The committee met at 8:01 a.m.

[B. D’Eith in the chair.]

B. D’Eith (Chair): We are in the middle of the annual review of statutory offices of British Columbia — three-year rolling plans, annual reports and budgetary estimates for fiscal ’20 and ’21.

Last but not least we have Elections B.C. — Anton Boegman, who’s the Chief Electoral Officer.

Take it away.

Review of Statutory Officers

ELECTIONS B.C.

A. Boegman: Thank you, Bob.

Good morning, Mr. Chair, Mr. Vice-Chair and members of the committee. Thank you for the invitation to address the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services and to present the annual budget submission for Elections B.C.

I’d like to start by introducing my colleagues. Joining me at the table are Charles Porter, on my left, Deputy Chief Electoral Officer for electoral finance and operations, and Yvonne Koehn, on my right, Deputy Chief Electoral Officer for corporate services. Accompanying us in the gallery are Tanya Ackinclose, director of finance; Jodi Cooke, executive director of electoral finance; and Andrew Watson, director of communications.

I’m always pleased when these annual meetings come around. It is an excellent opportunity to share with members of this committee — and, through you, to the entire Legislative Assembly and the citizens of British Columbia — the activities and highlights of this office and the way in which our activities are manifest in the expenditure of public funds.

We provided our budget document and a copy of our annual report and service plan to you last week. In those documents, we review, amongst other things, our mission and organizational values. The mission of Elections B.C. is to serve democracy in British Columbia through the delivery of modern, accessible and trusted electoral services designed with British Columbians at the centre. Two of our core values are accountability and transparency. This annual meeting provides us with an opportunity to bring those three elements together and put forward the budget requirements that are necessary to achieve our mission in an efficient and fiscally responsible manner.

Before speaking to the numbers that comprise our budget request, I will make a few brief remarks on the work of Elections B.C. and our key priorities for the upcoming year. Following these comments, Yvonne and Charles will each provide additional detail on our budget submission. Yvonne will speak to the ongoing operating and capital budget re­quests, while Charles will address our event-funding requirements.

After the intense event-delivery effort of 2018-19, our work this year will focus on event close-out and reporting as well as being a time for regrouping and planning. As mentioned during our April 2019 meeting with this committee, we have been also working on a number of new projects, including one to better understand and be able to effectively respond to the issue of digital threats to electoral integrity.

Elections B.C.’s work in this area has included significant research to comprehensively describe and assess the risks of cyberthreats, disinformation and outside interference to B.C. elections; to analyze how the Election Act currently addresses these risks; and to identify possible solutions, including recommendations for legislative change if necessary. I anticipate completing a report on this issue this year, after which it will be tabled for consideration by all legis­lators.

[8:05 a.m.]

Central to our planning has been the recent completion of a strategic planning exercise through which we were able to confirm our key priorities for the next electoral cycle. I would like to highlight these strategic priorities, as they serve as the drivers for our work and are, therefore, reflected in the budget numbers that we are here to discuss today.

Without question, our top priority is to be ready for and to successfully deliver electoral events. This means we must continually maintain a high quality voters list, ensure ongoing readiness for on-demand electoral events, invest in the maintenance and reliability of our critical information systems and ensure our business continuity and risk mitigation programs are updated and ready.

To complement and reinforce our top priority, we have identified four supporting priorities: modernizing electoral services by finding new opportunities to enhance and increase efficiency to meet the changing needs of voters and other electoral stakeholders, improving accessibility and inclusivity to make sure that all voters have the opportunity to engage in the electoral process, rejuvenating and building our organizational capacity and resiliency such that we retain the ability to successfully take on new opportunities, and protecting electoral integrity by understanding and addressing new challenges resulting from cyber threats, disinformation and interference.

Last, and perhaps somewhat uniquely for a budget presentation, I would also like to comment on what is not included in this budget request. This budget does not include any potential new funding requirements that may be associated with a potential change to the mandate of or legislation governing Elections B.C. As you’re aware, on July 3 of this year, I received a letter from the Attorney General indicating government’s intention to introduce legislation to enable the implementation, in time for the scheduled provincial election in October 2021, of the voting modernization recommendations contained in the 2018 Chief Electoral Officer report.

To date, this legislation has not yet been introduced. Should it be introduced, debated and receive royal assent, Elections B.C. will complete the detailed planning necessary to understand the full implementation implications and will write to this committee in relation to any additional funding that would be required to support these significant changes to how voting may be administered in British Columbia.

Having provided this context, allow me to speak directly to the numbers. Our core services operating budget request for the 2020-21 fiscal year is $11.32 million. This request is consistent with what was included in Elections B.C.’s 2019-20 budget proposal for this year and what was recommended by the committee at that time.

The request includes a planned increase of $214,000, from 2019-20, to address scheduled increases in staff salaries and benefits.

The core services operating budget requests for the 2021-22 and 2022-23 fiscal years, respectively, are $11.627 million and $11.773 million.

The event-related operating budget request for 2020-21 is $3.871 million. This is for work in support of two scheduled electoral events: preparations for the 2021 enumeration and preparations for the 42nd provincial general election.

The enumeration, also called the voter registration update project, is planned to be delivered between July and the second week of September 2021 in advance of the scheduled provincial general election. A successful enumeration is key to our voter engagement program and to ensuring that we have the highest quality voters list possible in advance of the election. The budget requirement for this project during 2020-21 is $428,000.

It is always the case that in the year before a scheduled provincial general election, we have increasing spending requirements as preparations for that event ramp up. This year, however, not only do we have these necessary preparations, but we must also continue to maintain our ongoing readiness for on-demand events. Thus, preparations for delivering the 42nd general election will require $3.443 million in 2020-21.

[8:10 a.m.]

By way of contrast, for the fiscal year just before the 2017 provincial election, the budget requirements were $7.757 million. Our current request of $3.443 million is therefore $4.3 million lower than the request made in 2016-17. Charles, in his comments, will provide rationale for this decrease.

We are also requesting capital funding of $805,000 for 2020-21, $480,000 for 2021-22 and $700,000 for 2022-23 fiscal years.

The last high-level budget item that I will mention is the funding required for the legislated annual allowances for political parties. For 2020-21, this is established at $3.61 million.

I’m cognizant of the time we have available for our presentation and our desire to leave time for questions. Given that, I will end my comments now and turn to Yvonne Koehn to elaborate on some of the details of our core operating and capital funding requests for ’20-21, followed by Charles Porter’s comments on our funding requests for the upcoming scheduled events.

Y. Koehn: Thank you, Anton.

Good morning, committee members. It is a pleasure to appear before this committee and to give some details about some of the numbers you see in the budget proposal document. Our ongoing operating request by business line is on page 11 of the proposal document.

Expenses that support all business areas, such as salaries, amortization, building occupancy, office expenses and information technology costs, are listed separately from the core business lines. The core lines of business of voter list maintenance, political entity reporting and voter education are also listed. You can find a note for each expense line on the following pages that provide further information about the nature of these expenses.

As Anton mentioned, the request of $11.32 million for ongoing core services is a hold-the-line budget request and is what this committee recommended last year for 2020-21. Elections B.C. has carefully analyzed our ongoing financial needs and determined that we can continue to meet our mandatory goals and responsibilities within this budget. This is an increase of $214,000 compared to 2019-20 and is mainly attributed to an increase in salaries and benefits next year, resulting from a negotiated wage increase for schedule A staff who are entitled to the same increases as BCGEU members. This holds true for the two out-years as well.

Amortization, or depreciation, is the allocation of the cost of a capital asset to operating expenditures over the expected usual life of the asset. So although the actual cost of capital assets must initially be paid from our capital budget, that cost must also be paid out of our future operating budgets over a number of years. Amortization fluctuates based on the level of investment in capital assets and the age of the assets currently held.

Our building occupancy planned expenditure in 2020-21 doesn’t show much change. However, it increases in 2021-22, as the lease for our warehouse expires in March 2021, and the lease for our office space has a scheduled increase in April 2021. We have an option to renew the warehouse space for five years at the current market rate. We developed the 2020-21 budget using an estimate of the current market rate, which could change through negotiations.

Other changes to the business line budgets are modest and reflect minor fluctuations between the separate line items as we adjust to changing circumstances and projects each year. Charles will address the event expenses and the annual allowance for political parties, so I’m going to move to page 14.

As in past years, we’ve included a pie chart that illustrates our core services operating budget request for next fiscal year — the $11.32 million. This chart shows that Elections B.C. is highly dependent on people and information technology. Once salaries, IT and rent are covered, we have very little flexibility in other areas.

Pages 15 to 21 of the budget proposal include the spreadsheets created by the committee staff for our use. Table 1, on page 15, is the three-year budget plan by STOB and shows the current fiscal year budget, 2019-20, compared to our request for next fiscal year. The spreadsheet includes both our core services and the event budgets for 2020-21 and illustrates how widely the total budget varies from fiscal year to fiscal year as we move through different events.

[8:15 a.m.]

A total of $18.01 million, shown in the highlighted column for our ongoing operating budget request for 2020-21, includes the $11.32 million mentioned earlier, plus the $3.871 million for events and a $3.61 million in annual allowances to political parties.

The planned budgets for the two out-years, fiscal 2021-22 and 2022-23, do not include any event funding. When we create our budgets for electoral events, we do not simply take the prior event costs and add a percentage. Each budget is developed from the ground up, based on specific plans for the event that are finalized during the fiscal year immediately before the event.

Table 2, on page 17, shows the budget versus actuals for fiscal ‘’8-19. During that fiscal year, we conducted the 2018 referendum on electoral reform, 2018 general local elections, two by-elections, an initiative petition and readiness for an on-demand provincial general election. The variance in salaries and benefits is primarily attributed to recruitment lag and the fact that we did not need to hire temporary staff for the initiative petition event, as the petition did not meet the signature requirement. The office and business expenses savings are mainly attributed to reduced postage costs for the referendum, as we received an incentive rate from Canada Post due to the large-volume mailing.

Table 3, on page 19, shows the actual expenditures for the last five fiscal years. You will notice that the total operating appropriation in this table is equal to the total operating expenses. This is because the total operating appropriation is the amount reported in the public accounts, whereas the other spreadsheet is the total approved budget. This is a consequence of the funding process.

Funding for unscheduled events, such as referendums, recall petitions, by-elections, etc., is from a special appropriation recommended by this committee and approved by the Ministry of Finance. At the end of the year, the Ministry of Finance actually allocates Elections B.C. the exact amount necessary, up to the maximum of that approval. So the budget reflected in the public accounts equals exactly the amount that was spent on those events. As such, the variance of the actuals to the appropriation is zero, and no surplus is reflected, even when the actual costs of the events are lower than the original estimate.

Finally, table 4, on page 21, is the capital spending plan. Our capital request for 2020-21 is $805,000. This is all related to information technology, as we do not plan to purchase any new furniture or equipment or incur capital tenant improvements to our office or warehouse.

Elections B.C. strives for continuous improvement of our services to voters, candidates and other electoral stakeholders. The new systems projects reflect that service orientation. The expansion of the on-line client portal will allow parties to endorse candidates more efficiently and will provide a secure means of submitting financial reports and election expense reimbursement claims. Improvements to vote-by-mail processes and systems for a general election will result in quicker package production and fewer envelopes being set aside due to voter errors.

We continue to improve systems and services as a result of the 2017 amendments to the campaign financing rules under the Election Act and the Local Elections Campaign Financing Act. Although critical pieces have been implemented, work continues to realize efficiencies through automation.

You’ll note that the planned capital expenditures in 2021-22 are significantly less than in 2020-21, as this is the provincial general election year, so we’ll be focused on delivering the event.

Thank you for your attention. Charles will now address the upcoming scheduled events and the funding request for those in more detail.

C. Porter: Good morning, committee members. My comments, as noted before, will focus on our event-related funding requirements for 2020-21. I will also speak to the annual allowance for political parties budget request.

Before speaking about the budget proposal details, I will briefly update the committee on events and actions of 2019. Much of 2019 has been spent completing work relating to past events. This included compliance reviews and public reporting for the 2018 general local elections and the 2018 referendum on electoral reform. The referendum report is near completion.

We also held the Nanaimo by-election on January 30 and completed the necessary reviews and event report. We administered or are currently administering the financing and advertising rules for 19 local by-elections and four local assent votes. We continue to prepare for the next provincial general election and other provincial and local on-demand events.

[8:20 a.m.]

We have processed two initiative petition applications. To date, we have approved one of those applications, regarding charter schools. It is currently in the canvassing and signature-gathering phase, due to be completed November 18.

I will now turn to a discussion of our 2020-21 event-related budgets. As you will note from the budget proposal, Elections B.C. is including an event-related operating budget request for 2020-21 of $3.871 million. This is funding to prepare for two electoral events: the 42nd provincial general election and preparations for the 2021 enumeration.

I will first speak to the 42nd provincial general election preparation budget. This $3.443 million budget request is beside note 10 on page 11 of our proposal. This funding is necessary to continue both a state of readiness for an unscheduled event and to continue preparations for the scheduled October 2021 general election. This budget request is less than it would normally be at this time in the election readiness cycle. This is due to investments in general election readiness that we have made in the past two years and because the change to an October election will move some event costs to the following fiscal year.

For context, I will break down the funding request by activity. The largest single component, approximately 36 percent of this funding request, is for salaries and benefits for regional field officers, district electoral officers and their deputies. This funding will be used to keep these officials in a state of readiness, to maintain contact with headquarters and to complete training and preparatory assignments. These assignments will include maintaining regular contact with landlords for office and voting place space and checking accessibility and connectivity at these facilities. The remainder of the request is for information systems, which include telephone costs, temporary staff at headquarters, office expenses and professional services, other non-salary training costs and charges for additional warehouse space.

I will now turn to the planned 2021 enumeration event budget. This request is beside note 12 on page 11. The total request for fiscal 2020-21 is $428,000. Elections B.C. conducts enumerations under section 42 of the Election Act prior to provincial general elections. The planned enumeration will be in preparation for the 2021 event. There will not be an enumeration if a general election occurs before the planned date.

The purpose of an enumeration is to ensure the most accurate and up-to-date possible voters list. An accurate voters list is essential for an inclusive, accessible and fair general election. There is a direct connection between a quality voters list and voter turnout.

Elections B.C. uses a number of methods to maintain a high-quality permanent voters list and is always seeking ways to improve list quality. However, an enumeration provides a further opportunity to improve list quality as well as to share information about the upcoming election. Most of the 2021 enumeration expenses will occur in fiscal 2021-22. For fiscal 2020-21, this $428,000 in funding is required to develop the 2021 enumeration strategy and begin the preparatory work.

For a bit of context, I will discuss the breakdown of the overall proposed enumeration budget. The largest single component, approximately 54 percent of the proposed budget, is for office expenses, most of which is for professional advertising agency services and some for general office expenses such as supplies and printing. The remainder of this budget includes funding for temporary staff at headquarters and salaries and benefits for regional field officers, district electoral officers and their deputies to complete training and assignments. Also included are non-salary training costs and information systems.

I will now turn to the annual allowance for political parties budget request of $3.61 million. You will see this request as a separate line item towards the bottom of page 11. This amount is shown separately because it is not funding for Elections B.C. operations. Rather, it is a statutory payment to political parties based on the number of votes they received in the last provincial general election. Under section 215.02 of the Election Act, the Chief Electoral Officer must pay an annual allowance to a registered political party in certain circumstances tied to the votes cast for approved party candidates.

You will recall that the Legislature established these allowances in relation to recent campaign finance contribution restrictions. You’ll note that the planned annual allowance for political parties in 2021-22 and 2022-23 are showing as “to be determined,” as they are dependent on the results of the 42nd provincial general election and current legislation only allows for payments to 2022.

[8:25 a.m.]

In accordance with section 215.03 of the Election Act, a special committee of the Legislative Assembly must be established and conduct a review to determine whether an annual allowance to political parties should continue after July 1, 2022.

This concludes my comments.

Anton, back to you.

A. Boegman: Before opening up our presentation to questions from the committee, I would like to make a few concluding comments.

Our budget request, we believe, has been very carefully considered and includes the operational, event preparedness and infrastructure requirements that I believe are necessary and prudent for this stage of the four-year electoral cycle. It includes relatively modest increases to the core services and event-funding budgets from what was requested for 2019-20, as well as a modest decrease to the capital budget request.

As mentioned, and as current protocol, should Elections B.C. be required to administer any future on-demand events, or should our mandate be changed through legislative change, we will write to the committee once the budget impacts have been assessed and if any new funding requirements have been developed.

That concludes our comments. Thank you, Mr. Chair, Mr. Vice-Chair and committee members for this opportunity to present Elections B.C.’s 2020-21 funding requirements. We would be pleased at this point to respond to any questions that committee members may have.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you very much, Anton. We appreciate the thoroughness of the presentation.

Just before we go to questions, I did want to mention that we actually have with us today representatives of the National Assembly of the Parliament of the Co-operative Republic of Guyana. I wanted to welcome them: Kiana Benjamin, who’s a table officer; Samantha Crawford, who’s an administrative officer; Ricky Hardeen, who’s a research and analytical assistant; Shevona Telford, a Hansard editor; and Sueanna Reynolds-Sandy, who’s a clerk of committees.

Welcome. It’s great having you here.

Just for your benefit, what we’re doing here today is reviewing the budgets of the independent statutory officers. That’s what the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services does, amongst two other activities. One is that we go on a tour around the province and make recommendations for the annual budget every year, and we also oversee the audit of the Auditor General. Those are the functions of our committee.

If I could turn it over to questions from the members.

D. Ashton (Deputy Chair): Anton, and company with him, thank you very much for the presentation.

Just a question. In your annual report, on page 6, your organizational chart — total numbers of employees that are incorporated in this chart. I know there are people that come and go during election cycles, but on this.

A. Boegman: My understanding is we have 69 FTEs.

D. Ashton (Deputy Chair): Okay. Maybe in the future, just in parentheses, could we have a number on those? I’m just thinking out loud. That, to me, is probably fairly standard, as it carries through the year. There aren’t that many changes on it. But it would just be nice to see how many are in which category. So 69 total. Thank you.

A. Boegman: Point noted. Sure.

R. Coleman: I do have one question, but I wanted to welcome the people from Guyana. You may not know the connection of Guyana to British Columbia, but Sir James Douglas, who was the governor of British Columbia, and who actually signed the declaration that created the province, was Guyanese. The statue that’s outside the fort in Fort Langley is also…. There’s a replica, actually, sitting in Guyana, over there, in testament to his heritage. So just a little bit of history, because I have Fort Langley in the riding, a national historic site. I wouldn’t want to let that go.

Anton, my question is…. When you talk about events, can you give me a sense…? You go into some funny cycles in politics. What does a by-election cost Elections B.C.?

A. Boegman: A by-election typically costs Elections B.C. between, I would say, $500,000 and $600,000. That, costed, would be for a single by-election administered independently. If there are two by-elections at the same time, then there are some savings achieved, primarily through our infrastructure, which achieves savings on both by-elections, so the cost would trend towards the lower side.

R. Coleman: Okay, thank you.

[8:30 a.m.]

B. D’Eith (Chair): I have a quick question. Because of the minority government and past budgets, there has been this readiness that Elections B.C. has had. I’m just curious: with that, have you done an analysis of the savings that may happen to the actual election and how that has transpired? It would be interesting to see that.

A. Boegman: I think we are cognizant that it does achieve efficiencies. That’s reflected in the budget request that we had for this upcoming year, which is significantly lower than what it was in the year before the 2017 provincial general election, I think. For the actual analysis, we won’t be able to fully crunch the numbers until we issue our report following provincial general election No. 42.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Fair enough. There are certainly cost savings that have happened because of your readiness, which are being passed on. That’s part of the reason why we see a significant reduction in the comparative budget before the last election. Is that fair?

A. Boegman: That’s fair to say, yes.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Okay, great.

R. Leonard: Thanks for your presentation. You inspire confidence in how you present in a very pointed way — very accurate. You get a real sense of parameters — no grey areas and fudging around the lines. I really appreciate that. I’m sure everybody else does.

My question is around the allowance for political parties. I would have assumed it was the same each year, but it goes down this year. What are the drivers of that expense?

C. Porter: I can answer that. There’s a statutory formula which was established as a transition when changes occurred to financing requirements for political parties. It was designed at the outset to slowly fade away over time unless, of course, the special committee which is established down the road makes recommendations to continue the annual allowances.

R. Leonard: Okay, thank you.

C. Porter: You’re welcome.

B. D’Eith (Chair): It seems like a long time ago that that passed. Remember? It goes down over time.

Any other questions at all? I think we’re good. Well, thank you very much again for your very thorough presentation. I really appreciate it. Thanks for all the work you do for the province. We appreciate it.

We’ll just take a short recess, and then we’ll come back and go in camera.

The committee recessed from 8:32 a.m. to 8:36 a.m.

[B. D’Eith in the chair.]

Deliberations

B. D’Eith (Chair): I’d like to bring the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services to order again. If I could have a motion to go in camera.

D. Ashton (Deputy Chair): So moved.

Motion approved.

The committee continued in camera from 8:36 a.m. to 9:42 a.m.

[B. D’Eith in the chair.]

B. D’Eith (Chair): We are out of in camera. Motion to adjourn?

Motion approved.

The committee adjourned at 9:42 a.m.