledged constables doing a certain type of work into special municipal constables doing work. Those constables are appointed by the police board, but they’re doing high-risk activities such as operating the jails and the lockups. There was quite a gap between when that trend started and when the regulations were amended to allow for the oversight of our office on special municipal constables.

You could appreciate that when you have lesser-trained people operating in a vulnerable area such as jail cells, in a high-risk area, it’s important that there be a high level of oversight. That has resulted, frankly, in a number of complaints and a number of ordered investigations. We’ve been assisting the department, in particular the Vancouver police department, in understanding where those impacts are and how they can improve.

My predecessor wrote to me in my previous position asking for an audit of the Vancouver police jail, and the government has been doing that. That really is to improve the prevention aspect.

As you can appreciate, the city of Vancouver police de­partment deals with a high volume of prisoners and many who are in distress and who may be suffering from addiction or challenged with other issues.

I think, to that point, perhaps I have covered the high points of the submission before you. I apologize if it’s a little lengthy. As I was going through my speaking notes, I realized I was probably a little long in explaining it.

[8:35 a.m.]

The bottom line, from my perspective, is that conflict is costly, and I think our budget bears that out in terms of the costs over the years with respect to litigation costs. As far as I can, within the existing act, I’d like to move things out of a traditional conflict adversarial process into a preventative process and into an alternate dispute resolution process. I think, in the long run, that will have a salutary effect, both on the public trust but also in terms of the value proposition and the use of taxpayers’ dollars.

It’s not to say that there won’t be the reality that some things have to be litigated. Much of our litigation is…. We are on the receiving end of that. Those are legitimate judicial reviews that come from, perhaps, police unions or police members or others who want to challenge the authority of the office. That’s how the system works. The bulk of them are not initiated by our office.

There have been some. I have initiated, over the last year, an appeal on an important matter associated with the independent investigations office on the duty to cooperate with the police. That is the only judicial proceeding I have initiated in the last year.

There are some matters that are of such significance that, really, they need a full public airing, a full public accounting. That will continue to be the reality. But at the other end of the spectrum, I do think that we have more room to build on my predecessor’s work in building systems and processes that are more preventative and remediative in orientation.

I also see the opportunity to collaborate with other organizations, in particular the independent investigations office, to look at their data. For example, if they have officers who are repeatedly being investigated for excessive force and we have the same officers, there’s an opportunity for us to compare data, identify that data and work with their organizations to intervene early. That could be more training. That could be a transfer in a certain area — and a number of areas we need to look at.

I did put in my performance metrics with respect to those two positions — some potential performance metrics. I would like to emphasize that those are potential because the challenge, of course, is to draw the correlation between the activity and the actual outcome.

I am a fan, when I implement a new program, of putting up some indicators and testing it against that and doing some formative analysis and some summative analysis and then see what the result is. My goal, as I say, with respect to these positions is to improve the accessibility and to improve the outcome orientation.

I noticed in one of the submissions to the special committee…. MOSAIC had made a submission. They had held focus groups with young Canadians who were new Canadians, to understand if they understood their rights with respect to their interactions with the police and if they understood where they could go if they had an unfavourable interaction. The result of that found that there wasn’t a high level of awareness, frankly, of our office. So I think there’s quite a bit of work we need to do there in terms of improving our accessibility and our availability.

Our material, from our communications analysis, is overly written in an overly legalistic way, and we’d like to move away from that and improve the accessibility of our language.

That’s with respect to those two positions — really, in sum­mation, to move to that other side of our already required mandate in the statute, under section 177, that is more remediative than outcome-oriented, and to perhaps balance our approach a little bit.

The other request relates to Surrey. I’d like to emphasize that while I put a number into the submission, that is a bit of a back-of-the-napkin analysis, frankly. I know there’s some controversy about the number of police officers that Surrey needs or doesn’t, but it’s a simple extrapolation from the other largest municipal police force in British Columbia. There are a number of variables that could impact that, as I’ve outlined in my request.

There’s no doubt about it. However you slice the numbers, there will be an impact to us.

[8:40 a.m.]

Vancouver police department is by far the largest organization that we service. Surrey will be the next largest and, eventually, if you look at the growth projections, could potentially be the largest, if that comes to fruition.

I think there are also some variables with respect to the service delivery that might impact how we respond in Surrey. They could decide to structure their department differently. They could take different enforcement strategies than Vancouver does, for example. They police a different population. Their demographics are different.

Going back to outreach, we do not have the level of translation and language capacity that I think we should have for something like that. I would want to make sure that the resources that we had devoted to that planning, spend some time thinking about that…. I’d also want to be able to understand what areas we needed to primarily focus on to make sure that we hit the ground running.

As I say in my submission, the minute that a police board is granted to the municipality of Surrey, we de facto have responsibilities. It’s that simple. The minute that the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council appoints one, the minister approves one, we are now responsible for a number of issues related to a potential Surrey police department.

I’ve identified, as I say, a number in my submission to you. I’ve also identified, I think, some variables. And I would just simply say that I would favour some early prudent analysis that coexists with the planning with respect to the Surrey police department so that we’re not caught short at the end of the day. That’s really what the request is about. It would be my plan to put a proper project plan together, with deliverables, and put it in place. I’d be happy to update the committee at future hearings.

Subject to any questions you have, I’d like to point out that, as I’ve said, we’ve done our best to structure some of these initiatives within our existing budget. We are, to a large degree, impacted, as I’ve said, by external drivers.

Workloads and timelines. Those are statutory. I don’t have the choice of ignoring a statutory timeline. If I do ignore a statutory timeline, I expose our office both to criticism and, frankly, to litigation. So I must make sure that I pay attention to those mandatory responsibilities. I’ve stated, I think in full, my desire to try to increase our outcomes, the value of our outcomes and our proactive approach.

Subject to that, and any questions, I would conclude there.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you very much, Commissioner. I did want to say that we appreciate the efforts in regards to preventative measures and that balance, and also on alternate dispute resolution. I know there’s a movement, generally, towards becoming more efficient with our systems in regards to that. So we appreciate your efforts on that and also on trying to get ahead of the potential for Surrey moving over to a city-run police force.

Just in terms of timeline on that, because we do have the spring supplementary check-in, how long do you think it would take to get a little bit more meat on your analysis of the impacts of the Surrey police force on your commission? I mean, is it something we could get a little bit more on in the spring? I’m just curious what you feel is the timeline on that.

C. Pecknold: Well, I would suggest that with respect to the information that we have before us, I did the best analysis I could, with existing resources, with the information that’s available. In other words, the only real documentation available is the original submission of the city of Surrey to the ministry, which is not as fulsome as needed — hence, the requirement to create a committee. That committee is not working in a…. We’re not part of the committee. So I don’t access the data. I don’t have any access to the plans.

[8:45 a.m.]

I’m not sure — absent sitting at the table with them and understanding completely the process, which I doubt would be available to me — I could give you a more fulsome or complete analysis unless further data and information came forward.

B. D’Eith (Chair): We’d probably be looking at maybe next year when you do your submission, or maybe even later. I’m just trying to get my head on the timeline and when we might expect a request, if it goes ahead, for increased funding to cover this.

C. Pecknold: Right. Well, my worry, frankly, is to be left behind and then be playing catch-up, because it takes two years to train an analyst properly.

I’m being a little careful here because I don’t want to wade into a controversy, but the stated goal, I think, of the mayor was 2021. I’m not 100 percent sure that’s realistic, frankly, but the reality is that if government grants them a police board, then we’ll have to hit the ground running quickly. And that really is up to government.

R. Leonard: Thanks very much for your presentation. Of course, that was one of the things that I was…. It’s very hard to be committing tax dollars to something that doesn’t exist yet. So the question that I had, as you were speaking, was: is that committee alive to your role if you’re not on that committee? Are they alive to their responsibilities and the role that you play in oversight of a new police force?

C. Pecknold: Yes. The short answer is yes. I’ve had conversations with Mr. Oppal. I also interact frequently with my successor over there, the director of police services, who struck the committee. I’ve written government. They’re very aware of the impact on us. There are impacts on our office. There are impacts on the Justice Institute of British Columbia. So we are part of that dialogue.

In terms of sitting on the committee, I didn’t want to suggest that I was asking to sit on the committee. I’m not 100 percent sure how appropriate that might be for me. As far as they are able, they are consulting with us. We consulted with their contract resource. But the planning is ours to make, frankly.

R. Leonard: Without knowing what it even looks like.

C. Pecknold: Yeah. Well, it’s a little bit more than an educated assessment. I mean, I think there are some things that are potential givens because they’re required by regulation. We can say: “That’s going to be required by regulation. They must have this. They must have that.” We can make some planning.

It’s really going to be our own internal planning in terms of our IT systems, our other support. What will we need? I frankly don’t know whether our present IT system would be able to absorb the extra workload and the extra data that would be required should even that conservative estimate come to fruition.

R. Leonard: Can I ask one more question?

B. D’Eith (Chair): Ronna-Rae Leonard on a supplemental.

R. Leonard: Would it be prudent to require that…? All that has made me lose my train of thought. Would it be prudent to have the timelines for any implementation of a separate police force, a city police force, be contingent on having given you sufficient notice so that your oversight can…?

Say they were ready to go January 1, but because you have this oversight role and have not yet been informed about it all, to have a certain time lag before it actually gets implemented so that you have time…. As opposed to anticipating in the dark — you know, a little better than an educated guess but not really sure. We don’t know if it’s going to happen, and pigs could fly.

C. Pecknold: Well, setting aside the obvious political dynamics that we can all read about in the paper, a type of major initiative like this, an extremely significant change to the landscape of policing, should, in a best-case scenario, include a very detailed implementation transition plan that is well structured, well thought out, with key milestone dates, so that all the various influences, drivers and outcomes can be addressed and thought about in advance. That is probably a multi-year process. I don’t know, frankly, whether that’s going to occur in this situation or not. I don’t know.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Fair enough.

[8:50 a.m.]

R. Coleman: Clayton, I think you’ve described it reasonably well. But I guess when you’re taking in an 800-plus-member police force, that’s a federal force with a different police complaint commissioner system and everything else. All of a sudden, you’re putting them under you, the Police Complaint Commissioner’s office, and the implementation is going to have all kinds of…. As you transition through, there’ll be periods of time where members of the police force or the public will not be sure which commissioner they should be addressing a complaint to. There will be a transition period.

When I looked at your budget submission, I didn’t think it was enough money you were asking for, to be honest with you. This is a big job. Your office is going to get 800 more clients and 500,000 plus more people whose complaint process will now move to your office when a new police force is put in place. At the same time, it’s going to be about: where do you find the police officers? Who trains? How many are going to leave West Vancouver, for instance, where there’s not a single police officer that lives in West Vancouver who says: “I’m living in the valley. I’ll go join Surrey”?

The budgetary piece isn’t your problem, but it still is a piece of the challenge to get the real dollars. Hopefully, that committee can get there.

My preference would be that this would be higher, to be honest with you, so that you could actually have the dollars to really do the job and be ready. You’re right. The minute government makes the final decision and says: “Okay, we’re putting together…. Here’s the charter for the new police force in Surrey. Here’s the chair of the police board….” That is always the mayor, plus a number of appointees, some from the province and some from the municipality. You’re in charge, from the standpoint of any complaint from the public or within the police force, even to members back and forth when there’s a police complaint…. Not a human resources piece but others.

To be honest…. So $50,000 is what I see. I don’t think it’s enough, to be honest with you. I think you need the resources to be…. Money spent at this stage to be ready and plan and have structure and timelines in place would save a fortune on the back end. If you have to rush it at the back end, I think it’s fraught with some challenges for you.

That’s all.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Well, that’s a first. Fair enough, Rich.

C. Pecknold: Well, I do agree. I think I was incrementalizing in the sense that I thought that with a little bit of money, I could put together a more structured analysis — something that, perhaps, had some better numbers. When I saw you either in May or in the fall, I could explain that my thinking has evolved, and this is my initial report.

I certainly know that I could…. Well, to be frank, when I first looked at a number, I thought, based on my past experience of hiring contractors, that I needed about $100,000. But I was not willing, at this point, on the data that I had and the uncertainty with respect to the outcome of coming and asking for that, given that I had two other asks…. I didn’t want to give you sticker shock.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Fair enough. And you do have the opportunity in the spring. If you’re feeling that what Rich is talking about is coming to fruition, you can always come back to us and talk some more.

R. Coleman: This is a $100 million to $150 million deal as far as the transition, different wage levels, number of officers, transition of civilian staff that are going to move from one organization to another. When you look at that and then you look at the whole aspect of the implementation of a new police force — that isn’t done by you, but you’re the one that any complaints come to — I just think you need to be ready.

C. Pecknold: I certainly agree. If you’re detecting some reticence, it’s because I have significant opinions, if I was still wearing my director of police services hat. I’m not wearing that hat, so I’m refraining from giving that opinion and analysis about the viability of this.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Fair enough.

M. Dean: Thank you for all of your work and for getting up to speed in your position.

The other really significant thing that’s been happening in our province, of course, this year, moving forwards and looking backwards as well, is the missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls national inquiry. The calls for justice have significant messages to be sent to the police services.

[8:55 a.m.]

I would see that your office would have a role in holding police services accountable for changing their response and making sure that Indigenous women and girls are better safeguarded and better responded to when there are issues. But I didn’t get a sense from the plan or the report or your budget request of how that work might actually show up and how you might have to adjust what happens in your office to be able to give that a priority.

C. Pecknold: I’m going to invite Deputy Commissioner Spindler to speak a little bit about this, because she has met with the Missing Women’s Coalition through the UBCIC.

We are receiving information, in terms of responses from the national inquiry that were written primarily to the Vancouver police department, concerns about investigations that came out of the inquiry. We were included in that conversation. We are getting the responses from the Vancouver police department, and we are correlating those right now. We are also considering how to implement or incorporate some of the recommendations into how we’re doing business, and that really is with respect to outreach and accessibility.

I’ll let Deputy Commissioner Spindler speak a little bit more.

A. Spindler: I think that’s a great question that you ask. As the commissioner had mentioned, I did have an opportunity to meet with the coalition earlier in the summer and to really gain an understanding of their concerns and also to look at understanding some of those barriers to access to the complaints process in the first place. I think that’s…. An area where there’s considerable work to be done by our office is understanding those barriers to accessing the system.

Being able to develop relationships with Indigenous communities, I think, is something that our office is going to be working significantly on. Those recommendations that came out of that inquiry have a direct impact on our office and what we need to do to ensure those recommendations are implemented.

As the commissioner also alluded to, related to those individual recommendations relating to specific misconduct…. We have been copied on those, and we are actively reviewing the Vancouver police department response to those. Then we also will be looking at them in a more systemic fashion as well, being able to look at making recommendations either to the police board or to government relating to any actions that can be or should be taken relating to that.

C. Pecknold: I’ll just add that one of the submissions from the UBCIC to the special committee was expressing some concern that there was not a high level of trust, among Indigenous women, of our office and of police generally. That’s an area, in terms of our goal of improving our outreach capacity: to improve that accessibility. That has actually come up more recently in a matter that has involved an advocacy organization on behalf of a number of complainants. We will need to approach this with a particular lens, an Indigenous lens.

The reason why you probably haven’t seen any specific initiatives in this submission is that I am…. That’s a submission before the special committee. I would like to await the special committee’s report, the audit from MNP. Out of that, I will say that I will be coming forward to you with potential future programs to consider funding — specific to Indigenous persons and, in particular, vulnerable persons in the Downtown Eastside. There is an area of unique policing in the Downtown Eastside that I think our office needs to pay some better attention to, and I’d like to orient ourselves towards that.

M. Dean: Thank you. I appreciate that. I do see it as an urgent matter. So I look forward to hearing updates from you as well.

I noticed that in your submissions, you did talk about starting to collate demographic information, but I didn’t notice Indigenous identity in there. I think we need to capture those data to be able to measure progress. I was interested that you talked about ethnicity and racial identity. I know the Multicultural Advisory Council was struggling with data, definitions and capturing data.

[9:00 a.m.]

Are you breaking that down in terms of race and ethnicity to be able to get an analysis in more detail?

A. Spindler: Yes. We’ve recently started to collect demographic information. We haven’t been able to release that publicly, because we’ve just started implementing a process for collecting that information. It is based on complainants self-disclosing their backgrounds. That is the plan — to be able to report out on the self-identified backgrounds, demographic information from complainants who are accessing the system. That will also give us an idea of who isn’t accessing our system.

Anecdotally, I can say that when I see the complaints that are coming in, complaints from Indigenous communities are very far and few between.

M. Dean: Speaking to that — in particular, underrepresentation of approaching your office — will you be collecting diverse-gender self-reporting as well, so not just binary?

A. Spindler: Yes, that’s correct.

M. Dean: Then I would just finish by saying thank you for all that work. That’s really encouraging.

The Gender Equity office actually runs gender-based analysis plus training, so if you wanted to access any of that, which might help with some of this kind of detailed analysis, then please do reach out to them.

C. Pecknold: Well, I’ve taken the online program. Andrea has….

You’ve taken other programs.

A. Spindler: Yes, I took the San’yas cultural safety awareness program as well. Also, we had Dr. Stewart come with corporate shared services. They spoke with the independent offices in our building, so she did a session with us, which was really great.

M. Dean: Fantastic.

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

We can’t leave without hearing from Dave here. I did hear, Commissioner, that there were some issues around shared services, increases that you were going to speak to. So I’d really like you to speak to those.

D. Van Swieten: Sure. Thanks for the question, Mr. Chair.

If you recall, last year when…. Corporate shared services is also subject to the same cost pressures as the program areas, and what we typically do is add up what that is and then divide it by each office. Each office has a prorated share, and that’s how we deal with inflationary costs.

The second component, especially with Commissioner Pecknold’s presentation, is a growth factor that we have within corporate shared services. For each FTE that’s added to the organization, it leads to a $10,000 transfer to corporate shared services so we can keep up with staffing to ensure that the program areas continue to be supported.

I believe, for the submission today, in the STOB 85, under “other,” you’ll see an incremental request for corporate shared services. I believe it’s $24,000, and $4,000 of that will be for the inflationary factor for corporate shared services. The $20,000, of course, is for the two additional resources being requested.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Okay. One thing we’re hearing from some of the officers….

Obviously, if there are some increased FTEs and other services, I’m always concerned that the pressures on shared services might end up with one of the officers having to find their own space. Then the economies of scales get lost and we’re dealing with a significant increase in costs for operating and whatnot.

I think it’s important, too, because if we’re looking at the analysis of what you may have to do in terms of Surrey, how is that going to impact on your footprint in terms of shared services, and what does that do to all the other commissioners and other statutory officers?

It’s important to take that into account, because we hear about certain machines being shared and those are expensive pieces — office equipment and things like that. Then all of a sudden, if you don’t have access to that and you have to get your own, there could be a huge capital expense. It’s really important for us, I think, to know the impacts of some of these things on shared services, potentially.

C. Pecknold: May I add something to that, Mr. Chair?

It has been my experience now — in the, I think, about nine months of being in the position — that our shared-services model is working very well. It’s certainly providing good service to us.

[9:05 a.m.]

It is true that I’ve reached the end of my footprint, in terms of our little section of the office, and part of that planning for a potential Surrey transition will be physical location and footprint. I would say, though, that I think I’d want a presence over there, frankly.

I don’t think an external presence necessarily means that we would exit the shared-services model. In fact frankly, I operated in government in a shared-service model that was distributed, so we could do the same.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Do you see, for example, increased capacity in another location, potentially?

C. Pecknold: Potentially, yeah. The officers who are part of the shared-services model — we meet bimonthly, I think, or monthly.

D. Van Swieten: Quarterly.

C. Pecknold: Quarterly. We’re pretty collaborative in our approach. We all talk about our needs. In fact, I’ve had conversations with both the Privacy Commissioner and the Ombudsperson that if we were to get some space in Vancouver, whether there could be some sharing of the space so that we all have a presence, for example. That sort of thing. We’re very alive to that.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Very good. Excellent.

Any other comments, Commissioner, or…?

Thank you very much for your presentation. We appreciate it and are very interested in your analysis of some of the challenges that you may be facing in the future. Thank you so much.

Motion to adjourn?

Motion approved.

The committee adjourned at 9:06 a.m.