The committee met at 3:03 p.m.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Approval of Agenda and Minutes

Mr. Speaker: The first item on the agenda is approval of the draft agenda.

Any changes to the agenda? If not, may I have a motion to adopt the agenda, please?

B. D’Eith: So moved.

Motion approved.

Mr. Speaker: Then the second item is review and approval of the draft minutes of the March 8, 2021, meeting of the committee.

Any changes to the minutes? None. Then may I have a motion to adopt the minutes as circulated?

S. Cadieux: So moved.

Motion approved.

Mr. Speaker: Item 3 is the update from the Clerk.

Kate, please take us through it.

Clerk’s Update

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of the Legislative Assembly): Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

Good afternoon, Members. I always appreciate this opportunity to provide you with an update on many topics.

[3:05 p.m.]

We have been very busy since your last meeting on March 8, but, given your fulsome agenda, I will try to move through this as quickly as I can.

First, I’d like to begin with an introduction. Andrew Spence, our new chief information officer, is joining his first Legislative Assembly Management Committee meeting this afternoon. I wanted to welcome him.

Andrew takes on an important and valued leadership role with respect to overseeing our information technology services, information management solutions and initiatives. Andrew will be leading four of our departments: the IT department, our digital information office, the Legislative Library and Hansard Services. In Andrew’s previous position, he served as vice-president of planning and technology for the B.C. Oil and Gas Commission. I know he will make a great addition to our Clerk’s leadership team.

Another new colleague who I’d like to introduce — however, she’s not present this afternoon — is Amber Locke, a new colleague in our human resources team who began on April 26 as a human resources consultant for member services. Members may recall from our Vote 1 budget build process that Amber’s new position within the HR department is a dedicated in-house resource available to support members and caucuses with their human resource needs. I just wanted to flag her arrival to you all.

Also, there are a number of organizational initiatives that I’d like to update the committee on this afternoon. Our Clerk’s leadership group has been very busy and focused on a number of important organizational initiatives, three of which stem from the 2020 workplace review recommendations.

First is a topic related to strategic planning. We have embarked on a participatory strategic planning process for the entire Legislative Assembly administration. An external consultant has been retained to facilitate broad staff engagement on our first multi-year strategic plan. The plan is nearing completion, I hope by the end of June, and will help set out our organizational priorities and strategic direction for the next three years. The plan will also serve to guide our decisions and help focus resources so that the assembly administration is best able to respond and adapt to members’ needs.

The plan will be brought forward to your committee, as our governing body of the Legislative Assembly, for consideration and approval, and we will ensure that you also receive regular reports of our progress against the plan on a regular basis throughout the life of the plan.

Another initiative which flows from the workplace review recommendations is a new internal communications plan that was launched just in April. The internal communications plan establishes a framework that entrenches best practices and clarifies communications roles and responsibilities organization-wide.

Based on data from an all-staff survey and observations from the workplace review report, the internal communications plan aims to help develop coordination with more timely communications on consistent channels, sharing organizational goals and priorities and promoting alignment across the organization. We’re also aiming for it to help enhance trust in the organization, improve transparency and foster collaboration throughout the Legislative Assembly administration.

Also, I’m happy to note that a new framework on governance and decision-making within the administrative ranks has also been produced. Legislative Assembly administration governance framework document is an initial stepping stone that will fit within the broader organizational governance work and initiatives that I anticipate your committee will be considering later this year. This initial governance document, aimed at staff, is focused on providing clarity on how operational and departmental decisions are made at the Legislative Assembly and by whom. It outlines roles and responsibilities for those who serve in a departmental, managerial or leadership role and also describes the structures that exist to support our decision-making.

Every employee of the administration can contribute to decision-making in some way. As you know, we strive to be an organization where employees’ participation and contributions to decision-making are encouraged and welcome.

With the completion of these three initiatives, I’m happy to report to the committee that all of our action plan commitments, which were in response to the nine recommendations in the Workplace Review report released last July, are now complete.

With the completion of these action plan commitments, I think we’re at a great milestone. We look forward to the work that lies ahead, but I certainly wanted to take this opportunity to thank all of my CLG colleagues — the Clerk’s leadership team — with us today, as well as other colleagues in the organization who helped us complete that important work.

[3:10 p.m.]

Last month we also launched an employee engagement survey for all assembly staff, and we intend to use that as a metric, year over year, to measure some aspects of our workplace environment as we strive to continuously improve.

Also, with respect to IT…. I know Andrew is here, but I will also offer a brief budget update with respect to IT. As you may recall from our 2021-22 budget submission to your committee, our IT budget was initially framed as a preliminary one, pending the development of an integrated IT road map to address additional technology re­quirements and identified cybersecurity risks, as outlined in the November 2020 service outage report.

Last month I advised the subcommittee on finance and audit of three areas of unplanned IT expenditures that are being made in support of the Legislative Assembly. These three areas of investment are completion of MLA, constituency office and caucus services personal device deployments; second, work commencing on the remediation of cybersecurity risks; and third, completion of the work of the temporary IT priority response team.

Now, given that we’re only two months into the current fiscal, we are continuing to monitor very carefully all of the budgetary pressures in IT and will provide a more detailed fiscal and project update following an assessment of an integrated road map, which is very much in Andrew’s hands at the moment, as compared to the current IT budget. I’m happy to keep the committee informed of any areas where additional expenditures may be needed or planned initiatives might be deferred, given other competing priority initiatives.

Finally, I’ll just wrap up on a quick policy note. Our policy work continues. I think you will hearing more about it today from Artour. We’ve recently completed and implemented a new employee concern policy. We recognize that employee concerns are a natural occurrence in any healthy work environment, and we’re committed to considering and responding to any employee concerns which may arise with respect to their employment, and to do so in a fair and timely manner. Our new policy seeks to provide a problem-solving process to resolve employee concerns regarding the terms and conditions of employment. Employees are invited to attend Q-and-A, question-and-answer, sessions to learn more and to ask questions about the new policy, and those sessions are taking place this week.

That completes my update to you this afternoon. I’d be happy to provide any further information or answer any questions that members might have.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: Thank you, Kate. It’s really good to see that we are implementing many of these initiatives that you have outlined in your report to make sure that staff issues are taken care of, that all employees feel respected at the workplace. So it’s absolutely essential. Those steps are very important.

B. D’Eith: Thanks, Kate. Just a question. Are there any outstanding positions for HR that are still needing to be filled?

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of the Legislative Assembly): I’m pleased to report…. Jamie, who’s with us this afternoon, can confirm, but I believe all of the positions that were approved in the budget submission presented to you earlier this calendar year for this current fiscal have now been filled. There are a number of new additions to the team.

Jamie, can you confirm?

J. Hanly: That’s correct. All of our positions have been filled. The last vacant position we had was just filled today, and it was a payroll position. So yes, everything’s been filled.

B. D’Eith: Great. Excellent. Thank you.

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of the Legislative Assembly): Just for clarity, though, Bob, there are a number of other positions that were approved in the budget cycle that we’re still working to fulfil at this time. Across the board, there was a range of new positions approved in different departments, and we’re still on track to fill those, but not all of them are filled yet at this point.

Mr. Speaker: Any further discussions or questions for Kate?

If not, thank you, Kate, for your report.

Let’s move to item 4, and that is the 2020-21 quarter 4 financial update.

Mike and Hilary, please walk us through that.

Consideration of
Quarterly Financial Statements

M. Burke: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. These are the unaudited financial statements of the year ended March 31, 2021. As you’ll see in the green highlights there, total operating expenses were underspent against budget by $5.5 million.

[3:15 p.m.]

The total budget was $85 million. This represents a 6.4 percent underspend. Total capital expenses were underspent by $1.2 million against a budget of $5.9 million. This represents a 20.8 percent underspend.

Focusing on the operational costs, at the bottom of page 1, the underspend is broken down into three main areas.

Members services — there were savings of $600,000. This was effected by reduced travel, no MLA salary increases, and this is partially offset by the transitional assistance and allowance costs as a result of the snap election.

The second area is caucus support services. This produced savings of $200,000 as a result of reduced salaries and benefits due to vacancies and reduced travel as a result of COVID.

The third area is administrative support services. This produced the biggest savings of $4.7 million, and this was effected by reduced salaries and benefits as a result of vacancies, reduced travel due to COVID, and modified House and committee activities. Those were also due to COVID.

The last year has been an unusual one for the Legislative Assembly, with three significant events that impacted operations: the COVID-19, the snap election and the network breach. These different events impacted various departments, resulting in unanticipated costs — for example, transitional assistance; or savings — for example, reduced travel. The detailed explanations of these variances by department are covered in the report, but I wanted to discuss the underspend that resulted.

At the bottom of page 2 there, the total underspend was $5.5 million. Using an analysis by STOB, salary and benefits were the single biggest contributing factor, accounting for $4.4 million of the $5.5 million underspend.

The main areas impacted were the Sergeant-at-Arms. This has reduced overtime and staff on site, in addition to the vacant Sergeant-at-Arms position. There’s also the parliamentary education office, which cancelled summer programs, and the gift shop was closed. Also, I’d like to mention the parliamentary dining room, which was closed for part of the year, which reduced any further vacancies.

Unused contingencies were another contributing factor to the savings and lower than anticipated amortization expense, as a result of the delay in completion of capital projects.

Looking forward, during the budgeting process for the current fiscal year, we asked department heads to drill down the details of their budget requests. Then we looked for ways to reduce the underspend. As a result of the factors identified, we introduced the following initiatives.

The first one was the vacancy discount, where we reduced the total salary and benefits budget request for each department by 2 percent to allow for staff turnover, etc. We also reviewed contingencies across the organization and flushed out unneeded contingencies which were identified. Of course, the pandemic is still a concern and could impact operations further.

Moving onto page 5, looking at the capital expenditures, the total underspend was $1.2 million on a budget of $5.9 million. At a high level, the main contributing factors to this underspend were produced from the capital planning department and the IT department. The capital planning department produced savings that were approximately $1.5 million, as a result of project delays due to supply chain challenges and funding set aside for IT projects. The IT department incurred additional costs of approximately $1.1 million. The centralized contingency of $500,000 was primarily set aside for the IT projects.

With that, I’m happy to open up to any questions.

Mr. Speaker: Hilary, do you want to add anything before we get into discussions?

H. Woodward: I think Mike did an excellent job highlighting the areas of underspend. We’d be happy to take any questions.

Mr. Speaker: Any questions? All right.

[3:20 p.m.]

I also want to say this to members and those who are listening as well. Staff had asked me to remind the committee that now the committee has considered the quarterly update, and in accordance with the decision the committee made earlier this year, the quarterly update will be posted on the Legislative Assembly’s website, which I am advised will be happening tomorrow morning.

Is that correct, Mike?

Artour said yes. Okay. It will be done tomorrow morning.

Any further questions? None. Thank you very much.

Let’s move to item 5, which is the 2019-20 financial statements and accountability report, which also includes the recommendation from the subcommittee on finance and audit.

Kate and Hilary will walk us through.

Financial Statements
and Legislative Assembly
Accountability Report

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of the Legislative Assembly): Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I welcome Hilary’s comments with the next two agenda items as well. The financial statements, as you know, are a component of the draft accountability report for 2019-20, which is agenda item 6. Both are presented to your committee this afternoon for consideration.

As this work has….The financial statements have been audited by the Office of the Auditor General. I think it’s appropriate at this point to acknowledge and recognize that Russ Jones, Deputy Auditor General, joins the committee this afternoon, as well as our financial statement audit lead, Paul Nyquist.

As recently advised, Paul is no longer going to be continuing as our auditor on the financial file. I just wanted to briefly thank him for his work and collegial and professional approach over past years. It’s been much appreciated.

This afternoon your committee has an opportunity to consider and adopt the Legislative Assembly’s audited 2019-20 financial statements. The draft motion is prepared for you and has been circulated with the meeting materials. The financial statements, as presented, have been reviewed and have received a clean audit opinion — or I guess a draft opinion, at this point — from the Office of the Auditor General. That opinion, of course, is very good news and an important step with respect to sustaining transparency and trust in our financial operations.

In the information package that was circulated in support of the meeting, the draft accountability report was shared with you. You will see within the text of that report that the report actually incorporates the 2019-20 financial statements.

There are also a number of other components to the accountability report which members who haven’t previously served on the Legislative Assembly Management Committee may not have had an opportunity to see. The report summarizes a number of key goals and activities for the Legislative Assembly administration. Those are outlined, I believe, beginning on page ten of the report. There’s a series of performance measures and indicators on page 19 and some comparable results, as well, going back to 2016-17.

As you progress through the report, you will see the financial statements begin on, I believe, page 34. The financial statements have been prepared by Legislative Assembly management. They’re also accompanied by a detailed management discussion and analysis component that helps to explain and interpret the financial results, which are, in essence, at the heart of the document. It is a very robust presentation of information to you.

On page 35, Hilary, as our executive financial officer, and I, as the Clerk of the assembly, will sign off on a statement of management responsibility in the final version of this report.

Then, on page 38, on behalf of the committee and the Legislative Assembly, there’s an opportunity for a sign-off by the Speaker as well as the Government House Leader, the Opposition House Leader and the House Leader of the Third Party, with respect to the statement of financial position.

With that being said…. I’ll just note that the intention, I think, this afternoon, after any additional comments from Hilary or questions from committee members, is to seek your support of the recommendation of the subcommittee on finance and audit, who recommended that the financial statements be approved as presented. Subsequent to that, we’re seeking the committee’s consideration of a motion to adopt, as presented, the accountability report for 2019-20, with one caveat that a small typo has subsequently been caught since the report was circulated to you.

[3:25 p.m.]

I’ll pause there and invite, if I might, Mr. Speaker, Hilary to make any additional comments that she wishes to offer.

Mr. Speaker: Sure.

Hilary.

H. Woodward: Great. Thank you, Kate and Mr. Speaker.

I actually don’t have too much to add. I think Kate has done a very good job in terms of outlining the financial statements and pointing out where sign-off is still required. I will, though, point out for this committee that this is actually the seventh set of independent audited financial statements for the Legislative Assembly. I just wanted to make that note.

Those are all my comments. I’m happy to answer any questions.

Mr. Speaker: Any discussion?

B. D’Eith: Yeah. I just wanted to make sure…. I remember Sonia had a query. Was that the typo you were talking about, Kate, or was there something else? I remember there were some language issues in the subcommittee.

H. Woodward: I can respond to that. The typo wasn’t in the financial statements; it was in an earlier section of the accountability report. The reference that you’re making…. That edit was to one of the notes to the financial statements, and it was made. It’s incorporated in this document.

B. D’Eith: Okay. Thank you so much.

M. Babchuk: Thank you very much for this document. I wasn’t around when some of it started, for the 2019 year. Thanks for the back history on that.

I do have a question around goal 1, which is adapting House and committee procedures. It discusses the inception of the hybrid model.

I am wondering if there is any discussion that is going on — maybe in the participatory, strategic planning piece that you were talking about earlier, Kate — in regard to what technology looks like in our post-pandemic Legislature and if there are any efficiencies or lessons learned or effective tools that we have to move forward, or do we just go back to the same old system that we had before?

I do believe that there were some efficiencies that we did find through that. I was just wondering if there was discussion, through any other process, around that right now.

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of the Legislative Assembly): Thank you very much for the question, Michele.

The participatory strategic planning process that we’re currently engaged in with staff seeks to find an opportunity to articulate a common vision, principles, values and purpose for the administration as a whole. We recognize, through that process, how important it is for us to build organizational capacity in order to be able to serve the Members of the Legislative Assembly and anticipate their future needs.

The work that was undertaken in the period that’s captured in this report really focuses on that single day, March 23, 2020, when the House came together for the very first time, with a very small number of members, to consider, on an urgent basis, budgetary and legislative measures to deal with the pandemic in its earliest of days. I was very proud of the team that came together to respond in that moment. Subsequently, by June, of course, we were sitting in a hybrid model.

We are here to serve the Members of the Legislative Assembly. We want to ensure that all of our staff in every department are set up to be successful in that endeavour. But the decision, ultimately, about whether or not to continue proceedings of the House in a hybrid format very much rests in the hands of the Members of the House, I’m sure, with your colleagues and with the leadership of the Speaker.

I’d certainly welcome exploring any options for the continuance or adaptation of hybrid sittings at the direction of the members of this committee. In particular, the House Leaders and the Speaker, I’m sure, are already turning their minds to what that future looks like.

Hon. M. Farnworth: We are going back to a regular session in the fall.

Mr. Speaker: We will discuss.

Any questions?

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of the Legislative Assembly): We are here to serve the members. We are here to serve. We are hoping to support you in the very best possible way. Technology, of course….

Michele, just further to your question, we recognize that many of the challenges of the past year were complicated by our inability to fully understand and appreciate the needs of the members on the ground during the transition period following the general election.

[3:30 p.m.]

We learned a lot more about how to best serve constituency offices, for example, and how to better understand the needs of caucuses. I do concur that it’s an important priority for the organization to be able to innovate and to respond in anticipation of members’ changing and evolving needs.

M. Babchuk: Thank you, Kate. I appreciate that. I don’t have the answers, just to let you know, but I do know that maybe it should be something that we do take a look at moving forward. If the typo is on page 7 and it deals with my name in the accountability report, then I will accept the amendment there as well.

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of the Legislative Assembly): I confess that was not the typo that we had identified, but I’m grateful, Michele, for you bringing that to our attention this afternoon. My apologies.

Mr. Speaker: Okay. Any further comments, discussions or debate? Members, your feedback is absolutely essential on all these matters. That helps us to move forward.

If no further questions, then I would ask to have the first motion as outlined in the briefing notes on the financial statements.

Artour, can you put that on the screen?

A. Sogomonian (Clerk Assistant, Parliamentary Services): Yes, I can. If I may, I don’t know if you want to give the auditors an opportunity to provide comment if they wish, before we move to the motion.

Mr. Speaker: Of course.

Russ.

R. Jones: No, no comments. We had a good discussion at the subcommittee, and went through the statements and our report with the subcommittee. Just thanks to management for getting us all the information. I know it’s a little bit late in terms of getting out those financial statements, but it has been an interesting time over the last year and a half, working remotely and trying to get all the information. Kudos that we did get it done.

This year, we’re hoping it will be a little more timely. The person that’s taking over from Paul is Christopher Thomas. I’ve asked him to start working with Hilary and Mike, to start planning for the audit.

Statements were good. Good to go.

Mr. Speaker: Thank you, Russ.

Any more comments from anybody?

If not, Artour, please, can you put that on the screen?

The motion is that the financial statements of the Legislative Assembly for the year ending March 31, 2020, be approved as presented.

Moved and seconded.

Motion approved.

Mr. Speaker: Okay. Now, the second motion.

A. Sogomonian (Clerk Assistant, Parliamentary Services): Thank you. I would just suggest the words “as presented” be changed to “as amended,” given the amendments to the report that were flagged.

Mr. Speaker: Okay. So it will read that the Accountability Report 2019-20 be adopted as amended, that it be deposited with the Office of the Clerk and that the Chair present the report to the Legislative Assembly at the earliest opportunity.

May I have a mover?

M. Babchuk: So moved.

Motion approved.

Mr. Speaker: All right. Then we go to item 6, the formal approval of decisions of the committee made via email.

Kate, please.

Approval of Committee Decisions
Made via Email

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of the Legislative Assembly): Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Members will know that I wrote to committee members on two occasions, first on March 31 and second on April 22, to seek approval of a number of decisions on a timely basis. I recognize that these instances should indeed be limited to rare circumstances, and we will endeavour to provide committee members with more sufficient advance notice, particularly with respect to the correspondence of March 31 of 2021. On that occasion, there were two reasons to seek the approval of the committee with respect to additional capital funding for the security enhancement and landscape improvement project.

[3:35 p.m.]

In addition, we were also seeking LAMC approval to set aside a portion of the 2021-22 capital contingency to accommodate work with respect to anticipated deficiency items that would be identified in the month that followed. The members of the Legislative Assembly Management Committee indeed indicated their approval of these requests via email. But to ensure that we are policy-compliant, we are seeking today a formal decision of the committee by way of a motion.

Also, as I mentioned, I wrote to the committee on April 22 with respect to approval of tenant improvement costs for the Burnaby-Edmonds constituency office. Some supporting materials were attached. Typically, if a similar scenario were to arise with another member, financial services staff would seek the direction of our Speaker with respect to any exceptions that might be required to the process of tenant improvements under the “Members’ guide to policy and resources.” As this particular constituency office related to our Speaker, neither he nor I were in a position to approve the up-front payment of these costs. We sought your approval, and received that, subsequently, by way of email.

This afternoon is an opportunity to discuss those matters in more detail, should you wish. But we are indeed seeking a formal approval by way of motions from the committee this afternoon.

Mr. Speaker: Any questions? Discussion? If not, then let’s have the first motion.

The first motion is that additional funding for capital project number CPD-11, security enhancement and landscape improvement project, in fiscal years 2020-21 and 2021-22 be approved as presented.

Moved and seconded.

Motion approved.

Mr. Speaker: Next one: that the tenant improvement costs for the Burnaby-Edmonds constituency office be approved as presented.

Can we have a mover? Moved, seconded.

Motion approved.

Mr. Speaker: Thank you so much.

Let’s move to item 7 on your agenda. That is Members’ travel guidelines, airfare and the recommendations from the subcommittee on administration and operations.

Kate, please take us through that.

Members’ Travel Guidelines
for Airfare

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of the Legislative Assembly): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. On April 8, our subcommittee on administration and operations considered the briefing note that was circulated to your committee with respect to members’ travel policy — in particular, airfare provisions.

The request that had come forward indicated that due to the COVID-19 pandemic, air travel options have become more limited provincewide, and in some cases, members were required to book multiple flights in advance. As a result, the length of time before some flights can be taken is quite significant. Members were needing to personally carry additional costs of this kind, so a temporary accommodation was proposed with an adjustment to our existing policy to allow the reimbursement of prepaid flights on a temporary basis in recognition of the reduced availability of these flights due to the pandemic. That recommendation was put forward, supported by the subcommittee on administration and operations.

We’re presenting it to you today with an addition. The original decision was to allow this temporary change through to the end of December, but we also want to include a provision of retroactivity back to January 1 of 2021, just for ease of administration for all.

Happy to answer any questions or to seek the discussion of the committee on that initiative.

Mr. Speaker: Any questions?

[3:40 p.m.]

If not, let’s have a motion on the screen. It would read that Members’ travel guidelines on airfare be modified in the “Members’ guide to policy and resources” retroactive to January 1, 2021, and through to December 31, 2021, to permit the reimbursement of prepaid flights.

May I have a mover? Moved, seconded.

Motion approved.

Mr. Speaker: The second motion…. Do we have a second motion? It’s only one?

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of the Legislative Assembly): Yes, it’s only one.

Mr. Speaker: Then item 8 on the agenda, constituency office communications, a recommendation from the subcommittee on administration and operations.

Kate, again, please take us through this.

Constituency Office Communications

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of the Legislative Assembly): As noted in the briefing note for the committee’s meeting this afternoon and on April 8, the subcommittee on administration and operations considered some revisions to our policy to strengthen provisions with respect to constituency office communications. The subcommittee adopted a resolution to update the “Members’ guide to policy and resources” with further details and guidance, as is attached to your briefing note this afternoon.

The purpose of the amendment to this policy area is to provide more clarity with respect to the interpretation of the concepts of “partisanship” and “political” as they may apply, from time to time, to constituency office communications. As a result of any decisions that might be taken by your committee this afternoon, we will be updating the “Members’ guide to policy and resources,” the public-facing guide that governs constituency office communications. We wanted to ensure that the guidance there was fulsome and complete and would allow for confidence with respect to consistency with the reimbursement of communications-related expenditures in constituency offices.

It’s quite a much more detailed approach than was previously provided with respect to the website. We were grateful for the support of the subcommittee on administration and operations for this initiative.

Mr. Speaker: Any questions? If not, let’s have the motion. It reads that the proposed constituency office communications provisions be approved, as presented, and added to the Members’ guide to policy and resources.

Moved, seconded.

Motion approved.

Mr. Speaker: Item 9, revised policy 1000: Legislative Assembly policy framework. Again, a recommendation from the subcommittee on administration and operations.

Artour, please.

Legislative Assembly Policy
Framework and Revised Policy 1000

A. Sogomonian (Clerk Assistant, Parliamentary Services): I wanted to provide a quick overview of the changes that we’ve made to what we refer to as the foundational policy of the Legislative Assembly, that being policy 1000, Legislative Assembly policy framework, which came about following the September 2019 audit from the Office of the Auditor General.

We’ve made a number of updates to the policy. We’ve clarified the objective statement and key definitions. We’ve added principles of policy development. We’ve added a general obligation for maintaining the principles that guide policy development in instances where explicit policy provisions do not exist in our policy suite. We’ve added a provision to allow the Clerk to make minor editorial or grammatical corrections to policies approved by your committee.

We’ve added a provision about the accessibility of policies and added a provision for a cyclical policy review five years after policy implementation. We’ve added a provision for clarity on the authority that may repeal a policy and made some other editorial and housekeeping modifications. Everything is in red-line form in the draft policy that you have before you and that’s coming forward from the subcommittee on administration and operations.

I do want to take the opportunity to flag a very good discussion that occurred, in the subcommittee setting, about where this policy goes from here. I just want to acknowledge that the approvals section, which is section 5 of the policy, definitely needs to be reviewed, particularly in the context of broader governance work and reviews that will be taking place at the assembly in the coming months and coming forward to your committee for consideration and, hopefully, approval later this year.

[3:45 p.m.]

We do need to do a little bit more work about clarity, about delegations of authority and to have those formalized, so please don’t be surprised if this policy comes back to your committee in about a year’s time or within the next year or so. Right now we are proposing these modifications to strengthen the policy from where it currently is.

I’m happy to answer any questions.

Mr. Speaker: Any questions? Anybody? No.

Then let’s have a motion. The motion reads that the revised policy 1000, Legislative Assembly policy framework, be approved as presented.

It has been moved and seconded.

Motion approved.

Mr. Speaker: Now let’s move to item 10. That is the new policy 6015, public use of grounds — again, a recommendation from the subcommittee.

Artour, please walk the committee through this.

Public Use of Grounds
and New Policy 6015

A. Sogomonian (Clerk Assistant, Parliamentary Services): We wanted to propose that the authority of the Speaker granted under the legislative precinct regulation be formalized with respect to our current practices on public use of grounds. We felt that the creation of a policy that’s approved under the purview of the committee will help strengthen our position with certain requests that we receive from time to time.

The policy is, I just want to flag, a strict reflection of current public use of grounds rules and practices. There’s nothing new. There are no surprises in the policy from how we currently administer the process to what the policy provisions are. We of course want to make sure that the legislative precinct remains an open, accessible, welcoming and respectful environment for all. That’s reflected in the policy.

We have provisions about the prohibited uses of the legislative precinct; clarification of scheduling priority — which is, of course, accorded to the Legislative Assembly and its members; and provisions on cost-recovery approval and reapplication of approval if necessary.

I’m happy, again, to answer any questions.

Mr. Speaker: Any discussion?

B. D’Eith: I just had a quick question. I didn’t want to belabour the point, because obviously, a lot of work has been put into this. Thank you very much. Presumably, given our experience with protests over the last year, I assume that this is helpful in that regard. I just wanted to know if that’s….

From a legal point of view, I know that there were injunctions that were brought in. Does this actually help that process, or at least set some guidelines? I’m just curious as to whether or not…. If you could speak to that briefly.

A. Sogomonian (Clerk Assistant, Parliamentary Services): Yes. I can offer some insight. The answer to your question, Bob, is no. We do have a lot of external users, people who genuinely…. In terms of protests, certainly the larger ones that we experienced last year on the precinct, there was never a request put forward that was considered by a public-use-of-grounds committee. That was a unique set of circumstances.

For those who do make requests and sometimes take issue with some of the parameters that we’re asking them to establish, it does help to have a formal policy document to point to, to say: “Well, actually no. This is not permitted, and this is the reason why.”

I will flag, in the context of your question, that the subcommittee on the Office of the Sergeant-at-Arms has undertaken a post-incident review of the February-March 2020 protests, and there was a need identified to strengthen the legislative precinct regulation in terms of their authority. That’s obviously vested in the Speaker but is exercised by them, and there will be recommendations.

I don’t want to make that assumption, but I believe that there are recommendations that will be coming forward in that regard as well.

B. D’Eith: Thank you very much, Artour.

A. Sogomonian (Clerk Assistant, Parliamentary Services): You’re welcome.

Mr. Speaker: Any further questions? None. Okay, then let’s have a motion.

The motion is that policy 6015, public use of grounds, be approved as presented.

It’s been moved and seconded.

Motion approved.

Mr. Speaker: Thank you, Artour.

Then, again, item 11 is the policy development workplan. That’s Artour again.

Policy Development Workplan

A. Sogomonian (Clerk Assistant, Parliamentary Services): Thank you. Lots of policy work; it’s very thrilling. I’m sure members will agree. I just want to deposit the policy development workplan for 2021, as we are required to do under policy 1000, which the committee has just considered and approved an update of.

The last time we deposited this was about a year ago. I do want to acknowledge that we’ve accomplished a lot, but we still have a lot of policy work to do at the Legislative Assembly. We’ve made a lot of good progress, particularly in the past couple months.

[3:50 p.m.]

I did just want to acknowledge, in case any members are referring to the 2020 policy development workplan that we deposited last year, or if anyone who is listening, perhaps, to the committee’s meetings is looking at it, that there is a lot of overlap. There are things that we committed to in 2020 that we didn’t get to, and I didn’t want to just gloss over it.

I wanted to acknowledge that 2020 did present a number of operational challenges, from the unanticipated timing of the election to the network outage. We redeployed a lot of staff, and our subject-matter experts that are involved in policy development were not available to us, given other priorities. But I do have faith that by the time we present the policy development workplan in 2022, in a year’s time, we will have accomplished many of the targets that we’ve set out in the document that’s before you. I certainly look forward to continuing that work, with many in the organization who are assisting us as we undertake that work.

Members may have seen, in an upcoming agenda item, that my mandate letter does require me to ensure the publication of the Legislative Assembly’s policy suite on our public-facing website prior to the conclusion of the fiscal year, and it is our intent to make that happen. This is just being tabled as an information item for the committee, but as always, we welcome members’ feedback.

I’m also happy to answer any questions that you may have.

Mr. Speaker: Any questions? None.

Thank you, Artour.

Okay, item 12, policy non-compliance report. That’s to Kate and Hilary to guide us.

Policy Non-compliance Report

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of the Legislative Assembly): I’m pleased to provide to the committee a report, along with Hilary, as the executive financial officer.

Pursuant to policy 1000, we have an obligation to provide, to your committee, a report on any significant instances of non-compliance with assembly policy or any exercises of discretion to provide for an exemption to a policy requirement. We have two versions of the report for your information today: a high-level summary — an overview of a number of instances of non-compliance with policy, as is outlined in the document; as well as one instance of an exception to policy — that is, our uniform policy.

To the best of our knowledge, this is an accurate and complete account of any policy exceptions that took place during this reporting period. Should members wish to gain a better understanding of some of the specific areas of policy non-compliance, we’d be happy to address it at a higher level of detail during the in-camera component, as there may be personnel implications with some of these examples that are reported out to you today.

This is an information item.

Hilary, did you want to make any comments in addition to those remarks?

H. Woodward: Thank you, Kate. I just wanted to note that we do take…. It’s a high priority in importance on ensuring, when we do identify exceptions or non-compliance with policy, that we do follow up. I think this is a good practice that we’ve put in place in regards to policy 1000, and we will continue to report to the committee as required.

The other piece I just wanted to note that we indicate is that, in addition to once it is identified in terms of a non-compliance, we do follow up directly with the department director or individual and ensure that they are familiar and knowledgable of the policy going forward so that we do not see repeats of non-compliance.

That’s it for me, thanks.

Mr. Speaker: Thanks, Kate and Hilary. Any questions?

As Kate mentioned, some aspects of the report we will discuss in camera because of the personnel implications, and all that.

Okay, if there are no other questions, we’ll move on to item 13. That is the mandate letters for members of the Clerk’s leadership group.

Mandate Letters for
Clerk’s Leadership Group

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of the Legislative Assembly): Mr. Speaker, I’m happy to bring forward, for the information of committee members, copies of the mandate letters for each of my colleagues on the Clerk’s leadership group team. These are being deposited with your committee as an information item today.

[3:55 p.m.]

Each member of our team has collective responsibilities, as a member of our executive team, to ensure the fulfilment of goals for the fiscal year ahead. This is the first time that we’ve had an opportunity to develop such letters. I am currently working with each of my colleagues on an individual performance development plan to outline clear objectives, milestones and timelines for each of these deliverables.

Most of the initiatives that are outlined in each of the mandate letters reflect priorities as have been identified over the preceding year, and we very much welcome members’ input and comments on the initiatives as laid out in this plan. On a go-forward basis, we see an alignment with the development of our multi-year strategic plan and, in the future, helping to identify and sustain some of our broader collective organizational goals in the years ahead.

I also note that this opportunity this afternoon also presents us with an opportunity for members of the committee, should they wish, to consult with the Speaker on the development of a mandate letter for my position as Clerk of the Legislative Assembly.

I have shared these letters previously with the Speaker, and he has expressed an interest in preparing a letter of this kind for me as well, so I can ensure that I am also accountable to him and to all committee members with respect to any goals or particular initiatives that you would like me to focus on in the year ahead.

If there is an interest in undertaking consultations with the Speaker in that regard, I think there is a possible decision item outlined in the briefing note to enable the committee to do just that.

Mr. Speaker: Thank you, Kate.

I want to say this to all members of this committee. I would appreciate if you could come and talk to me about this issue. If I have your feedback, any comments or suggestions, then we can look into the possibility of developing an amended letter for Kate’s position as well. If that’s the desire, then we can have a motion today.

I’m in your hands. Any questions?

B. D’Eith: Can I just clarify? So with the motion, we’re just looking at going ahead with the idea of the mandate letter for Kate’s position. But then what’s in it…. You’re asking us then to privately talk to you as members and for you to articulate that. Is that what you’re saying?

Mr. Speaker: Yeah, that’s what it is. I would appreciate if I could have your feedback and your suggestions, any comments that you might have. That will help us to put that in the mandate letter.

All right. Let’s have the motion that following those consultations, the Chair be empowered to set a mandate letter deliverable for the Clerk on behalf of the committee and that the Chair deposit that mandate letter with the committee at the earliest opportunity. No? Okay. Sorry.

It should read that the Chair undertake consultations with each member of the committee with a view to identifying priorities for the Clerk of the Legislative Assembly for the current fiscal year, that following those consultations, the Chair be empowered to set mandate letter deliverables for the Clerk on behalf of the committee and that the Chair deposit that mandate letter with the committee at the earliest opportunity.

May I have a mover? Moved, seconded.

Motion approved.

Security and Personnel Matters

Mr. Speaker: Now we go to item 14, security matters. We will be now moving the proceedings of this committee in camera.

May I have a motion to proceed in camera to consider security and personnel matters, please? It has been moved and seconded.

Motion approved.

The committee continued in camera from 3:59 p.m. to 4:33 p.m.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Mr. Speaker: The last item is any other business.

If not, a motion to adjourn.

B. D’Eith: So moved.

Motion approved.

The committee adjourned at 4:35 p.m.