The committee met at 1:08 p.m.

[S. Bond in the chair.]

S. Bond (Chair): [Inaudible recording] without the fantastic work done by our Clerk, Kate Ryan-Lloyd, and her team. I’m very grateful for all of the efforts that they put in to making one of these meetings happen, much less a virtual parliament.

[1:10 p.m.]

Just on a personal note, I want to thank so many members of the Public Accounts Committee who reached out to me in my own personal circumstances recently. It meant a great deal to hear from colleagues on both sides of the House. My family and I deeply appreciate your kindness and the care that you expressed. I can say with no hesitation that it helps during very difficult circumstances.

As you can imagine, I’m just beginning to adjust to what I will have to face as a new normal. I want to thank you for your kindness, expressed to me and my family. It has made the difficult days much easier. So thank you for that.

Consideration of
Auditor General Reports

Skills Immigration Stream
of the British Columbia
Provincial Nominee Program

S. Bond (Chair): With that, we’re going to consider our first item of business today. It is an Auditor General’s report that is related to the skills immigration stream of the British Columbia provincial nominee program. It was issued in June of 2020. We’re very pleased, this afternoon, to be considering that item of business.

I did want to just make a couple of comments. I know that the Deputy Chair, Mitzi, and I have had some conversation about how to reflect our discussion of this item.

The report that we’re looking at actually examines the management of the program that I mentioned — the skills immigration stream. It looks at the efforts of the Ministry of Jobs, Economic Development and Competitiveness to, particularly, prevent misrepresentation, fraud and corruption. So as you can imagine, some topics that we’re going to be looking at in the report today do deal with the effective management of fraud.

As you can imagine, we need to be very thoughtful about how we pursue questions related to a specific fraud case or…. There’s a lot of sensitivity, and there may be some items that may not be suitable for a public, on-the-record discussion because there are legal and privacy concerns to consider. We don’t want to undermine the future of some fraud cases — potential future fraud cases as well.

Having said that, I would like, as much as possible, for the committee to pursue our usual practice. This is a public report. It is an opportunity for the Office of the Auditor General to outline how the programs can be strengthened and what actions need to be taken to implement, over time, the audit report’s recommendations. I hope we will have a thoughtful discussion, and if there are sensitive areas which may not be suitable for public discussion, there is a practice of asking the ministry for written responses, which would allow…. Or, potentially, a future in-camera discussion.

I certainly don’t raise these issues, and I know the Deputy Chair wouldn’t either, to dampen our ability to ask questions, but I do think we need to be thoughtful about how those questions are asked. I’m sure that the ministry and the Office of the Auditor General will provide us with some guidance as to which questions they may want to have some time to provide a written response to. So I hope that committee members will accept that sort of framework for our discussion.

With that, I’d like to invite our acting Auditor General, Russ Jones, to make some opening comments. Then I’m going to ask Russ to invite members of his team to participate. He will then introduce them for the record so that they are recorded in Hansard.

With those opening comments, I’m going to turn it over to you, Russ. I want to take the opportunity to thank you for the good work that you’ve done during your time as acting Auditor General. We appreciate that very much and look forward to hearing from you today.

R. Jones: Thank you very much, Chair.

Good afternoon to everyone and members for inviting us to present and answer questions about the audit of the skills immigration stream of the provincial nominee program, which we published on June 2.

With me today I have Malcolm Gaston, who is the assistant Auditor General who oversaw this audit; Peter Nagati, who was the executive director; and manager Jessica Schafer. They will lead us through an overview of the audit in a few minutes.

The PNP, the provincial nominee program, is an economic development program. It may interest the members to know that this is the first performance audit our office has done in this area since the start of the office. So new territory for us. We decided to do a performance audit of the PNP because the ministry had identified it as having clear significance to our economy and future labour force, and it’s a program with significant impact on the people of British Columbia.

[1:15 p.m.]

From 2015 to 2018, approximately 32,000 people came through the PNP from other countries to make their home in B.C. That figure includes workers as well as their spouses and dependents, all of whom become a part of our community and our economy here in British Columbia. It matters to all British Columbians that the program is well run.

Before I turn it over to the team for the presentation, I would like to give our thanks to the Ministry of Jobs, Economic Development and Competitiveness and, especially, the staff of the PNP for their cooperation and commitment to improvement throughout the audit. We particularly want to recognize their efforts to continue to support the completion of the audit after the start of the pandemic isolation measures, which made everything, for everyone, a little more challenging this year. So thank you very, very much to the minister and the staff.

Now I’ll turn it over to the team to take you through the important slides on the program.

P. Nagati: Thank you, Russ.

I’m going to provide some contextual information about the program and our province’s labour market needs. I won’t go into details, but providing this high-level overview will help to explain why we felt it was important to do the audit.

The PNP is run by the ministry to attract and retain immigrants, to help address labour market needs and to contribute to economic development. I’ll speak more, with the next slide, about why that is important.

You’re likely aware that the immigration process is typically a federal responsibility.

R. Glumac: Is anyone else having…? I’m having difficulty hearing.

P. Nagati: How about now?

S. Bond (Chair): Yes, I think we are having difficulty. It’s sort of a garbled sound.

Russ, I think we’re going to need a backup plan here. Do you have a person…?

Thank you, Peter. It’s simply not going to work. I don’t think.

Perhaps someone else could take over.

Thank you, Malcolm. Why don’t you pick up the narrative from where Peter left off, and we’ll see if he can get some help.

Thank you, all.

M. Gaston: I’m going to provide some contextual information about the program and our province’s labour market needs. This helps to explain why we felt it was important to do the audit.

As you know, the PNP is a program run by the ministry to attract and retain immigrants, to help address labour market needs and to contribute to economic development. I’ll speak more, with the next slide, about why that is important.

You’re likely aware that the immigration process is typically a federal responsibility. The PNP is one immigration program where the provincial government plays a significant role.

Here’s how it works. Every year ministry staff review applications from thousands of potential immigrants to the PNP. Applicants must demonstrate their ability to contribute to the economy based on criteria the ministry has set, such as work experience, education and language ability. Most also need a job offer. If an applicant qualifies, the ministry nominates the person to the federal government for permanent residency.

There are two programs, or streams, within the PNP: skills immigration and entrepreneur immigration. Almost all nominees apply through the skills immigration stream. That’s where we focused our audit.

Like many jurisdictions, British Columbia faces a labour market shortage due to retirements and declining birth rates. As the members know, too many unfilled job openings can hurt the economy by slowing business productivity. This impacts government’s ability to raise taxes to fund programs and services.

[1:20 p.m.]

Earlier this year government economists predicted, in the annual labour market outlook, there would be 861,000 job openings between 2019 and 2029. The government anticipates relying on immigrants to fill almost a third of these openings.

Before going further, I will note that the audit covered the period from January 2017 to November 2019 and was completed prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic may have an impact on B.C. labour market needs, especially in the short term.

Even if the level of immigration does vary, our audit findings remain relevant in helping to ensure that the program results in the ministry nominating the best applicants for meeting B.C.’s labour market and economic development needs. Given the needs outlined in the labour market outlook and the number of people being nominated through the PNP, it’s important to ensure the PNP is working as intended.

I’ll now pass over to Jessica to describe what we found in our audit.

J. Schafer: In this audit, we looked at two key aspects of how the provincial nominee program was run. First, we looked at how well the ministry was managing the program’s performance. This area was important. We wanted to see if the ministry was maximizing the program’s potential to support the economy.

Second, we looked at whether the ministry had effectively managed the risk of fraud, both from external sources such as applicants and from internal sources such as program staff. This is important. Nominees must legitimately possess the skills and qualifications set out in the rules for the program to have its intended impact. If people with fraudulent applications are nominated, it can diminish the program’s impact and potentially harm its reputation. So both of these issues are key to knowing whether the ministry is choosing applicants who are most likely to contribute to the province’s economic goals.

What did we find? With objective 1, we concluded that the ministry had effectively managed the PNP’s performance to help meet B.C.’s labour market and economic development needs, with some opportunities for improvement. The PNP nominated as many people as it was allowed every year, and nominees had positive economic outcomes with respect to staying and working in B.C. We found that the ministry had monitored program results, taken steps to assess aspects of the program and acted on what it found.

The ministry had only one formal measure and target for the PNP: to fill the quota of nominees it was assigned by the federal government. This emphasis on nomination targets could lead to a focus on quantity over quality of nominees or approval of applications with less scrutiny than warranted.

While we noted that nominee employment rates were high, this doesn’t provide a complete picture of how well the program is meeting labour market needs — for example, whether immigrants are employed in the intended job or sector they were nominated for. Unless the ministry has clearly defined what economic results it wants to achieve, it can’t tell whether it has used the program to maximize results.

The other area for improvement we found was that the ministry hadn’t fully assessed how economic results for nominees were connected to the program’s design — for example, the criteria it uses to select nominees. Data analysis would help the ministry refine the program and make sure it’s attracting and selecting the best candidates.

To support data analysis, it’s important to have good data. We found a range of data quality issues in the ministry’s case management system that could hinder its ability to assess the effectiveness of the program. We do know the ministry has started work on refining its performance measures to better assess how the PNP is supporting the province’s economic goals.

We used data analysis in several ways in this audit. One was to look at how the design of the PNP was tied to the nominee’s economic outcomes. We did something a bit new and innovative here. With the ministry’s permission, we linked the PNP’s provincial data with the federal government’s immigration data. This allowed greater insights than are possible by looking at provincial or federal data sets in isolation.

Specifically, we looked at the various criteria in the PNP and how these and other factors were correlated with nominee employment rates and income levels. We did this to provide an example to the ministry of what it could do to assess the effectiveness of its program design and what it could learn from doing so. This supported our recommendation that the ministry assess the effectiveness of its program design. We gave the ministry the information from our analysis so that it can help them to work out their own plan for how to assess program design.

[1:25 p.m.]

We made three recommendations related to performance management, including defining a more comprehensive set of key performance measures and targets, assessing the effectiveness of the program’s design and ensuring that data collected is reliable.

With objective 2, we looked at whether the ministry had an effective system of safeguards to protect the PNP against the risk of fraud. Overall, our conclusion was that the ministry hadn’t adequately assessed and mitigated the risk of fraud to protect the integrity of the skills immigration stream of the PNP.

We found that the ministry did have some safeguards in place to address certain risks, but the ministry hadn’t done a fraud risk assessment, which is an important first step for an organization to ensure all risks are identified and the right safeguards are in place.

We found some expected safeguards were lacking. These gaps heightened the risk of the ministry not detecting fraudulent applications and then approving them.

We also identified gaps in the ministry’s safeguards to ensure the separation of duties and to monitor staff activity. These are important to protect the integrity of B.C.’s role in the immigration system and to protect staff from coercion by outside parties.

We found the ministry didn’t consistently monitor its safeguards to ensure they were being applied and effective.

Taking all of that into account led us to conclude that the ministry hadn’t done enough to manage its fraud risks.

We recommended the ministry set up a fraud risk management framework consistent with good practice. This starts with assessing fraud risks. Good practice literature tells us that a structured fraud risk assessment is key to appropriately responding to the biggest, most likely risks.

Following the risk assessment, which should be carried out periodically, we recommended that the ministry address any gaps by designing and implementing safeguards. It’s also important that safeguards be monitored to make sure that they’re applied consistently and that they’re still working. If anything isn’t working, the ministry needs to take action to address the issue.

That concludes our presentation for today. The team will be happy to answer questions during the question period.

If I can take a few seconds more, I wanted to add my words of thanks to the ministry for their constructive attitude during the audit, from the beginning right to the very end. This really makes our audit work that much more pleasant but also that much more impactful.

S. Bond (Chair): Thank you, Jessica. Thank you for that great presentation. I think all of us appreciated how it was laid out and the way that you presented it.

Thank you, Malcolm, for filling in, when needed.

I’d like to now ask the ministry to respond. Again, we’ll have the deputy minister from the Ministry of Jobs, Economic Development and Competitiveness. We have Christine Kennedy with us today.

We, as a committee, want to thank you. We always appreciate when we have a deputy minister attend. We know how important it is that these kinds of reports are taken very seriously.

We appreciate you being with us, Christine, and look forward to you presenting today. If you could introduce any staff that are going to participate alongside you, that would be important for the Hansard record.

Welcome. We look forward to your comments.

C. Kennedy: Thank you very much, Chair.

Thank you to the committee members for the opportunity to join you today.

Thanks to the Office of the Auditor General staff for the overview and comments. We appreciate that greatly.

I’ll ask the ministry staff members to introduce themselves in just a few moments here. I will make a few introductory remarks to get ready.

We do take the process and the results very seriously. I appreciate the work. Also, I appreciate and would thank the Chair for your remarks on confidentiality and privacy issues related to the program.

Ministry staff would be pleased to address questions in writing or in a subsequent in-camera session, as meets the committee’s needs.

I started in the role of deputy minister from the Ministry of Jobs, Economic Development and Competitiveness a little less than a month ago. As such, I haven’t been involved in the audit proceedings directly. I’m delighted to join the proceedings today, though, as the audit work and your comments are important to us. They’ll help me and the ministry work to implement the action plan. Fazil Mihlar, the previous deputy minister, was very much involved in the proceedings of the audit work and kept me informed throughout.

I would say that this has been an extremely valuable process. The ministry appreciates the insights provided by the Office of the Auditor General, and we value the acknowledgment that there have been positive program outcomes.

[1:30 p.m.]

We also appreciate the opportunity to learn from areas where we are able to do better, including formal performance management, improving data quality and working to ensure that we are identifying and effectively safeguarding against risks of fraud. I fully accept the recommendations of the report and will work to support and assist the ministry as we action the recommendations and continue to strengthen the provincial nominee program with the results of the audit.

I’ll turn it over to Christine Little, the assistant deputy minister of small business, jobs and workforce division, for further introductions and to lead our presentation. Christine is the ADM that’s responsible for immigration policy and programs in the ministry, which includes the provincial nominee program.

Christine, if I could ask you to introduce the staff and then to give the presentation.

C. Little: Thank you very much, Christine.

Thank you very much, Chair and members of the committee, for the opportunity to present to you this afternoon.

As Christine Kennedy said, I’m Chris Little, assistant deputy minister of the small business, jobs and workforce division here at the Ministry of Jobs, Economic Development and Competitiveness. I have responsibility for immigration policy as was the immigration programs branch. I took over responsibility of that program in the fall of 2018, so it’s just before we began the work with the Office of the Auditor General.

If I may, I’d just like to pass it over to Deb Zehr and Carling Helander to give just a minute introduction of themselves and their background in the program. So if I could just start with them, please.

D. Zehr: Good afternoon, everyone. It’s a pleasure to be here. Also appreciate very much the work of the colleagues in the OAG. My name is Deb Zehr. I’m the executive director of immigration programs, and our branch has the responsibility to administer the B.C. provincial nominee program. I’ve been with the branch in this position for almost three years to the day, so mid-2017 is when I started in this role.

Previous to that and pretty much my entire career, I’ve worked in the area of immigration, both in not-for-profit but also within the Manitoba and mostly the B.C. provincial governments in immigration policy, federal-provincial relations, settlement and now the provincial nominee program. Again, very much appreciate the report and look forward to the discussion.

C. Kennedy: Thanks very much, Deb.

And if I could just have Carling introduce herself.

C. Helander: Yes. Good afternoon, and thank you, committee.

My name is Carling Helander. I am the executive director of the immigration policy and integration branch in the ministry. That includes responsibility for immigration policy, including the policy underpinning the provincial nominee program as well as policy related to intergovernmental relations and broader immigration programs that the federal government runs. I’m also responsible for settlement and integration programming for the province to support newcomers once they are here, to help them integrate into the province.

I’ve been in this branch for about five years now, the majority of that in management roles, and have been the executive director for about two years now.

C. Little: Thanks very much, Carling.

I’ll just make formal remarks as part of the presentation before we enter a question period. If I could have you go on to slide 2, please.

I just want to say thank you to the Auditor General and colleagues for the overview of the audit scope, findings and recommendations. When we first discussed the possible scope of this audit, it was really logical to focus on the skilled workers stream of the BC PNP, given that it makes up the larger majority of our annual nominations.

In 2019, we assessed and analyzed over 7,500 decisions in order to attain our annual allocation of nominees. These applicants, along with their family members, now have a pathway to remaining as permanent residents here in British Columbia.

Since its inception in 2001, the number of nominees each year under the program stream has grown significantly. As indicated in the report, ten years ago, nominees and their families made up about 4,700 of B.C. new permanent residents, whereas in 2019, almost 12,600 or 41 percent of all newcomers arriving under the economic immigration streams had arrived because of the B.C. provincial nominee program. Others were selected by the federal government.

[1:35 p.m.]

Given that the B.C. provincial nominee program is our only direct tool to attract and retain these economic immigrants, we see value in administering the program in the best way possible for applicants and their families, for employers, for communities and for a strong, sustainable and innovative economy.

As such, we see great benefit from focusing the audit on the overall performance management of the skilled worker stream, along with our work to prevent, identify and manage fraud within the program. In fact, we have already seen benefits from the audit process itself, from learnings and deep dives into areas to better understand the findings and from already working to address the four recommendations that are made in the report.

We can advance to slide 3. As noted by the deputy minister, we agree with and we fully accept all four recommendations, and work has begun in all areas, which I’ll provide a little bit of an update on in the next slides. We want to build on the strong outcomes and effective management of the program. We recognize, though, that a more formalized approach to identifying our objectives and targets will ensure that we have continued positive results and that the program remains responsive to a changed environment.

We’ve had a chance, as the BC PNP has grown, to build a strong foundation and bring in guiding legislation, an automated case management system and safeguards against fraud and corruption. I want to acknowledge our skilled, experienced and dedicated team who see how important it is to optimize the program’s potential.

Given that we see outcomes like 90 percent of our nominees employed, with fewer than 1 percent receiving social assistance, we know that there are strong indicators of success within our criteria. At the same time, we recognize that there is always room for continuous improvement. We don’t assume that we have it right, that our data systems can be static or that we have already adequately assessed and addressed the challenges to program integrity, as the audit points out. The recommendations really indicate that we can improve.

Next slide. The first recommendation speaks to the need for a comprehensive set of key performance measures and targets. Ministry staff have worked to update our program objectives and desired outcomes, which are important steps to making sure we establish measures and targets. We’d like to have this firmed up in a performance management framework by the end of the calendar year. We know it’s important to achieve the right balance of measures which reflect a wide range of ways to assess the success of the program and to avoid overly emphasizing one factor at the expense of the others. We aim to fully adopt the appropriate measures and targets in March of 2021.

While there has been one measure publicly reported in the ministry service plan, we also need to keep other indicators and targets formally in view. It won’t be possible for our full range of performance measures to be included in the business plan. Instead, we will ensure transparency by reporting out on our measures as part of our annual statistical report that is posted on our WelcomeBC site.

Next slide. The second recommendation relates to assessing the effectiveness of the program design through periodic analysis of program and outcome data and to make improvements as needed. First, note that the ministry does assess the effectiveness of the program through a formal five-year program evaluation and annual reviews of various data, such as internal program data and data on nominee income and retention, which is available through federal databases. But we agree that there’s more we can do to regularly and thoroughly assess the effectiveness of the program and, in particular, to be able to attribute the nominee outcomes to the specific design of the program.

We will continue to review and analyze program outcome data on an annual basis with a particular focus on data that is tied to program performance measures work that we are undertaking now. We will also make sure, going forward, that our formal five-year evaluations of the program include methodologies that enable that attribution of outcomes to the program design. In addition, we’ll continue to monitor research and literature on immigration overall, to maintain an up-to-date understanding of factors that influence newcomer outcomes.

[1:40 p.m.]

Next slide. Recommendation No. 3 relates changes to systems and procedures to ensure that we collect reliable and consistent data to enable regular analysis of program performance. The Office of the Auditor General staff performed a detailed review of the BC PNP’s information system, including the online application system implemented in 2015, which transitioned the program from a paper-based application process to an entirely digital application process. This included supporting client management system used to process applicants for decision.

As noted in the report, the Office of the Auditor General presented an IT general control report directly to the ministry, and we expect to implement all recommended system changes over the next 18 months. The action plan and timeframe are both considered priority items as well as [audio interrupted] longer-term system changes.

A number of system improvements not requiring software development have been implemented. For example, we have added [audio interrupted] systems fields to track program integrity data. We’ve improved tracking and consistency of due diligence through a drop-down menu that describes the action taken, and we’ve enhanced security systems measures. In terms of changes to processes, consistent data entry practices have been incorporated into new staff training. The ministry will be developing and delivering ongoing staff training on that as well.

We have improved user documentation. That’s just begun, formally documenting staff role definitions and improving data collection practices so that we can improve reliability and consistency.

Finally, it’s important to monitor that changes have the intended impacts to ensure data consistency and integrity, so a schedule of quarterly quality assurance reports is set to begin in September. While we acknowledge there are data quality issues identified in the findings, we see they are often related to inconsistent tracking or recording of information. We expect that these changes will not only support the analysis of our program performance but will also contribute to a more accurate assessment of our identification of risks, which is the topic of the final recommendation.

The final recommendation speaks to developing and implementing a risk management framework consistent with good practice. Our commitment in this slide speaks to the significant work needed to ensure we are following best practices to identify and assess risks, design and implement safeguards, monitor effectiveness and address any deficiencies. The report does recognize that work has been done in this area. However, we accept that a formal risk management framework and the work detailed in what I’ve just noted will substantially assure us that the program is operated with the highest degree of program integrity.

Work is already underway. We have begun the process of developing a risk management framework. A thorough review of the audit findings and current practices is helping to inform our mapping and analysis of risks. We are also collaborating with provincial risk leads in the development of the framework. These are people like in the Ministry of Finance. In addition, we are working on a detailed matrix and risk register. At the same time, we’re approaching work in a systemic way [audio interrupted] immediate opportunities and challenges.

There are multiple organizations involved in the immigration process. We’ve centralized the contact information for the various bodies so that fraud can be addressed more effectively. We’ve created a new dedicated email address for the B.C. provincial nominee program so that report fraud related to the BC PNP can be sent directly to this email for follow-up. We’ve included email on our new fraud web page and have noted that members of the public can also provide that information to us anonymously.

In closing, I’d just again like to thank the Office of the Auditor General, their recognition of the program’s strong outcomes and contribution to the province’s economy. I want to emphasize that we recognize the real risk for fraud and potential corruption within this program and across all immigration pathways. The only way we will continue to tackle this is by working together with other immigration authorities and enforcement bodies and taking a systematic approach to identifying and addressing risks within the BC PNP. The valuable insights that we’ve gained from this audit are already informing actions to strengthen the program’s performance measurement, our data quality and integrity.

With that, I’d like to conclude. We would be happy to take any questions from the committee.

[1:45 p.m.]

S. Bond (Chair): Thank you very much for the presentation. We appreciate the response.

With that, I would like to start with Mitzi, our Deputy Chair. She has a couple of questions, and she’ll begin the process.

M. Dean (Deputy Chair): Thank you to everybody involved in this audit. I really appreciate the sense of progress and the sense of really embracing the findings and already incorporating the recommendations and the advice from the Office of the Auditor General.

I had just a couple of questions. On page 51, there’s mention of an audit in 2017. I wondered if someone could explain a bit more to us what that audit was about and what the findings were, because it talked about similar findings around resource constraints. I’m interested in whether the ministry was already starting to make any improvements or how that audit in 2017 could have informed this audit.

Then my other question is: what demographic data is kept about people who come through this program? Is it just country of origin, or are there other demographic details that are provided? Do we keep that data, and how do we use that data?

C. Little: Thanks very much, Deputy Chair. Maybe I’ll just answer the second question first, and then, if I can, I can pass it over to Deb Zehr to address the audit that was done in 2017.

We do collect all sorts of data on immigrants that come through the program. In fact, a lot of the information that we get is very in-depth, and there’s a high degree of protection of privacy, because we do collect information on their country of origin, age, family members, demographic data and all that.

I think what we tend to find with the program is that there tends to be more men that come through the program than women. What we think is happening there is that it’s a reflection of the pipeline, so to speak, of foreign workers that are coming into Canada and into British Columbia. They tend to be more on the male side than the female side.

That pipeline tends to feed into our program, and we tend see a higher proportion of males versus females. That’s one of the things that we’d like to do a little bit more data analysis on, as was recommended in the report, to see why that’s happening and if there may be, perhaps, things that we can do in order to get better balance.

We also tend to see that female nominees tend to earn less and are more likely to be unemployed than male nominees, and that seems to be reflective of what we see in the workforce overall. But that information is almost entirely based on before we implemented the point system that came in in 2016, because it is about a three-year data gap between income earned and [audio interrupted.] So we have data on that from about three years ago.

We want to, again, do a bit more of a gender-based analysis plus a type of data work with the program just to see where some of these trends are emerging and what we might be able to do to better design the program to address that.

Carling, did you have anything else to add there?

C. Helander: No. I think you covered that well. Thanks, Christine.

C. Little: Maybe if I could just pass it over to Deb to talk about the 2017 audit.

D. Zehr: The 2017 audit, the results of which were finalized in April of 2017, was done under the Canada-B.C. immigration agreement requirement to do an evaluation audit every five years. The audit was done by an external body. The recommendations, to respond to your question, definitely both are linked to but also help to inform our ongoing work and are somewhat connected to the audit recommendations today as well.

[1:50 p.m.]

I’ll give you just a high-level overview of the key recommendations and then am happy to dive into detail, should you wish, around our response or progress there. Just maybe at first a note around the timing of this particular audit. It really picked up on some of the administrative changes that were happening and happened within the program at that time — moving from a paper-based system to an automated, moving from a first-in, first-assessed intake process to something that was more managed and controlled by the ministry. Any changes like that require clarity in the policy, the procedure, both for the users as well as for staff.

Some of the recommendations related to defining policies and procedures for various concepts and taking steps to operationalize policies and procedures in a manual that supports consistent assessment of applications and documentation. Action was taken on those. Of course, those are always continual projects and work to keep up with any sorts of changes in the systems or the procedures.

The audit also talked about training for advisers, including regular training, information, refresher seminars and progress. We have addressed that in a number of ways. I also did talk about defining a program integrity framework action plan and ensuring program integrity, defined systems and processes and implementation of these processes and allocating responsibilities. Again, we have progressed in work, and some of that has been acknowledged in this audit. We are continuing around the program integrity. I’ll again leave that for specific questions you might have.

The final recommendation in the audit talked about misrepresentation — defining and also looking at the procedures, MOUs in other organizations to follow up on fraud, misrep and unlawful activity. So it definitely has set a foundation — work that has progressed since 2017 and also feeding into the work of the audit reviewed today.

S. Bond (Chair): Mitzi, did you have any further questions?

M. Dean (Deputy Chair): No, thank you. Thanks very much.

S. Bond (Chair): All right. From there, we’re going to move to Rick.

Rick, I think you have a question.

R. Glumac: Yes. Thank you for the presentations. I’m glad to see so many people from the ministry here today.

I have a lot of questions, but I’m going to focus my first set of questions on the tech pilot program. This talks about it a little bit on page 34 of the report. I’d like to get a sense of this tech pilot, where it’s at. How do the recommendations in this report relate to the tech pilot? Is the tech pilot off on the side — kind of doing its own thing and not really involved in this set of recommendations? Or do all of these recommendations apply equally to that?

To set the context for this, I’d just like to get a little bit of information about the tech pilot. How many people went through the tech pilot program? Is the pilot continuing? Is it expanding? Let’s start with that first. Then I have some questions.

C. Little: Yeah. It says on page 34 that in 2017 we launched the tech pilot. It was really to help address the shortfall of talent in the technology sector.

In 2018, we reviewed how well the pilot was working based on the data and also did some outs to stakeholders and got their feedback. We made few adjustments as a result, like [audio interrupted] shortening the length of a job offer requirement from indeterminate to one year just because of the structure of the job market and tech sector. It wasn’t a comprehensive evaluation, but we do have a plan to do that in the future.

The tech pilot is continuing. In fact, in this year, we announced that it would continue for another year. With respect to the numbers, I don’t have them at my fingertips, but I believe that Deb has data on the pilot and how many people are coming through that. So I’ll pass it over to her for those.

[1:55 p.m.]

S. Bond (Chair): Looks like Deb might have an answer there.

Did you want to contribute, Deb?

D. Zehr: For specific data on the tech pilot, I can certainly talk about the volume of incoming.

As Christine mentioned, the pilot started in 2017, and it grew with about 700 to 800 in that first year of nominations specific to a set of occupations that fit within this tech pilot pool. Since that time, we have nominated 1,516 people. That was a 33 percent increase from 2018. So over the last three years, there has been a small exponential increase in the number of nominations, perhaps due largely to the awareness and the outreach and connection with tech sector and employers.

Just a couple of other items that may be of interest. The proportion of tech nominees within the overall nomination pool is about 23 percent, and that also is increasing slightly. Significant wages, as well as other indicators of success, have been seen from the nominees. It is something that….

You ask about how it relates to the audit findings. First of all, I think everything we do is under the umbrella of the audit findings and is important, around the due diligence related to the performance management and the setting of objectives. The tech pilot is certainly a part of that whole.

The pilot itself is a model of delivery, which focuses on the particular occupations. I think it is something that, when we look at program design and how we administer a program, we can learn from, as we are wanting to do through evaluation of the pilot — how this type of approach can help us to be very targeted and intentional with the provincial nominee program, whether it’s a technology sector or other priority areas. So definitely it’s very informing in terms of our planning.

I think the last thing I would say around this program integrity is, again, that every application, every category that we assess, would fall within the need to do due diligence around any sort of fraud and misrepresentation. I would say that there is less of a finding around challenges with the tech applications. Oftentimes they are of a particular employment where it is very clear around the skills, the qualifications and the connection with the employer in the tech sector, which are often very strong indicators, as well, of the genuineness of the application.

R. Glumac: If I could follow up a little on that. You said 1,516. That’s in 2019?

D. Zehr: Yes. And that was a 33 percent increase from 2018.

R. Glumac: Okay. The first recommendation from the Auditor General talks about key performance measures and targets. In terms of the tech sector, what I hear over and over is the need for talent — international talent to help fill the gap here in British Columbia. It’s one of the key things that I keep hearing all the time.

What is the target for the tech pilot? What is the specific target, and what are…? How are we determining whether we are doing enough? You said that the program would be extended for another year. Is there an initiative underway to make this not a pilot but to make this something recognizing that it is a key need within the province? That’s my question on that.

It says in the report that the ministry recognizes that there was not a comprehensive evaluation of the tech pilot but with plans to do so in the future. And that’s why I was wondering. Is this something that…?

[2:00 p.m.]

With recommendation No. 1, it very clearly talks about the need to have key performance measures and all of that. Then I have one more follow-up question after that.

C. Little: Thanks very much, Member Glumac.

As we start to do that work to update our program objectives and desired outcomes, making sure that we have the right measures and targets that go against those, we’re looking at the tech pilot as part of that, to see whether we are, as you say, doing enough, in particular now with the occupational code series, or whether there’s more that we want to do to make sure the program and what we’re achieving through it is aligned with government’s overall economic framework and the objectives and initiatives under that.

The other thing that we need to keep in mind is that we get a program allocation target from the federal government of about [audio interrupted] nominations per year. We need to make sure that the nomination target that we get is reflective of the need in the entire labour market across the entire province and not just with one particular sector or another. If we increase our nomination target in the tech sector, for example, it means it needs to come away from some other national occupation code, where there could be shortages in the labour market as well.

That’s some of the analysis that we need to do as we look at the program objectives and as we start to set those measures and targets, just to make sure that we’ve got focus in the right place and we’re doing enough in the right kinds of sectors. We also look at our labour market outlook overall and where there are sources of labour from within the province and within Canada and where we need to fill those gaps from immigration. That’ll be some of the work that we do in reviewing the program as well.

I think the final thing, before I ask Deb or Carling if they’ve got anything that they want to add, is that the PNP program is only one stream where high-tech workers can come through. There are also the federal work programs where we see — and those are completely within the purview of the federal government and their decision-making — high-tech workers and other skilled workers coming through those federal streams as well.

I’m not sure, Carling or Deb, if you had anything else you wanted to add there.

C. Helander: Perhaps the only other thing I’ll add is that part of how we determine how many nominations we make under certain streams or, for example, through the tech pilot is an intentional decision on our part of where we want to prioritize. As Deb mentioned, we’ve seen growth in the number of nominations that we have put towards tech.

We also need to be responsive to who shows up to the program, and that’s where our points-based selection system comes in. We make choices around how many people we want to select and invite to apply, keeping in mind the points level of people who are sitting in our registration pool. We don’t want to set a target for nominations in a certain stream if that means we have to start lowering the point score at which we invite people to apply, because there starts to be concern at a certain point about the qualifications or the success factors, long term, that those newcomers may have or program integrity concerns.

It’s a bit of that balancing act between targeting how many people we want to nominate but also being responsive to who is showing up in the program. As Christine indicated, sometimes it’s a bit of a trade-off as well between other sectors and occupations, and the points that people have going into the system is part of that factor that influences our decisions around invitations to apply.

R. Glumac: Thank you. The final question for now that I have on this is that I do agree that I think that a good analysis is required around the different streams to get a sense of the need in any particular sector. I’m particularly familiar with the tech sector, and I do know that there is a huge need there, particularly now in the context of COVID economic recovery. There is a huge need for talent.

One of the things you mentioned…. I don’t fully understand this points system and all of that, but I do see that there was a bit of a change in the way that this program, for example, was done.

[2:05 p.m.]

Again, getting back to recommendation No. 1 and how do you measure effectiveness. There was a change that said that a job offer can’t be indeterminant. It has to be one year. Again, in my conversations with people in the tech sector, it’s a challenge to get people — for example, from the States — to move to Canada. Uprooting your whole life and coming to a different country is a massive undertaking, and to sort of restrict the jobs to one-year jobs can be a factor that actually discourages people from applying, maybe.

Did you find a change in the level of interest in this program after that change? This, again, is within the context of measuring performance. I’d really like to get a sense of whether that change was an effective change or not.

C. Little: Thank you very much for the question. I just wanted to clarify that the way the program works is that, generally, if you have an indeterminate job offer…. That’s something that’s full-time that goes on without any kind of an end date. It’s what you needed to have before in the tech sector.

The feedback that we got from the sector itself is that often they didn’t give a job that went on for a long period of time. Many of their jobs are just one year in duration. They can be longer than that — that’s fine — but they don’t have to be. So it was something that the tech sector actually asked us to do in terms of changes to make it easier for them to recruit talent, because they didn’t necessarily want to offer them a job that went on for an indeterminant length of time. It was a change that they requested to make the program work better for them in terms of their recruitment efforts.

With respect to the point system, if you do have a moment and were interested, it is detailed in the appendix to the report. It just goes through things like the job offer, the different levels of education, language criteria that we ask for, whether the job is in a regional location. We allocate points based on a whole set of criteria in order to make sure that we get the newcomers that have the highest chance of economic success in the province.

S. Bond (Chair): Anything else, Rick?

R. Glumac: Not for now, thanks.

S. Bond (Chair): Thank you for those questions.

Over to Bowinn, please.

B. Ma: Thank you so much.

My question is about the work around fraud detection and fraud in the program. Do you have a sense of how often, how more likely fraud is, I guess, from the perspective of the applicant or the employer? What side of the program is more likely to participate in fraud in this program? Employers recognizing that it’s one employer and then lots of different applicants…. I guess, maybe, if you just have a sense of where the fraud tends to come from.

C. Little: As you can imagine, permanent residency in Canada and British Columbia is really highly valued. That creates risk for fraud, for corruption, for misrepresentation in our application and our selection process. We know that, and that’s why we have to take those risks really, really seriously and take steps to protect the integrity of the program against those risks. So fraud awareness is always part of our program delivery.

There’s a real continuum of fraud. It can happen with applicants. It can happen with employers. It can also happen with immigration consultants who are representatives that people hire to help them through that process. I don’t really have a sense of where it might be more prevalent in any of those categories. That’s why we set up safeguards that try to detect and deter fraud in the applicant stage with the employers and also with the immigration consultants and representatives.

We do a thorough review of the documentation that’s provided by the applicant. We do site visits where we can talk to the employee as well as the employer to make sure that the job they’re doing is the actual job they were nominated for and that it is a legitimate, bona fide job opportunity. So that’s sort of assessing the authenticity of the job offer.

[2:10 p.m.]

We do a lot of staff training on how to detect and deter and then make sure that our staff know their responsibility with respect to the oath of ethics and their standards of conduct as well.

Deb, did you have anything more, perhaps, to talk about employers versus applicants versus immigration consultants?

D. Zehr: Sure. For all categories under the skilled worker stream, except for international postgraduates, every applicant must have a job offer. What that means is that for the majority of the applications that we’re assessing, there is an employer involved. So it’s not often at all that it is just about an applicant on their own.

Now, having said that, an applicant on their own may be looking at…. There may be evidence of challenges along the continuum of fraud, be it embellishing the qualifications or certain documentation that is not legitimate. Perhaps some of the higher reasons for refusal are around a job offer, the legitimacy of the job offer or meeting the criteria that’s required around the job offer. That’s not necessarily fraud. It also can be around challenges with the employer demonstrating a genuineness of recruitment for local talent.

There are a lot of different reasons for refusal. It could be along the continuum of it’s just simply not meeting the criteria to more intentional embellishment to the extent of outright fraud. Generally, there would be multiple players involved in an application in that area.

B. Ma: I agree that permanent residency status here in Canada is very desirable. I can understand the reasons why applicants might want to embellish their resumés and their applications in order to increase the likelihood of them being sponsored to come here.

Can you run through maybe some of the reasons why employers would be incentivized to participate in fraud in this program? What are they trying to avoid? What is the benefit to them?

D. Zehr: Perhaps I’ll give one example, which is more of a legal one, on the extreme of fraud. It’s illegal to charge an applicant for a job offer. If that were to take place, an employer would significantly benefit from the payment for a job offer. So that is something that’s very clear on the legal continuum.

There are other examples that we could provide.

B. Ma: Can you provide a few more examples?

D. Zehr: I would say it would largely be monetary benefits to the employer…

B. Ma: Thank you.

D. Zehr: …when it comes to the fraud end of the continuum.

J. Yap: I appreciate the presentations from the Auditor and the ministry.

Following on Bowinn’s question about fraud, I’m interested in the concept of corruption. I have to say that in all of my time as a member of Public Accounts over the years, I can’t recall coming across an audit that talks in such stark terms about the potential for corruption and coercion of public servants. I’m wondering if this is something that…. Well, first of all, based on my recollection, I don’t think I’ve read a report where it has been so stark about the potential for corruption.

[2:15 p.m.]

A question, I guess, for the Auditor. What was the genesis of looking at this operation as part of the audit plan and coming to the conclusion that this was an area of concern? After all, in a $65 billion operation, which is government…. There’s potential for corruption and coercion in so many areas of government, yet this is a focus in the context of this audit. So I’m curious about where this came from.

R. Jones: I think I’ll let the audit team answer this one. In terms of why it surfaced, I think it’s because…. When you’re looking at the whole package around risk assessment and a program like this…. As has been mentioned, it’s very coveted to try and become a resident of British Columbia. It’s something that people would like to do.

We were looking at it, also, not just from the fact that staff could be corrupted. But what safeguards are in place to ensure that didn’t happen? Because of how coveted it is, a number of people might try that. So what did the ministry have in place to make sure that the staff of the ministry were being protected from having that come into play?

I’ll let Jessica and Malcolm talk a bit more, maybe, about it.

J. Schafer: Thanks, Russ. Yeah. That’s exactly right.

When we do plan our audit scope, we look at all kinds of information to build a picture of what the areas of significance and the areas of risk are. For this one, we were looking at media reports and information from other jurisdictions.

For example, there was an audit by the Office of the Auditor General of Canada. They did two audits looking at immigration controls. One was looking at the protection against fraud from external applicants. Then they had a whole additional audit entirely looking at the prevention of corruption by people involved in the immigration system from the public service side.

We reviewed those reports and looked at those areas and had discussions with the ministry to understand how their processes worked. It seemed like an important area to include within our audit, given the risks and the information that was out there. There wasn’t anything, particularly, about the PNP in B.C. that made us concerned for corruption but more the incentives and opportunities for fraud and corruption within immigration generally.

J. Yap: Right. So if I could follow up. There are billions of dollars that are allocated in government to programs. There’s procurement involving large sums of money.

I understand what you are suggesting here, but it just seems interesting and unique that this audit would include a focus on corruption when other audit reports that I’ve had a chance to read…. I don’t recall ever seeing, as part of the review, any discussion on corruption. I understand that, yes, obviously, Canada is a desirable place in the world of migration. But it just seems interesting that we would focus on corruption when so many other aspects of the provincial public service might also have the same vulnerability.

[2:20 p.m.]

To be more specific, when you were doing the planning for this audit and you looked at the…. I think you mentioned the Auditor General of Canada did a review and looked at the aspect of corruption. Were there findings there? Were people found to be corrupt and were there issues that led to, I assume, some major changes through that audit? Was that part of what led to wanting to make this a subject of this audit?

J. Schafer: The Auditor General of Canada’s audit also looked at the types of things we were looking at in terms of a framework of controls and risk management, as opposed to trying to identify specific instances or the existence of corruption. They were really looking at whether there were controls in place. And if there were, were those effective, and were they being monitored? They did certainly find areas for improvement there. I believe, in some other jurisdictions in Canada, some similar findings were made in other areas similar to that.

Yes, those were all reasons to look at it. I can’t speak to why corruption isn’t always the focus of every audit that we do, but I do know that we look at internal controls. We look at things like the separation of duties. Those are pretty key basic controls that we look for across the board. I think this type of issue is looked at more broadly but maybe doesn’t become a focus of every audit, for different reasons.

Malcolm, did you want to add to that?

Or Russ, you look like you want to add to that.

R. Jones: When we do take on our financial audits, as well, there is a whole series of questions that we ask around fraud and the risks that could occur within any organization. You’re absolutely right. When we’re looking at, say, P3 arrangements and procurement and everything else, we’re always asking management, before we even go in to design our programs and whatnot in a financial audit: “What controls do you have in place?”

We always do test to make sure there are controls in place, not only preventing it happening but looking out for the best interests of the employees, too, because they’re the ones that are at risk. It’s probably something we should be looking at any time we take a look at a risk management framework that should be in place in any organization.

J. Thornthwaite: This is a topic that I was thinking about as well. The statement came from somebody earlier in the presentation — sorry, I can’t remember — about coercion from outside parties. What are those outside parties? And do you have any examples?

C. Little: I don’t recall who made that comment either. I think it was raised within the context of staff corruption possibilities and the risk of that. I just wanted to say that we are not aware of any instances of staff corruption within our program. There have been times where conflicts or expectations have been proactively raised by staff, in consultation with their managers, and we manage those on a case-case basis.

I also just wanted to say that we require that all employees in the public service sign an oath of employment, and they’re subject to the same ethics requirement for all B.C. government employees. As part of that oath, they need to abide by the standards of conduct and agree to disclosing any conflict of interest.

With respect to the risk of coercion, I guess it would be if there were someone who valued that permanent residency so highly that they may approach one of the staff members to see if there’s a way that they could corrupt that employee to somehow help them through the process to get that permanent residence.

Jessica, I’m not sure if you had something more you wanted to add, in terms of what you look at when you think about risks of coercion from outside the organization.

[2:25 p.m.]

J. Schafer: Yes, that’s right. It’s that type of situation where someone who is seeking to gain admittance to the program could look for opportunities to influence the staff who are making the decision on their application. So that would be a type of situation where they might be open to coercion as they’re doing their work.

S. Bond (Chair): Thank you, Jane. I think it’s important to reflect on the fact that there has been no indication that staff in British Columbia have been involved in that kind of practice or behaviour. I think it’s important to remember that, and we appreciate that clarity.

R. Glumac: I just want to jump back and touch upon the last question that I asked. I really feel that recommendation No. 1, on performance measures, is a very key thing, and I would like to see that really driving how these programs get administered. I know that the ministry is working hard on this. But just to touch upon that one more time.

When we look at, for example, what a company might be looking for, they want to have a short-term contract. The people that are applying for that program…. I’d like to pitch that that’s where some analysis should happen in terms of performance measures.

I’d like to get an understanding of: are we getting really quality people coming from other countries and working in the tech sector, in particular around the tech pilot? A company may say: “We’d like to do shorter-term contracts.” But again, if somebody is living in the States and they see that there are just mostly short-term contracts available in Canada, you may reduce your pool of high-calibre talent that would be interested in applying to this program.

Are there measures in place that are identifying that? Is there a way to identify the quality of the people that are coming and whether they’re staying in the country, whether they’re going on to more senior jobs and creating a stronger ecosystem within B.C., and this kind of thing? I just want to make that point and see if you had any comments on that.

C. Little: It really is an excellent…. Thank you for bringing that up. I think, when we look at the program, its overall objectives start to map measures and targets towards those overall objectives. It’s really important that we not just talk to employers about that but that we talk to the employees and the possible newcomers as well.

I think when we look at, also, the recommendations around how we use data better to analyze whether or not a program is actually driving towards the economic outcome that we want it to, it’s very much a long-term gain iteration. I think you’re perfectly right to say if they come in and they’re working for a company in the Lower Mainland, at some point they get permanent residency, and they may want to become an entrepreneur and start their own company or go to work for someone else.

It would be really interesting to do that kind of analysis to understand if those folks are coming in and if that kind of behaviour is what we’re seeing so that it actually starts to generate more economic activity and business formation, all of that, within the tech sector.

I also want to point out that it’s not just within the Lower Mainland as well. We’re starting to see some, really, pockets of tech happening in the Prince George area for sure. Going out of the Lower Mainland, it’s some in the Fraser Valley but also in Kelowna and in Nelson as well. Trying to understand how we might be able to push economic growth in regional economies using the provincial nominee program and where we might see some of that action in the different sectors as well.

Carling, did you have anything else that you wanted to add to that?

C. Helander: Maybe Deb could speak to this more, but to answer your question of if we get quality candidates through the program, I would say absolutely, yes. We see some excellent, very strong candidates, very skilled, being offered very high wages. So we’re seeing that kind of positive interest in the program and positive interest in tech workers coming to and immigrating to British Columbia.

[2:30 p.m.]

R. Glumac: Thank you. I don’t doubt that there are some very positive and very quality people coming to the country. But I also have heard from people in the tech sector that it is more challenging to uproot and to come to another country when the contracts are shorter term. I think an analysis on that, on the difference, maybe, between that change that happened, based on feedback from the tech sector, whether that change actually is effective or not….

That’s my only point.

S. Bond (Chair): Thank you very much, Rick.

I think Garry has a question.

G. Begg: First of all, a general comment. We’ve acknowledged that Canadian citizenship, or entry to Canada, is highly valued. It is. But there has also become a lucrative cottage industry around immigration to Canada, with immigration consultants, particularly, and that kind of thing in this community.

I think every Surrey MLA has received complaints and anecdotal information about the influence of immigration companies, of which there are many in this community, on the entire system. I wonder if that is a consideration or if you have knowledge of that. That’s question 1.

Question 2 is if your enforcement or investigative powers are extended to cover that kind of immigration issue.

C. Little: Thank you very much for the question. We are definitely aware. As I said before, there’s a continuum of fraud as representation, from embellishing qualifications right through to sophisticated criminal activity. That is on the part of applicant and employer and also in the immigration consultant business.

As you said, permanent residency is highly valued, and that creates a risk. Also, the immigration consultant business is very lucrative. As a result, there are people that are willing to take risks in order to have a big payoff by having scams or other things that they would do, taking advantage of people who would be wanting to get that permanent residency.

A lot of times with the consultants the fraud is around labour market impact assessments, where there’s illegal filing of those, which is an area of federal jurisdiction. I know that Employment and Social Development Canada has created a department in their organization that is specifically dedicated just to those labour market impact assessment–related fraud cases.

There are a lot of safeguards in our program now and improvements that we will obviously be making as a result of recommendations in this audit. There are also multiple ways that someone who suspects that fraud is being committed can bring that suspicion forward. One of the recommendations was to have a dedicated fraud line on our WelcomeBC site, so we have done that now.

We also list other pathways on our website as well. You can go to Service Canada, or you can go to Canada Border Services Agency. They have an online phone reporting system, and you can do that anonymously as well. There are lots of ways, also, to help applicants understand fraud and immigration scams so that they don’t get unknowingly coerced or involved in something like that which creates problems for them down the road.

We only work with consultants that are registered with the regulatory body. They have to be in good standing with the Immigration Consultants of Canada regulatory body. If we have heard that there are ones that are not part of that, we will not work with them. We ask people to make sure they declare if working with an immigration consultant, and we’ll follow up to make sure that they are in good standing. I also would just like to note that there’s a new act that was passed by the federal government where they’re looking at strengthening the rules around immigration consultants.

[2:35 p.m.]

We’ll be looking at that very closely to see how that works, how we can work with the federal government to make sure that we can do more in that area.

Deb or Carling, I’m not sure if you had anything more to add on that, but it definitely is an area that we’re aware of and have concern on, like you do as well.

D. Zehr: If I may just add and agree that, yes, it is a consideration. And yes, I believe we’re not naive to the challenges in that area. So definitely a consideration in the assessment.

The audit was also helpful in pointing out ways which we have changed already to better track and connect proven cases of fraud within our system. Enhancing the program integrity also allows us to take a much more systemic approach to the assessment of files and where there are trends and challenges.

The last three-plus years of data that we now have on our case management system also allows us to be much more proactive in identifying trends related to fraud and parties that are in some ways a part of that.

We also have some, and are working on more, information-sharing agreements. We do work closely with the Canada Border Service Agency and other enforcement bodies who really have the authority to do the kind of investigations that we don’t. But we do have information that can be shared, based on the specific investigations that might be done either by them or other bodies, and are working on enhancing more of a two-way share of information around that.

The other thing I would just note is that our legislation that came into effect in 2017 allows us to issue a two-year time period, when there’s proven misrepresentation, where an applicant or an employer is not able to apply because of the misrepresentation. There are, generally, representatives — not in all cases but in cases — involved in that as well. Although the sanction isn’t applied directly against the consultant, because they are regulated by the ICCRC, the impact of an applicant and/or employer having that two-year inability to apply to the program is quite significant for the consultant as well.

Those are some examples of where we have…. To respond to your question around some of the investigative powers, I guess the sanctions and investigative powers certainly were strengthened with our legislation as well.

G. Begg: One additional question, but it’s entirely about your APPA. I think you’ve given yourself some pretty generous timelines, which of course is entirely within your purview. But I want some assurance that….

You refer to “monitoring” and “annual” and terms like that. I want some assurance that you have a robust and ongoing system that can detect issues as they arise, not a year later or six months later but some ongoing process — actually a self-audit, an occasional self-audit — so that these kinds of issues can be identified and dealt with early on in the process.

D. Zehr: I believe we have the infrastructure and the systems to do that. Areas that were identified through the audit as being weak we have either addressed or will be addressing. It is definitely our intent to not wait for an annual review, which is more about the performance and outcomes, which are longer term within immigration. But the internal and proactive analysis of data that looks at trends that are concerning is absolutely something that is a part of workplans, although it may not show up on the specific APPA here.

G. Begg: Sorry. “One final question,” he said again, for the final time, I hope.

Are you familiar with what is called in the federal government a dashboard system where you do a constant…? Do you apply that here?

D. Zehr: We have not.

G. Begg: Would that be helpful?

D. Zehr: It would certainly be something that we can be looking at, yes.

S. Bond (Chair): Bowinn has a follow-up.

[2:40 p.m.]

B. Ma: I was wondering about the two-year moratorium on employers applying to this program after they’ve done something untoward within the program. Is that something that’s set by regulation, legislation, or is it set by the ministry through policy?

It just seems to me that if an employer is caught intentionally misusing the system and being fraudulent within the system for some of the reasons that you said might incentivize employers to use the system in that way — for instance, collecting fees from applicants in exchange for job offers — that seems like a pretty serious level of fraud. I would be hesitant to ever trust that employer again to use that program in good faith.

Where does the two-year come from, and do you have any comments on that?

D. Zehr: Our legislation allows us to impose that sanction against applicants or employers where there is a grounded finding of misrepresentation. In effect, the misrepresentation is looking at factors within the application that are not true, and the individual would not have received an invitation or is intentionally putting forward information that is misrepresented. That is specific to the two-year sanction.

The kind of example that you’re referring to around charging an employee for a job offer or for a job…. Those are matters that would be more within the realm of the Canada Border Services Agency or the RCMP, where we would share information and/or advise and inform. So the sanction that we have within our legislation would cover more that specific misrepresentation.

C. Little: Is it fair to say, Deb, then, if it were a more serious criminal matter, we would cooperate with the Canada Border Services Agency, and there may be more of an investigation that takes place — that if it were a very serious fraud that was proven may result in criminal charges?

D. Zehr: Yes.

S. Bond (Chair): Well, thank you. I just have a couple of comments and then perhaps just a question or two. I appreciate all the good questions and thoughtful questions from my colleagues and for them doing their homework on this important report. I think that it’s important, also, to reflect on the fact that the report tells us that 90 percent of those who come to British Columbia under this program are employed, and 85 percent of them stay in B.C.

If you think about the purpose of the program, that’s a pretty important outcome. So when we want to talk about quality over quantity, I think those are important reflections — that people are invited, are nominated, and — guess what — they’re actually working. And 85 percent of them find a pathway to citizenship, which is really what this program is about. I think that’s an important factor.

The other part of the report that I think was important was…. It says: “There were generally positive income and employment outcomes.” So I think that’s a pretty positive feature of the program as well. I think the other thing is we don’t want to imply — and I know that no one has — that there are no fraud mitigation strategies in place. There are. Anybody who is thinking about maybe considering bad behaviour….

It’s not that there were not safeguards in place. There’s a way to improve the safeguards that are in place. I think it’s important to reflect on that, especially with a program as important as this one. A number of my colleagues have reflected on the fact that Canadian citizenship is a prize for many, many, many people who live outside our country.

I think it’s also important to reflect on this in the context of the world we’re living in right now. I think no one on this screen has argued that we are not going to need immigrants to come to British Columbia to help fill the jobs that we will have over the next decade.

[2:45 p.m.]

Immigration is an important part of what happens in British Columbia. Including them, inviting them, vetting them — all of those things are critical. But we can’t pretend that British Columbians can fill all the jobs because data tells us they can’t. Simply, the math doesn’t work. So having important safeguards in place matters, but it also matters that we understand that we actually do need immigrants to come and help British Columbia continue to be successful.

I have a question about the quota. It’s mentioned numerous times that British Columbia fills its quota, and it certainly has for a number of years.

British Columbia also sought to acquire additional spaces from provinces who were not using all of their allocated quota. Are we continuing to attempt to get additional spaces if other provinces are not using their quota?

C. Little: Thanks very much for the question and for the comments.

I completely agree that it would appear that the criteria that were established to select the immigrants are working when we’re seeing those kinds of outcomes, that 90 percent are employed and 85 percent stay in B.C. That certainly doesn’t happen in every province across Canada. So the outcomes that we see are strong. The other thing that’s important is that only 1 percent of the people that come through our program are on some program of social assistance or employment assistance.

I’ll just give some general remarks and then maybe pass it over to Carling, who works with the federal government really closely on consulting on annual immigration levels and what we might require in terms of the PNP allocations to align with our workforce needs.

Last year our allocation was 6,500. What we had asked the federal government for was slightly higher than that based on an analysis of our labour market that we worked with our colleagues at the Ministry of Advanced Education on just to really understand where the gaps are and where we thought we might need people in the various different occupation codes. And we put that forward to the federal government.

They do come back sometimes on an annual basis to offer more allocation, and what we have to do is intentionally look at whether or not the labour market analysis that we do with our colleagues in Advanced Education would support that additional allocation offer they may get from time to time from the federal government.

Carling, did you have anything more you wanted to add on that?

C. Helander: Sure. I’d just say that in the past year or so — this is sort of pre-COVID — our work with the Ministry of Advanced Education, Skills and Training…. We work with them on the labour market modelling to understand how many allocations we should ask the federal government for, based on our labour market needs.

Over the past few years, we have reached sort of a point of balance of having what we think is about the right number of immigrants coming to B.C. That’s in part because we have seen growth in our allocation, up to where it is now, about 6,750 per year for allocation. But the other reason why the gap has narrowed and we now have a good level of immigration to meet our needs is just that, overall, the federal government has increased the number of permanent residents that they welcome to the country quite substantially in the last few years.

Last year we actually received over 50,000 immigrants. That’s through all classes of family reunification, refugees as well as other economic streams. Although we value the PNP highly because it allows us to be targeted in our selection of newcomers that we need, we know immigrants from all streams contribute to the labour market. So when we look at the analysis with the Ministry of Advanced Education, we see that with that overall higher number of newcomers, we’ve reached a good point of balance in our current allocation, and we look forward to continuing to utilize that allocation.

S. Bond (Chair): Well, thank you for that. I know that there has always been…. British Columbia has done very well in this program over the last number of years, over two successive governments actually. So it’s important to make that point.

I just want to end with the comment about…. I just want to drive home the importance of lining up the nominations that we get with in-demand occupations.

[2:50 p.m.]

Has that principle and that practical approach continued with the ministry — that we are lining this up against the most in-demand sectors that we have? Of course, Rick has raised one, which is the tech sector, but there are others. So does the primary focus remain using this allocation…? As valuable, in a sense, as they are to employers, to the province and to the individual, do we continue to look for the most in-demand needs that we have and matching up the nominations?

C. Little: The short answer is yes. We continue to do that through the points system. This level of the job offer, the maximum number of points that you can get for that, and the higher the skill level, the higher number of points that you get. We also take into consideration things like wages, levels of education and those kinds of things.

People register in the program, as you know, and then we select those that have the high points, and we do that analysis of in-demand occupations with our colleagues at the Ministry of Advanced Education.

S. Bond (Chair): Well, thank you very much to everyone, to the Office of the Auditor General for the work that was done and for the staff that presented today. Thank you to the ministry and to my colleagues for what I think was a thoughtful and quite thorough discussion about a program that very much matters to British Columbia.

I think that the key message that hopefully we all understand is that we will not meet the job requirements of the future without, according to the latest labour market data, one-third of those being filled by immigrants to our province. We need to make sure that the program works well. We look forward to an update in the future. We thank the ministry for their information today, and I thank my colleagues for their questions.

With that, we’re going to move on to item 2. I am acutely aware of the fact that it is a Friday afternoon, and I appreciate all of the efforts of everyone on the screen to be here today. These are long weeks. I know it’s Friday, so I want to honour your time today.

The second item of business today is actually the 2020 action plans. We want to have a discussion about what those look like. What this reflects is the Office of the Auditor General providing us with their assessment of progress made by government organizations. We should note, though, that there are over 30 audit reports reflected, so I don’t think we’re expecting a line-by-line explanation here.

Last year we received a similar presentation by the Office of the Auditor General and in fact, we all did receive a binder with the action plans for 2019. As you can imagine, we did not want to be sending out to you literally dozens and dozens of documents. In light of the fact that this is a virtual meeting, it’s a little more difficult for us to delve into specific action plans. What I’ve asked Kate to do is to provide all of the action plans to the committee, and they will be on the committee’s website so that members and the public can take a look at and examine them in more detail.

What I am hoping is that at the end of the meeting, members may want to ask the subcommittee on agenda and procedure to have a conversation, after our discussion today, about any specific action plans identified by the members for further examination and to report back how we might deal with those. Again, I certainly don’t want to hinder discussion today, but I don’t think today during a virtual meeting is our chance to delve into 30 specific action plan follow-ups. Hopefully, you’ll understand that process then, that the action plans will be on the committee’s website. Members of the public as well as our members will be able to look at them.

With that, I know that we’re going to receive an overview — and Russ, the key there is overview — from the Office of the Auditor General.

[2:55 p.m.]

I should also note that I failed to introduce and recognize the comptroller general, Carl Fischer, who is also with us today. I don’t see his picture, but I see that his name is reflected here.

We’re going to ask the Office of the Auditor General to present the overview at this point.

Action Plan Progress Assessments
on Auditor General Reports

R. Jones: Thank you, Chair and committee members. We’re now going to shift gears to discuss the action plan progress assessments that auditees submitted in the spring. As you know, the APPAs provide up-to-date information on auditees’ progress in implementing our recommendations, which we use to help identify progress audits.

We also use them to provide you with recommendations on which audits could come off the list of future requests and where you may want to consider calling witnesses to further discuss an auditee’s progress.

With me today I’ve got Stuart Newton, the assistant Auditor General, and Laura Pierce, the senior manager, who together oversee the follow-up process. They’ve prepared just a really short presentation for you that covers off the key points in our briefing note, which I think members have received and which Stuart will now walk through with you.

S. Newton: So the second slide in our presentation. Like with many organizations, COVID-19 has forced us to pause and re-examine our priorities. This has meant holding off on new projects until we understand the impact that COVID-19 has had on our audit universe and what this means to our work plans. So we are not recommending any new progress audits this year.

We will, however, continue with our existing progress audits of the justice system and compliance and enforcement in the mining sector, when the timing is right. On the mining audit, that means waiting until the new amendments to the mining act have come into force and the sector has had time to adjust, and on justice, waiting until the ministry has had the capacity to respond to our audit in light of its work on COVID-19.

In the meantime, we have reached out or will be reaching out to several audit teams to better understand how actions in their APPAs align with key recommendations.

This is new for us this year. If we had time and resources, we would engage in this kind of information outreach with every auditee, but that’s not always possible. So we have taken a risk-based approach and pursued those audits where we have questions around the alignment between the actions taken and new changes in the program areas. For example, a follow-up of the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry, where the ministry’s recent status updates have covered just one-third of the inquiry’s original 65 recommendations. We will use this information we collect to inform our decisions on progress audits next year.

Next slide. The APPAs, the action plan and progress assessments, serve many purposes. As I mentioned before, they help us to decide whether or not a progress audit is warranted. They also ensure that organizations continue to be accountable to PAC for recommendations they have agreed to implement. But updating and then receiving these does require some time and effort on the part of everyone, PAC included, so we ask each of our staff whether the APPA should continue to be requested or whether they would recommend removing them.

For the most part, those audits that we recommend come off the list represent audits where most of the recommendations have been fully or substantially implemented. We have a high degree of reliability in the organization’s assessment.

That is certainly the case with the two we are recommending come off this year: the workstation support services contract and the Regional Transportation Management Centre’s cybersecurity controls. In both cases, the auditee has fully or substantially implemented the recommendations, and our office has a high degree of reliability in the auditees’ assessment, based on ongoing discussion with those organizations.

Then there’s the audit of mid-sized capital procurement and public sector institutions, which we believe would benefit from further discussions at PAC.

The level of implementation has not changed on any of the recommendations issued to the Ministry of Advanced Education since the original APPA at the end of the audit in 2016. The response this year is identical to last year’s response, except all the years have been pushed out by one on the action plan table. It would be worthwhile to understand why the Ministry of Advanced Education has not been able to make progress on these recommendations in four years.

That concludes our presentation. We have identified some areas for discussion, which we are hoping to now run through the committee for discussion. Specifically, would PAC like us to consider a specific progress audit? The Chair has mentioned that they will be available, so that’s something we can come back to.

[3:00 p.m.]

Does the committee endorse our recommendations on the audits to remove from future APPA requests, and are there any other action plan progress assessments that the committee would like us to discuss, including bringing witnesses for further discussions?

S. Bond (Chair): Thank you, Stuart.

Carl, did you have anything you wanted to add?

C. Fischer: We’ve had, actually, a good experience working with the Auditor General this year on the collection of the APPA reports. In the second year that we took a very structured approach, ministries were prepared and able to be much more responsive, knowing what to expect and what the timing would be. It has been very positive, and we look forward to working together with OAG to keep building on that improvement going forward.

The only question that we did have for discussion with OAG was how we are going to deal with the number of APPA reports where all recommendations are reported as completed. Ministries would like to move ahead and no longer be required to prepare the report once OAG agrees that their recommendations have been fulfilled. We recognize that this year is a bit of a unique year. A lot of people are working remotely, so it’s difficult to check and confirm and ask any follow-up questions. But that remains a key priority for us.

Those are our only comments at this point.

S. Bond (Chair): Thank you very much. I’m not sure how other committee members are feeling, but I for one…. I have not reviewed 30 progress audits.

I’m wondering what next steps the committee would like us to take. I think that unless anyone today specifically has recommendations for new progress audits, that is something we can certainly give some further thought to. The other two recommendations or discussion points are: are we prepared to remove the two suggested audits from the list, and are there any we would like to discuss in more detail? I’m open to your feedback on any of those discussion points.

It’s my thinking that until the 30 progress audits are posted, until we’ve had a chance to review them and take a closer look at them, we might be hard pressed to respond to these questions. We may want to bring these three discussion points back to our next meeting to have a conversation and perhaps, in the meantime, have the subcommittee meet and have a discussion about what this looks like.

I would perhaps ask Carl to comment on, which he didn’t…. As members are thinking that through, they may want to make some comments.

Carl, we heard from the Office of the Auditor General, for example, that they are recommending we bring back the Ministry of Advanced Education because their progress audit is exactly the same as it was last year. Perhaps you can give us your reaction to that or an explanation for it.

The second item that was raised, specifically by the OAG, is the issue of murdered and missing women. Again, a very limited number of items were actually addressed in that progress audit.

Perhaps, Carl, you could address those two concerns.

Then if any committee members would like to speak up or support the recommendation that I have that we post the progress audits. People get a chance to look through them. We bring this item back. That would also give members a chance, unless they have anything today, to consider whether any new progress audits are recommended.

[3:05 p.m.]

Carl, did you have an initial response to that?

C. Fischer: I have no additional information, other than what’s included in the action plan reports, on those two audits. Russ and I, I think, share an understanding that the area of procurement is a high-risk area, and it’s worth following up on regularly.

The Ministry of Advanced Education reports that they continue to work on their procurement goals or objectives in response to the Auditor’s report. The length of time relates to the nature of procurement in the post-secondary sector. We’re not talking about simple, short-term procurements for pens or paper or simple supplies. We’re talking about procurement for major capital development projects, which doesn’t happen as regularly as other types of procurement.

In terms of the response to recommendations in relation to the missing women’s report, it’s a challenging area. The recommendations are more fundamental than a simple implementation of controls that could be adopted quickly. The ministry reports that they continue to work on developing improvements in line with the Auditor General’s recommendations.

S. Bond (Chair): Okay. I think we will certainly come back to those items. I think the committee is probably going to be interested in having a return visit from those two ministries, at least, related to those two items. But we can wait and see.

M. Dean (Deputy Chair): I agree with you, Shirley. I was reflecting on the need for accountability, because that’s what our committee is here for. I wouldn’t want us to sign off on those reports and the updates without having had a bit more of an opportunity to decide how we were going to review them and feel like the committee has had a review, and it is able to hold the ministries to high standards of accountability.

I appreciate your suggestion of the subcommittee having a look at that and doing some of that work and making sure that we are working closely with the comptroller general as well.

S. Bond (Chair): Thanks for that, Mitzi. I appreciate it.

R. Glumac: Looking at appendix A, “Summary of action plan and progress assessments.” It’s a very interesting table, and I just want to make sure I understand exactly what this is telling us. Audit No. 1 around biodiversity, audit No. 12 around mid-sized capital procurement in post-secondary institutions and audit No. 15, community gaming grants — those are the only ones, at this point, that the committee has requested we bring in people to talk to us about their progress. Is that correct?

S. Bond (Chair): Kate, do you have an answer to that, or someone? I just want to make sure we understand what the question is and then provide Rick with the answer.

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of the Legislative Assembly): Yes, that’s right.

Rick, looking at the summary of action plans has identified a number that were previously identified by the committee as areas of ongoing interest. I’d have to confer with Ron on what the status of those are with respect to invitations to witnesses. They were flagged earlier — previously, I believe — in the 2019 process, as being areas of further interest and examination by your committee.

R. Glumac: Yes, they were. Yep.

[3:10 p.m.]

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of the Legislative Assembly): We have an opportunity with the conversation at this meeting and at a subsequent opportunity to identify any additional areas where further engagement with the witnesses would be of interest to the committee. It could be exercised by witnesses coming back to the committee to provide an update to the committee members, or even a written update if that seems to be helpful.

S. Bond (Chair): So, Rick, yes, the answer is you read that correctly. Do you want to carry on with your additional questions?

R. Glumac: Yeah, thank you. Also, in the table, so far only No. 9 identifies that there’s going to be a progress audit, from what I see. There won’t be progress audits on anything else at this point. Is that correct?

S. Newton: Yes.

R. Glumac: Okay. I guess my comment is, you know, looking at this table, the ones that stand out for me very clearly are the ones that have the highest number of outstanding recommendations in relation to the number that have been implemented and the ones that are the older ones. The two there that really stand out are No. 8 and No. 10 — No. 8 being the education of Aboriginal students in the B.C. public school system, and No. 10, access to adult tertiary mental health and substance abuse services.

I know there was a progress audit, it says there, done in 2019 on Aboriginal students in the B.C. public school system. And, I guess, since that progress audit, there still hasn’t been any progress on those eight recommendations that haven’t been implemented yet.

So those two, No. 8 and No. 10. It seems to me there should be some follow-up done to see what’s going on and why those aren’t being fully implemented.

R. Sultan: Chair, could I make a comment?

S. Bond (Chair): Ralph, yes, you certainly can. Does it relate to what Rick just said, or should we…?

R. Sultan: Yes, it’s very much based on Rick.

S. Bond (Chair): You go right ahead, then. If it relates to what Rick just said, please go ahead.

R. Sultan: Well, first of all, I’m with Rick on suggesting that we certainly should not just glide over some of these very long-standing APPAs. He mentioned earlier biodiversity being of particular interest, and if I’m reading the table correctly, it’s been outstanding since 2013. I think the importance of this issue to all of us merits a little bit higher priority: attention to biodiversity.

The other comment I would make pertains to the earlier report. I’m not sure, Chair, whether it was the Ministry of Education or the Ministry of Advanced Education, which seemed — did I hear correctly? — for four years running said: “Well, what the heck. Just carry on as usual, and forget those people who send us pesky reports from time to time. We’ll just ignore them.”

Well, frankly, as the Public Accounts Committee, I don’t think that’s good enough. I would say: call them on the carpet a.s.a.p., and we’ll grill them. “Why are you ignoring our findings and our advice?” We take this very seriously. I think there’s got to be a bit of a sharper tone with respect to these people who have basically ignored the process.

Those are my remarks, Chair.

S. Bond (Chair): All right. I take it that there is at least some agreement on the principle that if it’s been a long time and they’re still on this list, we probably need to have a conversation with them about why they’re still on the list and what needs to be done.

I think that the subcommittee can certainly take that as advice. I think there seems to be…. I saw a lot of nodding when Ralph was speaking about the post-secondary procurement report, which is actually recommended by the Office of the Auditor General to come back.

Am I correct in that, Stuart?

S. Newton: Yes, we are making that recommendation.

[3:15 p.m.]

S. Bond (Chair): All right. Well, I don’t know. Is that something that, looking around, the nodding…. Certainly, Ralph made that point very eloquently and energetically. Is that something that we could agree on today, that since the Auditor General thinks it should come back, we may want to actually have that happen fairly quickly in terms of our agenda planning? Does anyone have any disagreement at this point with bringing that one back, since the Auditor is recommending it?

I’m seeing a lot of nodding. Are we okay, then, to bring it back?

All right. Kate, why don’t we put that on our list of callbacks. Rick has also highlighted that we had brought forward last year as priorities…. I think you were going to check with Ron as to the status.

Mitzi made a really important point. This committee has really focused in on accountability and follow-up measures, and I think we need to take some steps to make sure that it becomes a regular part of what we do. I think that I probably need to do a better job of figuring out how to make sure that that happens. I will take that under advisement.

In the short term, then, why don’t we look at the most outdated, in that sense — or the ones that were, as Rick said, the oldest. Let’s take a look at where those are at — the two that we had asked to come back originally, and the post-secondary one. That gives us a number that we can bring back as part of a regular agenda item — have them come back to committee to explain.

In the meantime, if the rest of you…. Once the 30 progress audits are posted, if you could take a look at them and if there are any others…. We’ve heard the biodiversity one mentioned here today, both by virtue of the age of it and also the interest level. If there are others, if you could bring them to our attention, the subcommittee can have a conversation and report back to you about how we might cover those off.

I’m wondering if that sort of captures where we’re at, at the moment. I welcome any comments or feedback. But if not, that would be our next steps.

Yes, Rick. Please do a follow-up.

R. Glumac: I agree with your comments. But just specifically, in regards to the older ones and the ones that are sort of more than four years old, as they’re identified in that table — those two, No. 8 and No. 10, in particular — I wonder if we could prioritize.

I mean, to have eight out of 11 recommendations only partially or not implemented for No. 8, and nine out of ten partially or not implemented, after almost four years — well, four years, more than four years — is very troubling. So I’d love to follow up on those two in particular.

S. Bond (Chair): Does anyone have any concerns? I think that seems fairly pragmatic to me. But anyone else?

M. Dean (Deputy Chair): Well, there was a follow-up audit. The Office of the Auditor General actually went in, in 2019, in terms of Indigenous students. We have had a presentation on that quite recently. I just wonder whether we can give them a little bit more time, or we should maybe go back to what the expectations and the summary and the findings were of the report of the OAG from last year, just to see whether it’s reasonable to call that ministry back in so soon after a second audit.

S. Bond (Chair): Mm-hmm. Maybe what we do, Mitzi, to sort of accommodate both Rick’s view and yours, is we put it at the bottom of the callback list. That would give us…. We’re certainly not going to be meeting every week. So why don’t we have the OAG and the Clerk’s office have a conversation about where that one is at, because I do remember that presentation fairly recently.

Let’s not lose sight of what Rick has brought forward today. I think that let’s try to find a compromise position. It takes a lot of work for them to come back to the committee. In some cases, it’s warranted. They do need to come back and explain. Let’s put that one on the “maybe” list, but with asking some questions about that one.

M. Dean (Deputy Chair): If we could have an opportunity to just go through the list, because I think there are different risk factors. I don’t think it’s just the age or the number of recommendations. I think with some of the content, if there’s nothing being done in terms of the recommendations, or if only one or two of the recommendations are being looked at, that could be something that creates a bigger risk.

[3:20 p.m.]

I would want to kind of evaluate the whole list, just have a bit more time to evaluate it to be able to come back to either the committee or the subcommittee. I think there would be a couple of other ones that I would want to maybe move further up priority list.

S. Bond (Chair): Absolutely. I think that is the intent. Kate will get them posted for us, and hopefully, everyone will take a few minutes to go through them. I think it just gives us a bit of a body of work to get started on — certainly, the post-secondary one. From my perspective, if the Office of the Auditor General is bringing it up, I think we would probably want to respond to that one fairly quickly.

Biodiversity has been raised more than once at this committee, so I think we need to make sure that one is covered off.

Each of you, please take the opportunity to review them, and then you can send in your ideas and ones that you are concerned about. Hopefully, between us it doesn’t cover off all 30 of them, or we’re going to be at it for quite some time. But Kate will have those posted so that we can all take a look at them.

It was just a bit awkward today in trying to get all of them out. There is a large body of work, shall we say.

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of the Legislative Assembly): I just wanted to advise the committee that with the help of our team in the committee’s office, those action plans are now available on the committee’s website. I’ll share a link to them all with everyone shortly. I also had a chance to just check our records and the progress audit on the audit of education for Indigenous students. The progress audit was considered in September 2019, so relatively recently. You’re quite correct.

We will definitely look forward to assisting the subcommittee in organizing how you would like to consider a plan for all of the progress audits. If any members would like to receive a printout of these documents, rather than looking at the individual links on our website, please let me know. I will send you a link to the page, but if it’s easier for you to review them in paper format, we’d be happy to send to your office a binder along those lines.

S. Bond (Chair): Are there any further comments at this point on this item? All right.

Thank you, Stuart, for your presentation. Thank you to the Office of the Auditor General for that work. We do appreciate it.

Information from Audited Organizations

MINISTRY OF CITIZENS’ SERVICES,
MINISTRY OF EDUCATION,
MINISTRY OF ATTORNEY GENERAL

S. Bond (Chair): I’d like to move on, then, to item 3, which is actually just information. Of course, you’re welcome to ask questions if there’s anything, but it is information that was received by the committee as a result of specific requests.

We received, on December 18, information from the Ministry of Citizens’ Services regarding a November re­quest on the B.C. government’s internal directory account management. You will have received that.

On December 19, we received from the Ministry of Education a follow-up related to executive expenses. We certainly got a lot of information on that front, on executive expenses at school district 36.

On January 29, we received information from the Ministry of Attorney General regarding our December request related to managing human resources at the B.C. sheriff services. There was additional information provided there, specifically around recruitment but also on some mental health and addictions issues.

Those three items have been provided to you. Does anyone have any questions, concerns or comments about those pieces of additional information?

R. Sultan: I see that Jane and I are responsible for initiating these questions concerning the sheriff services. If my memory serves me correctly, the issue that I, at least, was concerned about was the human resources policies of this important arm of government, and the turnover.

According to the information — I find this very interesting — the turnover rate in the sheriff services is 7.3 percent. You might say: “Well, that’s significant.” But compare it to the public service as a whole, and it’s 8.2. Corrections services is 10.7 percent, and the RCMP is 13 percent. The sheriff services really has a turnover rate significantly lower than these other important arms of government.

[3:25 p.m.]

The only group exceeding them in terms of low turn­over is our conservation officers. To me, that casts new light on what I seem to recall we thought was almost an emergency situation. At least, that’s what I was concluding, and I think that was a dead-wrong conclusion. Thank you for that information.

S. Bond (Chair): I appreciate that it does change the context of the questions, doesn’t it, that we’ll be asking next time around. I think that’s important to note. The sheriff services is actually doing better than some of our other public services.

Did anyone else have questions or comments?

J. Thornthwaite: On that same letter, there were some details on how many times the sheriffs had to administer naloxone. Obviously, we’ve only got 2019. We don’t have any of the 2020. Obviously, it would be very interesting to see how that has probably gone up significantly in 2020 as well as during COVID.

Even though this data is not available, just to kind of put it on the record, it would be helpful to have information on the mental health challenges. I’m sure that there are mental health challenges, but the answer in the letter said that there is no available data on that. So what does that mean? Like, nobody is keeping track?

Given the fact we know, with the most recent controversies with the police and these wellness checks and the fact that perhaps there should be nurses and mental health professionals accompanying police on these increasingly complex mental health calls, I’d like to get a little bit more of a feel of what’s going on with the sheriffs. I get that it’s not the same job. But the fact that there is no data collected for the number of incidences involving mental health I think is a bit weird. It kind of popped out at me.

I don’t know if we can do anything about that, but it would be very interesting to see the answer to that question.

S. Bond (Chair): All right. Perhaps, Kate, we could have Ron reconnect with the sheriffs to just simply ask. If it’s currently not data that’s collected, perhaps we would like to ask the question as to why and if that would be something they’re considering, moving forward, if the data is not available. But certainly ask if they have other ways of measuring the complexity of a response and an engagement. Perhaps that’s the best way to characterize that.

Thank you for that, Jane. We’ll try to see if we can press a little bit more. Worst-case scenario, we can always have someone come back and speak to us specifically about that, should that be necessary.

Does anyone have any other comments on the information that we received?

Kate, is a motion required, or is it simply just for information at this point?

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of the Legislative Assembly): Yes, on behalf of the committee, I think Ron and I can action the request as described. We will follow up with the sheriff services to inquire further around their capacity to collect information with respect to mental health incidents. They did mention there is limited data on the number of incidents involving clients with mental health or addiction, but they do have an incident-tracking system.

We will circle back to them with that suggestion and also seek, if I understood Jane correctly, an update on any available 2020 data with respect to the same statistical areas that we received this update from them on.

S. Bond (Chair): That would be very helpful. I’ll go to Jane in just a moment. But if they have sort of an incident-tracking, data-tracking mechanism, one would assume that in this day and age, being able to have some sense of whether mental health is part of the assessment that’s done…. One would think that would be fairly natural for them to be tracking, so let’s probe that a little bit further.

Jane, did you want to make a further comment on that?

J. Thornthwaite: I wanted to comment on the letter to Carl from Stephen Brown. Is this the right time to mention that?

S. Bond (Chair): Yes. I think that actually was part of the previous item, but I should have raised that. I apologize for skipping over that one so quickly.

[3:30 p.m.]

Let’s finish this item first. Are there any other comments on the pieces of information that we received? We will do the follow-up as has been suggested.

All right. Jane, why don’t you, then, speak to Stephen Brown’s letter to Carl.

J. Thornthwaite: Yeah. I get that there are a lot of things that are on hold because of COVID, but the opioid crisis is our second public health emergency and has been going on for, now, more than four years. We know that the overdose death rates were at an all-time high in the month of May and are probably going to be worse in June.

Last Friday paramedics in British Columbia reported their highest number of total overdoses. This would probably be non-fatal overdoses, which don’t show up in the coroner’s report, unfortunately. I’ve been kind of drumming this issue in the House for years — that the total number of overdoses has steadily been increasing for several years. Last Friday had the highest number of total overdoses ever reported. I think it was 130 in one day.

This whole issue of overdoses, whether they be fatal or not, is a huge issue. I would hope government and perhaps the Public Accounts would maybe put this more of a priority with regard to what we’re doing to prevent overdoses and obviously treat those with mental health and addictions.

I wanted to follow up on this letter from Stephen Brown that everything is kind of on hold. Given the fact that during this COVID pandemic, the overdose crisis is getting worse by the day, I just want to put my opinions in there that perhaps, as soon as we can, we rejuvenate this interest in data collection so that we can get to the bottom of the two public health emergencies.

S. Bond (Chair): Maybe pursuing that for Jane just for a moment or two, Stephen Brown’s letter to Carl Fischer does actually speak about continuing improvement to opioid overdose responses during COVID-19. It says that they continue to work closely with BCEHS.

Carl and Russ, on behalf of the Auditor General’s office, can you give us a sense of any work that either the Auditor’s office is doing or that Carl and his team are doing in terms of a future look at the response to drug overdose in the province? You’ve certainly heard from one of our members. And I’m sure many people on this screen are deeply concerned about the numbers and, as it has been described, our second public health crisis.

Russ, is any work underway? Is any being contemplated from that perspective?

Carl, could you speak to Stephen Brown’s letter? I think all of us were very understanding that they have a lot on their plate right now when it comes to other recommendations. I think we were quite thoughtful about understanding that. But is there any thought of singling out, for example, opioid overdose responses and asking for a follow-up report on that or some reaction to that?

Hopefully, that captures Jane’s very legitimate concerns.

Russ, do you want to start?

Then, Carl, you can speak to Stephen Brown’s letter and how we might get an update, because he does suggest that work is obviously continuing.

R. Jones: Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Jane. Good points.

It is something that is currently being talked about across the country in a number of the AG offices. There have been a couple of reports done — one, I think, in Saskatchewan recently. I forget where the other one was. We’re in the midst of, right now, updating our three-year performance audit coverage plan, and it is one of the topics that is on the list.

[3:35 p.m.]

We have a lot on the list right at the moment, given what’s going on, but it is one that, as I say, is not only of interest to our office but across the country. We’re trying to figure out, also across the country, whether that is a joint audit that might be done in a number of provinces to take a look at what’s being done. So I’ll take this, definitely, back to our team that’s looking at updating the audit coverage plan and maybe see if we can elevate it to a higher level. But it certainly is on the list and not just in this province. It is an issue.

S. Bond (Chair): Thank you for that, Russ. We look forward to a bit of an update on that anyway as you review that plan.

Carl, would you like to speak to that paragraph which is included in the letter? The letter is written to you, that while officially the work is on hold, there is continued work being done closely and collaboratively with communities and also EHS related to opioid overdose.

Can you give us a sense of what we could expect to potentially hear back from Health on that? We understand that they are very busy. We’re not piling on here, but obviously, it is a pretty critical issue in British Columbia right now, so can you comment, please?

C. Fischer: Absolutely. I did speak to the ministry about the letter after I received it. You are quite correct. They wanted to be very express that this is a high priority for not just the ministry but for all of government. It is a crisis, and there was concern at the beginning of the COVID-19 epidemic here in British Columbia that societal disruption caused by the epidemic could drive an increase in overdose and self-harm throughout society.

Their point was to say that despite the fact that they will continue responding to all of the recommendations in the Auditor General’s report, now is the time when they have to redouble their efforts to focus on proactive engagement with first responders, with communities to prepare for the potential for an explosion in overdose tragedies across the province. They wanted to provide the letter to acknowledge that even though they have to shift their focus to immediate action and they wouldn’t be focusing as much attention on, I guess, the policy response that supports the APPA response, it isn’t forgotten. They will pick it up as soon as they are able to after COVID-19 and resume the regular reporting cycle.

I don’t have any information about how their experience during this period will inform their progress on the rec­ommendations, but I expect we will hear that at the end. Of course, one of the biggest challenges we’re all grappling with is that we have no way of knowing how long the current epidemic emergency will go on and how it will impact all of the related emergencies, like the opioid crisis here.

The ministry has been very responsive. They want to be proactive, and the purpose of this letter is to inform the committee that despite the fact that they did have to refocus their efforts on immediate reaction to an impending crisis, they have not forgotten about the recommendations more broadly that the Auditor General and the committee had talked about.

S. Bond (Chair): Well, I thank you for that. I think the point is we understand that the progress report is going to be delayed and that some of that work is on hold, and no one would be expecting Health to juggle a lot more than they’re already handling — and doing it quite admirably, when you think about the magnitude of the challenge.

[3:40 p.m.]

The point being made, though, is more specifically to the second crisis that we face in British Columbia. Perhaps, Carl, between yourself and Russ, you could at least have a discussion about what PAC can expect to hear, in what format, and how soon, on what measures are being taken to deal with the second crisis that we’re facing. I think that was the point that was being made. We won’t belabour it, but I think it is important to keep it on the radar screen.

We understand that the other recommendations are on hold until such time that we have managed our way through a pandemic. I think all of us are very accepting and understanding of that. It’s just that we have another crisis at the same time that we need to be giving some attention to.

Sorry, Jane. Go ahead. Then I’m going to take us to our last item on the agenda.

J. Thornthwaite: Yeah. Just to quickly add that we also know that the COVID pandemic is exacerbating the opioid public health emergency. It’s not like they’re separate, even though they are separate. One is feeding off the other, and there are a lot of things that are going on with regards to the opioid crisis that are directly related to COVID.

I won’t belabour all those issues. I just wanted to reiterate the fact that they’re totally related and that the opioid crisis is getting worse.

Canadian Council of Public Accounts
Committees Conference

S. Bond (Chair): We certainly know that there are lots of impacts of the pandemic, and that is one of them. I know that public accounts committees….

It’s a great segue into, actually, our discussion of the last item on the agenda today. There is a great deal of interest across the country in terms of talking a little bit about the implications of COVID, especially for public accounts committees.

I should let you know that I have very much appreciated the work that the committee did in looking at what we might do, looking at possible topics, all of those kinds of things, for the national CCPAC annual conference for 2020. As you can imagine, it will not be physically taking place in our province, but I think there was some good discussion about the potential for a creative approach to that.

I wanted to give you just a quick update on where we have landed with CCPAC’s annual conference. While the program is still in draft, I’m really pleased to say we have been working very closely…. Again, thank you to the Clerk’s office — Kate, in particular. Also to the Office of the Auditor General, who have been working on the Auditor’s side. As you know, these events are typically in tandem.

We’ve had a number of conference calls with participants from Alberta and Ontario. Alberta is the upcoming host. I believe that’s in 2021.

Is it, Kate?

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of the Legislative Assembly): Yes, that’s right.

S. Bond (Chair): Yeah, 2021. Just as we were on the call a week or two…. I can’t remember. It was maybe a little longer than that. I’m sorry. My world has changed dramatically. So I’m trying to think of even what day it is. Alberta was already creating their promo video for 2021. They’re quite excited about hosting in 2021.

I’m very pleased to tell you that there is a great deal of interest in a half-day virtual conference for British Columbia to host. We have now received, I think, sign-off on the date. It was done in consultation with the other provinces. I’m very pleased to tell you that the date that has been selected is Thursday, September 10. We’ve managed to work out timing so that everyone will be able to participate across the country.

You’ll be thrilled to know, of course, that because we have Pacific time, we’ll be participating in the morning, while other provinces will be participating much later in the day. It works quite nicely for a half-day event. The title will still be: “Maintaining focus in a time of disruption.”

Thank you, Ralph Sultan, for that wonderful topic you provided for us.

We’re beginning now to put together some of the pieces. There has been a lot of interest in looking at the impact of COVID. We’ve provided you with a very brief potential draft program. We’re working on filling in some of those details.

[3:45 p.m.]

There was a lot of interest in having Meg Hillier come back and speak to us from a second-year perspective. I know for those of us who heard her, she was fantastic. She’s from the U.K., and she was the Chair of the PAC in the United Kingdom. I think an initial reach-out has been done to Meg.

I bring this to your attention only to let you know. Please put a hold-the-date in your calendars for September 10. It’s a Thursday.

Further work will be done as we begin to put some of the pieces in place. But generally speaking, well received across the country, lots of interest. I think Russ has been working to ensure that the auditors across the country are on side as well.

Kate, did you want to add any additional comment?

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of the Legislative Assembly): I think that covers much of what we had wanted to share with members. We had a draft program as part of the meeting materials. So members will have had a chance to look at that.

As Shirley mentioned, following guest speaker Meg Hillier’s comments, there will be an opportunity for representatives of all of the public accounts committees across the country and their Auditors General to share a brief overview of work in their respective jurisdictions.

We’re also hoping — and we’ve been thinking behind the scenes as well — to reach out to all of the PAC colleagues across the coun­try, providing them with a formal invitation relatively soon and also seeking from each jurisdiction a bit of a written backgrounder, if I might, just outlining some of the key activities for each of the committees over the past year as a way of informing some meeting attendees who may be attending for their first time. Some conference delegates may be returning for a subsequent time at CCPAC-CCOLA, but for those who are new, we thought that might be a helpful backgrounder to share.

We will be in touch with all of the members, of course, of the B.C. PAC, as well as other colleagues across the country, and continue our work with the Chair and the Deputy Chair as we develop other portions of this half-day virtual program.

S. Bond (Chair): The great news is that there was a great deal of interest across the country, lots of support. Alberta has been fantastic in terms of partnering, as has Ontario, who, of course, hosted the event last year. Their PAC Clerk, I guess we would call him, has been very helpful.

As you can imagine, one of the challenges we’re sorting out is how we do a translation. Of course, with it being a national event, we would require simultaneous trans­lation in the official languages. We’ll be working on that.

We will certainly be keeping you posted, and I’ll be working closely with Mitzi as we finalize the details. I’m grateful that that’s one body of work that is underway, and hopefully, we can manage that.

Russ, perhaps if you wouldn’t mind making a couple of comments.

Kate would like permission to do a screen shot. So everybody get their best face on. Make sure that your hair is fixed, and we’ll get that done. Everybody looks pretty good, from my perspective.

Kate, whenever you’re ready, can you do that while Russ is going to update us.

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of the Legislative Assembly): Okay. Thank you.

R. Jones: I was just going to say, Chair, that since the first of April, I’ve been chairing the CCOLA group. Every Thursday morning we have an hour discussion about COVID and how it’s impacting each one of the provinces.

For years, I’ve heard that it has been very difficult to get the AGs together, quarterly even, to have a meeting, but I don’t think anybody has missed one of those meetings since the first of April. It is top of mind with everybody.

I did let Alberta and Ontario definitely know, and B.C., that we might be called upon to provide even a little more information than some of the other provinces. They’re all set for that. The only thing that came up last week, I think, when we were chatting was from Saskatchewan. Apparently, I think they have an election in the fall, so the PAC from there might not be able to come.

Everybody is excited about it. So it’s good.

[3:50 p.m.]

S. Bond (Chair): Well, thank you for that. We appreciate it.

There’s certainly been a lot of interest in sort of the post-COVID world or mid-post or whatever it happens to be — who knows? — about accountability and value for money and all of those kinds of things, because everyone across the country is going to be in a relatively similar boat when it comes to the fiscal circumstances they find themselves in. We’re going to be working our way through those kinds of issues.

I hope everyone’s comfortable with that approach.

With that, I hope to be able to give you back….

Oh sorry, Kate. Go ahead.

Consideration of Draft Report

REPORT ON
SUMMARY OF ACTIVITIES 2019-20

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of the Legislative Assembly): If I might, Madam Chair, I’ll just mention that we have been working with you and Mitzi, the Deputy Chair, on reviewing an annual summary report of your committee, which is still in draft form but, I hope, nearing completion.

Following this meeting, I just wanted to share with members that we will be sending a copy of that draft report to all committee members for their review. Then perhaps at a subsequent opportunity, the committee could formally meet to consider and either amend or approve that report for presentation in the House this summer.

S. Bond (Chair): Yes, I did have that on my additional list of things. I apologize for not raising that.

Thank you, Kate. I should just say to you that you should be proud of the body…. It is an extensive….

Mitzi and I have reviewed the initial draft, and it is a very extensive body of work that we have done together as a PAC. It speaks very clearly to the hard work that you do as committee members, our Clerk does, our Auditor General’s office.

We’ve had a lot to do this year, with Carol’s departure and Russ stepping in and all of those kinds of things. There’s been a lot, and that is reflected in the report.

With that, I hope to give you back at least half an hour of your life as you head into the weekend. I would entertain a motion to adjourn.

Mitzi. Is there a seconder? Jane.

Motion approved.

The committee adjourned at 3:52 p.m.