The committee met at 12:15 p.m.

Election of Chair and Deputy Chair

J. Arril (Clerk of Committees): Good afternoon, Members. Congratulations on your appointment to the Select Standing Committee on Public Accounts.

For those of you who have not met me yet, my name is Jennifer Arril. I am the Clerk of Committees, and I am also the Clerk to your Public Accounts Committee. I serve as the committee’s main point of contact for procedural and administrative support for the Chair, the Deputy Chair and all members of the committee. So if you have any questions, you are welcome to draw them to my attention.

As this is the committee’s first meeting, the first order of business will be to elect a Chair.

Are there any nominations?

J. Tegart: I’d like to nominate Mike Bernier as the Chair.

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

Mike Bernier has been nominated.

Do you accept the nomination, Mike?

M. Bernier: I do. Thank you.

J. Arril (Clerk of Committees): All right.

Are there any further nominations? Any further nominations? A third and final time: any further nominations? No.

The question is that Mike Bernier take the Chair as Chairperson of the committee.

Motion approved.

[M. Bernier in the chair.]

M. Bernier (Chair): Thank you. I appreciate that, everybody. I’m looking forward to working with you.

Today won’t be a day where we’ll actually get into too much detail, because the next thing we need to do, first of all, in order of business, is the election of a Deputy Chair.

With that, I’ll open up the floor for nominations for Deputy Chair of Public Accounts.

N. Sharma: I nominate Rick Glumac for Deputy Chair.

M. Bernier (Chair): Thank you, Niki.

Rick, do you accept that nomination?

R. Glumac: I do.

M. Bernier (Chair): Good, thank you.

Calling again for any other nominations for Deputy Chair. Second time. Last time, third time, for nominations.

Seeing none, the motion, then, on the floor is for Rick to be the Deputy Chair.

Motion approved.

M. Bernier (Chair): Congratulations, Rick. I’m looking forward to working with you and the rest of the team as well.

R. Glumac (Deputy Chair): Thank you.

M. Bernier (Chair): With that, just quickly, today, again, was mostly to not get too detailed in meeting and knowing everybody. Of course, through Zoom, it makes it difficult. I’m looking forward to the days when we can be meeting in person, because there’s a lot of great work this committee does.

I know Jennifer has sent out a lot of information for us to review over the holidays as well. But for now, I’ll just quickly turn it over to Jennifer to give a bit of an overview of the committee and what’s to be expected in some of our roles as we go forward.

Committee Overview

J. Arril (Clerk of Committees): Sure, no problem.

First, congratulations, Mike and Rick, on your appointments as Chair and Deputy Chair. I look forward to working with you and all committee members.

I’m happy to provide a brief introduction. First, I’d just like to say that we have with us today Ron Wall and Lisa Hill. They’re from our committee research services team, and they will help in supporting your work on this committee. You will get to know them more over the coming days, weeks and months.

Stephanie Raymond is our administrative support. Un­fortunately, she is not here today, but you will get to know her as well. She’s up here in the main Parliamentary Committees Office.

Like other parliamentary committees, your committee received its terms of reference from the Legislative Assem­bly. Its key responsibility is to review reports issued by the Auditor General who is an independent office of the Legislature.

There are typically about ten to 12 reports released through the course of a year, as well as follow-up work on each report. As Rick will know from his experience on the committee in the last parliament, the committee’s review of each report takes about two hours or so.

[12:20 p.m.]

Subcommittee on Agenda and Procedure

J. Arril (Clerk of Committees): Committee members do have a significant workload before them. Given this workload, the committee practice has been to establish a subcommittee on agenda and procedure. That committee helps with prioritizing matters, scheduling and, like I said, developing meeting agendas.

In the last parliament, that subcommittee was comprised of the Chair, the Deputy Chair and two other members — one government and one opposition.

Chair, perhaps the committee may want to take this opportunity to consider appointing a subcommittee?

M. Bernier (Chair): Sure. Thanks, Jennifer. We might as well do that right now, since you just kind of explained a little bit about it.

I look, first of all, to Rick to ensure that he’s going to sit on that subcommittee again.

My assumption is yes, Rick, you will sit on that?

R. Glumac (Deputy Chair): That’s correct. I’ll do that, yes.

M. Bernier (Chair): Okay, just making sure. So from our side, I’d like to nominate Jackie Tegart to sit on that subcommittee.

Rick, you have somebody from your side you’d like to nominate for that subcommittee.

R. Glumac (Deputy Chair): Yeah, I’d like to nominate Andrew Mercier.

M. Bernier (Chair): Okay.

It’s not really a formal committee per se, Jennifer, so in a sense, we don’t have to do three calls, I assume.

J. Arril (Clerk of Committees): No, that’s fine. If members are prepared to appoint that subcommittee, I’m happy to screen-share a motion for a member to move and then the committee to consider, if members are amenable to that.

M. Bernier (Chair): Sure. So I’m assuming, Andrew, that you’re willing to sit on that committee, as well as Jackie.

I move that a subcommittee on agenda and procedure comprised of the Chair, myself, Mike Bernier, MLA; the Deputy Chair, Rick Glumac, MLA; Andrew Mercier, MLA; and Jackie Tegart, MLA be appointed.

Dan’s seconding.

Motion approved.

M. Bernier (Chair): Thank you very much, everyone. Jennifer, I assume that fulfils the duties, then, for that subcommittee, and we’ll have some discussions later.

I’ll turn it back over to you, maybe just to wrap up a little bit more on the overview of the committee. Thank you.

Committee Overview

J. Arril (Clerk of Committees): Sure. I was going to move on a little bit to next steps for members’ awareness. Over the coming weeks, I will work with the Chair and Deputy Chair to organize some orientation sessions for members. That will likely begin in the second half of January. This will include general orientation to Parliamentary Committees for those members who are newer. All members will, of course, be welcome and encouraged to attend.

We’ll also have, of course, some deeper-dive orientation sessions into the work of PAC, in particular. You’ll have the opportunity to meet B.C.’s new Auditor General, Michael Pickup, as well as the comptroller general, Carl Fischer, and learn more about their offices and how they work to support the committee as well. Like I said, we anticipate getting that underway in the latter half of January. We’ll be in touch with members with respect to scheduling. Again, I’ll work with the Chair and Deputy Chair closely.

Perhaps for now, Chair, I will leave it there. I’m happy to answer any initial questions that members may have, and Ron and Lisa are here as well to answer any questions.

M. Bernier (Chair): Are there any questions at this time from anyone? No, I don’t see any.

Jennifer, again I just want to start by thanking everybody who’s on this committee. Most of the committee are new people. A lot are actually newly elected. So this is going to be a great experience. It’s a fascinating committee. It’s an important committee, as well, of the Legislature, so it’s an honour for myself and, I’m sure, for all of us to be on this committee and the good work that it does.

As we go forward with some of the backgrounders and information, you’ll see…. I encourage everyone to look at the work the committees have done in the previous year or so as well. That will really shape…. We’re not starting from zero. There’s a lot of good work that’s already taken place. Rick is well aware of that, through his time. I encourage everyone to read that information.

Not only to Jennifer, but as well, I’ll share my cell phone, as I’m sure, Rick…. We’ll talk. I encourage everyone — let’s reach out to each other as well, if there are any questions.

This is about making sure everybody has the information they need to move forward so we can make good decisions and gather lots of good information on behalf of the Legislature and the committee.

With that, I will probably just end the meeting by saying thanks again to everyone. I wish you all a merry Christmas. We have lots of good work to do. I’m looking forward to working with all of you.

A motion from Jackie to adjourn.

Motion approved.

The committee adjourned at 12:25 p.m.