The committee met at 8:33 a.m.

Election of Chair and Deputy Chair

J. Arril (Clerk of Committees): Good morning, Members. Congratulations on your appointment to the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services. I know myself and all of the parliamentary committees team are really looking forward to working with you.

For those of you who haven’t met me yet, my name is Jennifer Arril. I’m Clerk of Committees, and I am also the Clerk to your Finance Committee. I am your main point of contact as well as I provide procedural advice to the Chair, the Deputy Chair and all members. Please don’t hesitate to contact me at any time.

As this is the committee’s first meeting of the first session of the 42nd parliament, the first order of business, of course, is to elect a Chair. Are there any nominations for Chair?

G. Lore: Yes. I would like to nominate Janet Routledge, my friend from Burnaby North.

J. Arril (Clerk of Committees): Thank you.

Janet, you have been nominated as Chair. Do you accept the nomination?

J. Routledge: Yes, I do, with thanks.

J. Arril (Clerk of Committees): All right. And are there any further nominations? Any further nominations? A third and final time, any further nominations?

Great. The question, then, is that Janet Routledge take the Chair of this committee.

Motion approved.

[8:35 a.m.]

[J. Routledge in the chair.]

J. Arril (Clerk of Committees): Congratulations, Chair.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you.

So I take it from here?

J. Arril (Clerk of Committees): Yes. The next order of business is the election of Deputy Chair.

J. Routledge (Chair): Okay. Thank you, Jennifer.

So now we’ll elect a Deputy Chair.

Are there any nominations for the position of Deputy Chair?

L. Doerkson: I’d like to nominate Ben Stewart.

J. Routledge (Chair): Ben, do you accept the nomination?

B. Stewart: I do, Chair.

J. Routledge (Chair): Okay, thank you so much.

Are there any other nominations? For the second time, any other nominations? And for a final time, any other nominations?

The question before the committee is that Ben Stewart take the role of Deputy Chair.

Motion approved.

J. Routledge (Chair): Congratulations, Deputy Chair. Looking forward to working with you.

Now we’ll move on to our next agenda item, which is Jennifer is going to give us a brief overview of the role of the committee.

Committee Overview

J. Arril (Clerk of Committees): Thank you, Chair.

Congratulations, both Chair and Deputy Chair, on your appointments.

Perhaps I’ll start by introducing some of the parliamentary committee staff that are here with us today.

You will see Katey Stickle and Natalie Beaton. These are from our committee research services team. We also have Karan Riarh, who is not here with us today. She’s the lead researcher for the Finance Committee. They really support by providing research services. They prepare communications materials. They draft reports and other documents as required. They’re really the subject matter experts to support the committee.

We also have some kind administrative support, Stephanie Raymond and Mary Newell, who you will also get to know. They help with all things in administration and logistics for the committee. They help with scheduling meetings and distributing information to members, etc.

Like other parliamentary committees, your committee receives its terms of reference from the Legislative Assembly. I sent that out in an email to you. It is available on the committee’s website.

The committee has a three-part mandate. The first is to review the budgets of the statutory officers. There are nine statutory officers. This will be one of the first tasks that is before the committee, reviewing the statutory office budgets for 2020-21 through to 2022-23. It typically takes place over a period of about four weeks or so, where the committee meets with all of the statutory officers and considers their requests.

The second part of the committee’s mandate is to, in the first session of each parliament, appoint an auditor to audit the Office of the Auditor General. That will be one of the tasks before the committee shortly. That task, once completed, is done. So it’s something that gets tucked away in the first session of a parliament and then the committee is done with that.

The third part of the committee’s mandate, which members may be more familiar with, is the committee undertakes an annual consultation on the budget for the next year. They consult with British Columbians and seek their input to learn their priorities for the next budget. That gets pulled together into a report that’s submitted to the Legislative Assembly. That generally happens in the fall. However, in the last couple of years, the committee chose to move that process up into sort of the late spring, early summer.

Those are the three main pieces of the work before the committee. In terms of next steps, I’ll coordinate with the Chair and Deputy Chair to organize a series of orientation sessions for the committee. That will include sort of general orientation to parliamentary committees as well as statutory officers and then more specific orientation with respect to the committee, where we can have the opportunity to perhaps dive in a bit more into the details of that three-piece mandate.

[8:40 a.m.]

We anticipate that those sessions will get underway sort of in the latter part of January, and we’ll be in touch with members to schedule those and, of course, work with the Chair and Deputy Chair to ensure that works.

That’s a high-level overview of the work of the committee. Perhaps I’ll conclude my remarks there. I’m happy to take any questions myself, and the research team, if there are any at this point.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Jennifer.

Are there any questions for the Clerk of Committees about our committee, our role — any logistical questions that anybody has?

P. Alexis: Last year this was held virtually, I understand. So what are you anticipating, do you think? Are we likely going down that virtual path again for 2021, and the touring and the getting the feedback from other British Columbians? Just wanted to know what your thoughts were on that.

J. Arril (Clerk of Committees): Yes. Thanks, Pam. It is true. I expect that you’re asking about the broad public consultation on the budget, yes? I see you nodding. Thank you.

Yes, it was conducted all virtually last year. I believe — and Katey will correct me if I’m wrong — that the input, the extent of the input received, was quite significant. There was a lot of participation. I see Katey nodding. With respect to this year, I think there are so many unanswered questions about where we will be public health–wise that I don’t know that I can answer that question. It will be in the hands of members and good public health advice, I think, to make that determination as to what the consultation looks like.

We, as Parliamentary Committees Office, are prepared to support whatever consultation, whatever the members may wish to do and whatever that may look like. Yeah.

J. Routledge (Chair): If I could just say a few words about that. It is kind of early to tell, in terms of what we’re able to do. If the situation allows it, I would certainly be open to kind of a hybrid, where, if it’s safe to travel and safe for people to come meet with us, it would be really good to get out through the province. I understand that when the committee traveled in the past, sometimes not only did groups come to see them, but they were able to actually witness some of the situations that people were alerting the committee to.

On the other hand, I think one of the things that we’ve discovered is that Zoom does make it possible for individuals and groups to meet with us and have a conversation with us who otherwise would not have access. So if we’re in a position where we can offer both and it isn’t too technically challenging to do that, let’s try it.

Any other questions that anyone has, comments? Well, I don’t see any hands. I really welcome the information that in the new year there will be orientation sessions for us. I think they’ll be good, in terms of us understanding what our role is collectively, and it will also help us come together as a committee, before we move into a more active phase of the committee, for us to get to know each other and get a sense of working together. So I think that’s great.

I know from my previous experience working on various committees, we are well, well resourced by the Clerk’s office and by the staff. So I want to that you in advance for what you’ll be doing to support us. Already you’ve been doing a lot.

I understand some of you have another meeting coming up. So shall we wrap up this meeting? Anything else before we go?

Now is this a formal…?

J. Arril (Clerk of Committees): Yeah. So Chair, if there’s no further business, perhaps you could inquire if a member would like to move a motion to adjourn.

J. Routledge (Chair): Okay. You took the words right out of my mouth. I’ll entertain a motion to adjourn.

Motion approved.

The committee adjourned at 8:45 a.m.