The committee met at 8:04 a.m.

[M. Bernier in the chair.]

M. Bernier (Chair): Good morning, everyone, on Monday, May 17, the Select Standing Committee on Public Accounts. I appreciate everybody being here on an early Monday morning.

Before I introduce and bring on our Office of the Auditor General, I just want to thank the Deputy Chair, MLA Glumac, and the team for holding down the fort for the last couple of meetings where I was unavailable.

Thank you very much, Rick, for your help there. I appreciate that.

We’re moving forward, then, today. We have a review and consideration from the Office of the Auditor General for the Auditor General’s Status Report. So some of the stuff that we’ve talked about and covered off previously, but now it’s compiled into this status report.

[8:05 a.m.]

It’s great to see everyone here. Michael and his team as well. Thank you very much.

And Carl, of course. We always have the office of the comptroller general here, with Carl Fischer.

Thank you for joining us on an early Monday morning.

Without further ado, we’ll get Michael Pickup on, and we will start moving forward.

Thank you, Michael, for you and your team being here. As always, I’ll leave it to you to introduce who will be helping you out today.

Consideration of
Auditor General Reports

Auditor General’s Status Report

M. Pickup: Perfect. Thank you. Nice to see you again as well, Chair.

Before I begin introducing folks and a few thank-yous for folks, as well, I want to acknowledge that I’m coming to you today, in Victoria, from the territory of the Songhees, Lək̓ʷəŋin̓əŋ and Esquimalt people.

As a member of the Miawpukek First Nation myself, it is very important for me to remind myself of that every day as I do my lovely walks that I’ve often mentioned that I do and make sure I get to the water every day and near to the woods every day as well. It’s very important to me. So I do want to acknowledge that.

I also wanted to acknowledge that May 17 is the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia, observed in 132 countries. I work hard personally and professionally to make sure we acknowledge that and work towards a world that has less bad things in it for these groups of people that are members of these groups. So I do want to acknowledge that as well.

I want to thank the folks that are with me today that did all the work to get us here today. I want to thank Russ Jones, Deputy Auditor General, whom you all know well, and Malcom Gaston, assistant Auditor General. You’re getting used to seeing him as well. Some of these other folks you’re getting used to seeing — René Pelletier, the executive director from the performance audit portfolio, and Laura Hatt, executive director from the performance audit portfolio.

Also joining us today is Jessie Giles, who is a manager in the performance audit and was really instrumental in getting this work done and doing our first status report. I very much want to thank her. She’s going walk through the presentation in a little while.

I also want to thank the folks who are not on this call with us who contributed to getting this done as well — namely, Sheila Dodds, Stuart Newton, Jane Bryant, Amy Hart, Jackie McDonald, Mark Castador, Laura Pierce, Lisa Sevigny, Forrest Joy, Emily Yearwood-Lee. And, of course, our communications and IT folks who help get us here and the many admin folks who look after us as well.

I think it was worth taking 15 seconds to do that. It just demonstrates that although you see us all of the time, that’s how many people are actually involved in all of this. I want to thank each and every one of them who may be listening in on the call today.

With that, I think I’m going to turn it over to Jessie Gi­les, who’s going to walk through a fairly brief presentation. Then we’ll be pleased to take your questions on this report.

J. Giles: The purpose of my presentation is to give you some context regarding the Auditor General’s Status Re­port. I don’t plan to cover government’s activities related to the topics discussed in the report. For that information, you would refer to the entities themselves.

I plan to cover three things during my presentation: why we did this report; why our audit plans change, including what factors into the complexity of an audit and the time we spend; and a few examples of audits that have changed status that are discussed in the report.

First, the why. This was the first time we have done this type of report. It is part of our broader strategy to enhance communication to you, as the MLAs, and the public and the entities we audit about our work. We created this re­port to be transparent by providing updates on some of our performance audits that have changed course from what was originally planned, as outlined in our performance audit coverage plan.

You may recall from our office’s presentation a few we­eks ago that we publish an annual report on current and planned performance audits. The performance audit coverage plan does include some information regarding the performance audits that have changed course, but we wan­ted to provide some more information regarding some of the performance audits that have changed course where we have received recent questions from you, other MLAs or the public.

[8:10 a.m.]

There can be many reasons why the status of an audit changes. Fundamentally, it’s about us making decisions to use our limited resources wisely. We do this by focusing our audit work on areas of greatest significance, relevance and risk, throughout the planning and conducting of our audits.

When we use the term “significance,” we are not only spea­king about financial significance. We are also speaking about potential or known impacts on people living in B.C., the environment and the economy. When we use the term “risk,” we are referring to risks organizations face in operating efficiently, economically and effectively.

We also have to consider our resources and the comp­lexity of the subject we are auditing. The more complex and technical the subject matter, the more resources are required. For example, conducting an audit on the ex­penses of a school district requires less resources because there’s a smaller audit team that’s needed and we’ve done this type of work before. There’s also more clear criteria to audit against. Conducting an audit on the opioid crisis, for example, requires more resources and time, as the topic is complex, there are multiple entities involved, and the subject matter is technical.

When planning and conducting an audit, we also consider our impact on those that we audit. Our approach during the pandemic has been to think through how we can provide valuable information to you while listening to government when they have raised concerns about being able to respond to an audit and COVID-19 pandemic. This has meant postponing some of our Health audits, like the audit related to the opioid crisis, because government told us that proceeding as planned could have diverted critical resources and focus away from clinical care and the COVID-19 response.

We also consider whether the process we follow will give us enough information to feel confident that we have been able to obtain all the relevant facts and haven’t missed anything substantial. This can require us to adapt our approach to a changing environment so the results of our work are relevant and add value.

In some cases, this means we have to delay our work so we consider the most relevant and up-to-date information. For example, on the management of spills audit, we learned that major program changes were underway. The Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy is implementing new software and changing its business processes for managing hazardous spills. Postponing will allow us to reflect those changes in the audit.

There are other reasons why we delay. In some cases, once we start our planning work, we realize that the information is not available to conduct the audit. This hap­pened when we started to plan the audit around gender pay equity in the public service. It turns out that an up-to-date policy on pay equity that we could audit against was not in place. This meant that we couldn’t conclude. We couldn’t conduct the audit, but we did report our preliminary findings and analysis to the Public Service Agency, including suggestions on additional data the government may wish to collect.

We see this as adding value and will consider this work as we choose topics in the future. You may recall that in our performance audit coverage plan, where we discuss some of the lenses that we use when we choose our work.

That wraps up my summary of the plan. I’ll now turn it back to the Auditor General for any questions and closing comments.

M. Pickup: Thank you so much, Jessie. Excellent summary. Appreciate you doing that.

I think, Chair, that would probably conclude our introductory comments. I’m happy to take questions or comments or feedback — any of the above and all of the above.

M. Bernier (Chair): Thank you so much, Michael. Again, we will look around to see if there’s anybody that wishes to ask a question.

While I’m waiting to see if anybody else is going to ask, I just have a question myself. When we talk about the delays, especially when you’re working with one of the government agencies, how often…? How do I put this?

Take the COVID-19 pandemic out of the mix of this question. How often does your office, let’s say, challenge a delay request? If you’re looking at a different ministry or government agency for one of your audits, and they come back and say, “Look, we actually request that you don’t audit us right now” — or delay for X, Y and Z — how often does your department say: “Actually, no. We do want to audit, and this is why, in order to meet not only our mandate but something that we feel is important for the public, to get information out”?

Is that something that you do?

[8:15 a.m.]

M. Pickup: Let me give you my take on that and my experience with that. I certainly welcome my colleagues, if they want to add to it as well.

I would think for the most part, outside of the pandemic, delays to audits have to be sensible and defensible. So if somebody comes to us and says, “Look, we have just scrapped this program; you’re going to come and audit a program that we’ve just eliminated,” we would really have to say: “Okay. What is the value-add, then, of doing that?” It could be something that the Legislature might want to know — that X dollars got spent and that something got scrapped.

It would have to be something really defensible. It can’t just be that governments are going through change, or typical change, or there are competing priorities. Audits are always going to be a burden, to some extent, on those we audit. We work to minimize that. But we don’t just pass on doing an audit because the timing may not be great.

I would say the number of audits that actually get del­ayed or postponed because of a request that wouldn’t ne­cessarily pass our bar is fairly minimal, in my experience. Typically, when a government comes to request, it makes sense — a significant change to a program or something like the pandemic now. That’s been my experience over the years.

Certainly, Russ or Malcolm or René or Laura or Jessie, if you want to add to that or give a different view, please do jump in. I’m not seeing others jump in. So I guess I don’t need to be adjusted or corrected yet this morning. We’ll give that till 8:30.

M. Bernier (Chair): Well, I appreciate that. You know, it’s just more not only myself being newer on the committee and as the Chair but trying to understand the process internally that you follow when you’re trying to make your decisions around audits as well.

On that kind of a similar train, for you, internally, Mich­ael, in your office…. I’ll use the gender pay equity one as an example on this list. When do you decide to say: “Okay, now we’ve gone through this process. We’ve done some recommendations, but we realize now that…”?

A lot of these that we’ve put down…. I’m looking at how long you’re looking at bringing them back, and you don’t know on a lot of them. But for the gender pay equity, it looks like you might not follow through with this any further, if I’m looking at how you’ve put it forward, because of the different limitations. So when do you remove it from your list and, basically, publicly through us say: “We have now decided, through our office, we’re not going to be doing this audit; it is now off of our plan”?

M. Pickup: Thank you for that. On this one, to talk specifics about the gender pay equity one, which predates me in terms of the decision to postpone that, rather than give you a bit of generic information, I’ll ask René.

Do you want to take that one?

R. Pelletier: With the gender pay equity, the issue we ran into was that there wasn’t a policy in place on gender pay equity. Government hadn’t established what data elements they needed to collect and what analysis they’d need to do.

We continue to monitor it to see where government is with it developing and implementing a gender-based pay equity policy and model. When they do have something in place, we are still considering whether that is something we want to come back and audit. It’s not off-off. However, a lot of these — gender-based pay equity, for example — really depend on when government gets to implementing sufficient policies, processes and controls for us to be able to have the conditions to do an audit.

M. Pickup: Thank you, René.

M. Bernier (Chair): Yeah, thank you. Just on the report you put forward, of course, you had an end date of 2019, but when you have the explanation of why that’s not following through with that…. The reason why I ask that question, too, is there are many on here where you have your restart dates just listed as unknowns. I understand the reason why, based on the explanations you’ve put forward.

Michael, through to you and your team, then, what’s the reporting process back to our committee when you decide to take that from an unknown to an active audit case?

[8:20 a.m.]

M. Pickup: The way we’ve been doing it now if something becomes unknown and it moves to be coming on the performance audit coverage plan…. We would be picking that up in the performance audit coverage plan to say: “Here is something that is on now, and here is something that’s removed.” The performance audit coverage plan we’ve been, of course, making public. We’ve had a meeting on that as well.

I would just throw another thought out there — partially why we are doing this and putting this information out there. We had invested time in planning and time in working with the organization and had issued them some comments for their internal use, things that came up during the course of the work. Of course, this is one piece of information you have.

René talked about us waiting or putting this off because of policy development. I suppose if that is a topic, for example, that interests the committee, we’ve provided some information. Then it’s up to committees to consider, for example, whether that is something they would want to talk to the government itself about, in terms of the officials running the program, to say, you know: “The Auditor General stopped an audit on this area because you were working on policy development. Hey, we would like a little bit of an update on this. We’d like to know a little bit more about this and what’s happening with this.”

That’s partially why we’re doing this — not to direct the committee, obviously, but to supply you with information that may be useful in the work you’re doing. So if we get on a topic here that you say: “Well, we want more than this….” I think that was why Jessie gave the initial comments when she was providing the overview. This is very limited information at a point in time when we made a decision, but it certainly opens the door for the committee and any deliberations and considerations they may want to have in terms of interaction with government, if that is something the committee chooses.

I did just want to offer that.

M. Bernier (Chair): Thank you.

Any hands raised from the committee, then? Anybody have specific questions on any of this? I see a bunch of heads shaking.

I do want to, then, ask one more for myself, if I can. It’s more of…. First of all, thank you to you and your team. When I read through this again…. I’ve always known, being part of audits before, how technical, in depth and time-consuming audits can be. But looking at these ones you’ve presented today, as well, in the status update….

Even though, on some of these, the restart dates, let’s say, are unknown, there have still been thousands and thousands of hours that have been spent, through your office and through your staff, on a lot of these. That’s why it’s not….

I don’t want to flag that as a concern. It’s more of an acknowledgment of the amount of work that’s going on behind the scenes. Even though a report has not been fin­alized and presented yet, it just goes to show, I guess, how important it is, even through your office, in my eyes, to be on top of this so you don’t waste more time, on a planning perspective, before you actually get into a full, in-depth audit once there’s the opportunity.

I’ll flag one, if I could. It’s something…. Site C, for in­stance. That one, there — the performance audit plan was originally announced five years ago. It’s still with an unknown restart date. So that one, there, for me…. I’m trying to understand what the audit would entail now, when we’re already, let’s say, halfway through a project. So now the whole idea of the audit, to begin with, and the scope of what your office would be doing, you would think, would be almost….

I know you said there were other audits going on and changes within government and within B.C. Hydro. But what would you actually look at auditing now? Would it be waiting until the project is finished? I’m trying to understand, maybe, where your office’s mindset would be on why you wouldn’t do it now, through the work of the project, or when you actually think it would be a relevant time.

M. Pickup: I have to tell you, Chair, that auditors love these types of questions because it gives us a chance to talk about audits. Thank you.

Perhaps what I will do is ask Laura Hatt to walk through where we are now, and maybe even, Laura, address that audit process issue and then make it specific to Site C, as well, in terms of where we are.

[8:25 a.m.]

L. Hatt: Yes, of course. Thank you, Chair and Michael.

Site C is obviously a really significant project for the provincial government. It is a long-term megaproject and still something we have started work on and have kept our eye on since the early days, for sure. That’s shown through the amount of hours we’ve put into monitoring the project.

We did start the work in late 2016. We did what we call an examination, under section 13 of our act. We went through the planning phase. We were actually fully into an audit at that point when the announcement was made for BCUC to take a look at that project and do a large review. At that point, we realized it wasn’t really an appropriate space for us to be. We wanted to wait until the Utilities Commission had done their review. During that period between when the government made the decision to continue with Site C, we did other work in B.C. Hydro. As well, we became the financial statement auditor for B.C. Hydro.

We’ve been very tapped into that project for quite some time, but we haven’t actually released a report. Again, in the fall of 2020, we started to turn our minds to more of a contract management audit of Site C. As we were starting that planning again, government announced that they hired a special adviser to conduct the review of the project. A summary of that report has been released, and at this point, we are taking a look at it and deciding what further steps we will take on the audit or if we will continue with the work.

Your question is a really valid one, at this point. I think, from a general perspective around audit work…. I think it shows in this status report. When we are planning an audit, we really think through where we are going to add value. We do have limited resources. We have a large audit universe that we cover. It includes the entire GRE. We want to make sure where we’re focusing our audit hours and our audit staff is really going to add value to MLAs.

Peter Milburn’s report — the summary of it — was released. As anybody’s who has read it…. It is fairly comprehensive and covers a number of areas that we might have thought to do as an audit. We have to look through that, think through that and decide: where can we add value, at this point? If you look at our coverage plan, we also have a number of other really important areas to look at, like substance use, the opioid crisis, the response to COVID-19. There are a number of areas that we need to think about where we want to put our scarce resources. Site C is definitely one of those ones that we are thinking exactly through that.

Your question is very valid at this point, and it is exactly at the place that we are contemplating where we would go forward.

M. Bernier (Chair): I really appreciate that, Laura. I appreciate that answer. I know that in the report today, it says that you hope to resume it later on this year, depending on the time allotments, of course, and looking at the Milburn report. I was just trying to frame that in my head. Where do you pick it up, I guess, after five years, after all of that? I really appreciate that.

I have a few people now. If MLA Anderson doesn’t mind, I’ll just jump to Russ Jones first, because he might be adding something in here.

R. Jones: Thank you, Chair. I was just going to follow up on what Laura said about the financial audit.

As you can well imagine, we spend a few thousand ho­urs on doing that every year as well. One of the key things that we do look at are the financial controls around Site C, as you can imagine, in terms of the amount of dollars that are spent. We are in constant contact with B.C. Hydro. They’re very helpful in pointing us in certain areas where they think we should be looking anyway. One of the things that they had done in the past was point us towards the contract with the major company that’s running Site C.

It’s not like we are not doing a fair amount of work on Site C already, but it’s more from the financial statement point of view, at this point in time.

M. Bernier (Chair): Thanks, Russ, for that addition. I appreciate that.

[8:30 a.m.]

B. Anderson: Good morning. My question is: when we look at the Canadian context, how typical is it that audits get postponed? What we see in B.C. with this…. I know that there’s a tremendous amount of work, and this isn’t meant to be a criticism in any regard, but just curious. Is this fairly common, when we look across the province, that sometimes priorities shift or change and that audits that your office hopes to do end up getting postponed? Or is B.C. some type of anomaly?

M. Pickup: That’s another wonderful question, and I thank you for that. It makes a lot of sense, I think, to ask me that. So thank you.

I’m not alarmed by the number of audits that have been postponed, particularly when we get into the substance of why they are postponed. I would be more concerned if we looked at this list and said: “Yeah, government said it’s not good timing.” I would be more concerned if that was a pattern, but it’s not here. Each of these makes a lot of sense to me as to why the delays are occurring.

When I was Auditor General in Nova Scotia, we had de­lays that when things made sense, we delayed them. We also had the opposite. When things made more sense to advance things, we did advance them as well.

So nothing here, based on my experience, that’s causing me to really pause. But part of why we did this is just the promotion of openness and transparency, just to say that we invest time in these things, and things can happen. If I was concerned, I would make a comment in a report like this to say: “Hey, I’m concerned by A, B and C. We might need to have a discussion here around some of the delays we’re getting as not being reasonable.”

I think now, as we move forward, we’re going to be en­tering a challenging period, as we come out of the pandemic, to do audits in the area of health, to do audits in the area, perhaps, of the public service or anywhere in government where people may be, or are, coming out of an unprecedented busy time perhaps. All of a sudden, here we are, and auditors show up wanting to audit the hard work folks have been doing over the last 15 months or 18 months, depending on when we start.

That’ll be something at my level, at the AG level, I’ll be watching closely. I fully respect and get where people are coming from and the situation they’re in, but a number of these audit topics will have to proceed. I mean, the substance use is a good one, right? I mean, we put a delay on that at the request of government, but if things keep progressing and the dealing with the pandemic progresses, we will have to get started on that this summer.

We are going to watch that, and I think it’s a balance. But the short answer is that I’m not alarmed. It does happen — and nothing here for you to, I think, be particularly concerned about or have to take action on other than, I think, being aware.

My answers are always long, aren’t they?

M. Bernier (Chair): Actually, I appreciate your answers, because they’re wholesome enough, where it gives us, as a committee, a good understanding. I will highlight for you, Michael, that you hit the 8:30 mark, and you weren’t challenged or corrected by any of your colleagues. So that was good. I just thought I’d throw that in this morning.

Any other questions from anybody on the committee? No. I don’t see any, but I always like to give the opportunity to our comptroller general and put him on the spot — if there are any additions, maybe, before we move on, Carl, that you wanted to add.

C. Fischer: No further comments. From my perspective, all of the changes to the program make sense. I think it’s a sign of maturity within an audit program that there’s an annual review and reconsideration based on planning work that helps flesh out the subject matter. So I’m quite pleased to continue working with the OAG on moving the plan forward.

M. Bernier (Chair): Excellent. Thank you for that.

M. Pickup: Can I make a final, one more comment?

M. Bernier (Chair): Of course.

M. Pickup: I just genuinely want to thank the entire committee and the folks who work for the committee for taking on the work we do and considering our work so quickly and fully.

[8:35 a.m.]

It is wonderful for us, and I say that both with respect of the work you do and in respect of the independence you have. You do what you want to do, and I get it. But I do want to say, as the Auditor General, who leads an office full of people who do all this work, this makes a difference for us in terms of our own individual job satisfaction, how engaged we are. It’s wonderful to see the committee taking up our work so quickly.

I do want to say a genuine thank-you, recognizing the full independence of the committee and that committees do what they want to do. But it certainly is a good thing in here for our morale and for our engagement to see a committee taking up our work so quickly. So I do want to express my thanks for that.

M. Bernier (Chair): I appreciate that too. The committee has got a lot to look at because…. The reason why we want to try to stay on top of it is because of all of the work that your office is doing — lots of reports, lots of information. We could fall behind very quickly if we’re not careful as well. So thank you very much for that.

Seeing no further comments or questions, then, from the committee on this part of the agenda, maybe we will recess for two minutes, just to give our witnesses time to move on. Then we’ll bring the committee back for the last part of our agenda. So just a two-minute recess.

Thank you again, Michael, to you and everybody on your team. It was great seeing you on this early Monday morning. I know we will see you really soon at our next meeting.

The committee recessed from 8:36 a.m. to 8:39 a.m.

[M. Bernier in the chair.]

Consideration of Draft Report

REPORT ON
SUMMARY OF ACTIVITIES 2020-21

M. Bernier (Chair): We have one other addition we’ve put on the agenda today. That is for the summary of activities report that we have of our information. This one here, just for the committee’s understanding and knowledge of this. I hope everybody has, obviously, had time to go through this. We’ll open up it right now for any comments, suggestions, any information that people would like to add or see explained through this.

[8:40 a.m.]

The process, obviously, is that once the committee has approved this and we’ve voted on it, then it gets presented in the Legislature. For those who are on other committees, you know that process. If you’re new, that’s kind of what we go through. The Deputy Chair and myself will basically present it in the Legislature once this committee is satisfied with the actual report. So towards the end of today, if the committee feels that they’re satisfied with all of this and any additions or changes or suggestions made today, then we can vote on that as well. If we’re not ready, obviously we won’t today.

I open it up to the committee now if there are any comments, suggestions or questions regarding the report.

While everybody’s thinking about that…. Okay, actually, I see MLA Sharma, I believe, put her hand up.

N. Sharma: Just a question, Chair, if I can. I’m really curious if you can walk through how this report is put together, just the basics of that. Just being new, I’m curious.

M. Bernier (Chair): A really good question. Thank you. For that, I will actually turn things over to Jennifer.

Of course, as you know, we have our Clerks and all the assistants behind the scenes who keep track of everything we discuss in our meetings, put the minutes together and compile it all for us as a committee into this report, which is why it comes back to us to make sure it kind of meets the test and the accuracy of what we’ve done.

Maybe, Jennifer, if you don’t mind.

J. Arril (Clerk of Committees): Sure. Not a problem. Thanks so much for the question. I know sometimes these matters land on members’ desks, so I appreciate the opportunity to provide a little further explanation.

We do have our Parliamentary Committees Office team and our researchers who put these together. We have Ron Wall here, who’s the manager of committee research services. Lisa Hill — who is not here today, but she usually is — is the committee research analyst. They work together to draft the report.

It is a basic, common layout report for all committee work. It’s typical across committees. It starts with the composition, sets out the terms of reference. Usually, there’s a high-level sort of comment about the work of the committee or something similar, and then it goes into the details. In this case, because it is a summary report, it provides an overview of each Auditor General report that the committee considered — in this case, between December 2020 and March 31, 2021, so within that time frame — and then a summary of the questions that members asked as well as the answers that members received to their questions.

At the back of this report…. Because, in our office, we do try to carefully collect all of the information and all of the work that committees have done, we have added an appendix, which is just a very high level of documenting the work that was completed by the previous committee that they didn’t have an opportunity to report out on. So it’s just attached as an appendix. You’ll notice that it’s really high level just to capture those details if anybody were to go back and look for that information.

Happy to take any more questions you might have.

M. Bernier (Chair): MLA Sharma, is that going to cover that for you?

N. Sharma: I was just curious. I will follow up. That’s really helpful. Thank you, Jennifer.

I guess, as a follow-up, does it go to the Chair and vice-Chair to give input on what’s in there, or is it just a very standard format?

J. Arril (Clerk of Committees): Yes, to both. It is a very standard format. Then also, with most committee products, it is part of the role of the Chair and Deputy Chair to take a first glance and provide any first comments that they may have before items go to the committee for full consideration.

M. Bernier (Chair): Just to flag again, as Jennifer mentioned, this is only covered up to March 31, 2021. I know we have had other meetings and other work that’s been done by this committee since then, which will be compiled into the next report that we put forward. So just to flag that for the committee and anybody else that’s listening.

[8:45 a.m.]

Jennifer, not to wordsmith at all, can you explain…? On page 5…. I missed this the first time when I read through it. Under the terms of reference, can you explain to me, please…? When you go halfway down to (a), it’s talking about the addition of the powers previously conferred, and then it goes…. In (a), it says: “appoint of its number….” Is that legalese? To me, I would say “appoint of its members.” What does that mean? Is it the same thing?

J. Arril (Clerk of Committees): Yes, this is typical lan­guage that’s actually included in all select standing committee terms of reference. That’s, essentially, exactly what it does mean: that it can appoint subcommittees to take on tasks and delegate tasks to subcommittees. Those subcommittees are comprised of some of the members of the full committee. The language could certainly be a little bit more plain language, but that is indeed what it does mean.

M. Bernier (Chair): I guess I could have asked MLA Mercier to explain it to me. I appreciate that.

Is there anything, then, from the report anybody wanted to flag, or have any questions about or talk about? We do have to have a vote on that, then, if the committee feels comfortable with that. I know Jennifer has the wording.

Before we throw that up, I just want to thank Jennifer and the Clerk’s office there, and all of the staff. There’s a lot of work that goes into trying to herd the cats, as they say, with the work that we do as elected officials. As always, it’s the staff behind the scenes, I think, that does so much of the heavy lifting and the work.

Thank you, Jennifer and Ron and Lisa. I don’t see Lisa on today, but again, thank you for all of the work. I went through this again, and it’s a great summary. I think it gives a lot of information on what the committee does as well, and I think, for the public, it just shows what we’re doing as a committee in moving forward and working with the OAG. Thank you very much for that.

With that, I believe we have some actual wording, if the committee feels they’re ready. I’m looking for a motion to accept this. Jennifer will put the wording up on the screen again, if somebody’s willing to move that motion.

Committee Report to the House

REPORT ON
SUMMARY OF ACTIVITIES 2020-21

A. Mercier: Mr. Chair, I move:

[That the Committee approve and adopt the report entitled Summary of Activities, 2020-21 as presented today and further, that the Committee authorize the Chair and Deputy Chair to work with committee staff to finalize any editorial changes to complete the supporting text.]

M. Bernier (Chair): Thank you very much. There are pro­bably no questions on that. No.

Motion approved.

M. Bernier (Chair): Thank you very much, everyone.

Jennifer, just before we move on….

I know it’s a busy day, an early morning, but I wanted to give Jennifer…. I think we had one more thing we had to do.

J. Arril (Committee Clerk): Yes, thank you, Chair. Just one final motion for the committee to consider, asking that the Chair present the report to the Legislative Assembly at the earliest opportunity, which I’m happy to screen-share for a member to move.

M. Bernier (Chair): Thanks for the reminder.

Is that going to be moved by anyone, then, on the committee?

J. Tegart: I move:

[That on behalf of the Committee, the Chair present the report entitled Summary of Activities, 2020-21 to the Legislative Assembly at the earliest available opportunity.]

Motion approved.

M. Bernier (Chair): Any further comments?

Deputy Chair, are you good…? I always like to make sure of that. Okay, just wanted to make sure.

Jennifer, thank you again for all your help today and with this report — you and everybody else in the office.

Not seeing any other comments, we’ll just have a motion to adjourn.

MLA Starchuk, thank you very much.

Motion approved.

The committee adjourned at 8:49 a.m.