The committee met at 3:03 p.m.

[J. Routledge in the chair.]

J. Routledge (Chair): Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Janet Routledge. I’m the MLA for Burnaby North and the Chair of the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services, a committee of the Legislative Assembly that includes MLAs from the government and opposition parties.

I would like to acknowledge that we’re meeting today on the legislative precinct here in Victoria, which is located on the territory of Lək̓ʷəŋin̓əŋ-speaking peoples, now known as the Songhees and Esquimalt Nations.

The committee is responsible for reviewing and making recommendations to the Legislative Assembly on the three-year rolling service plans, annual reports and budget proposals of B.C.’s statutory offices. Today we will be hearing from the Office of the Conflict of Interest Commissioner, the Office of the Merit Commissioner, the Office of the Auditor General and the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner.

We’ll first hear from the Office of the Conflict of Interest Commissioner. We have set aside 20 minutes for the presentation, followed by 25 minutes for committee questions.

I’ll now turn it over to Commissioner Victoria Gray to get us started.

Review of Statutory Officers

OFFICE OF THE CONFLICT
OF INTEREST COMMISSIONER

V. Gray: Good afternoon, Madam Chair, Mr. Deputy Chair and members of the committee. I thank you for the opportunity to talk about the conflict-of-interest office. With me is Carol Hoyer. She is my office’s executive coordinator, and she is the most familiar with financial matters. So if you have some detailed questions, I’ll probably ask Carol to handle those. It’s nice to see everybody again.

There are four topics I wanted to address today: first, a reminder of the role of my office; second, an update on financial matters; third, a comment about being an independent office; and fourth, a comment about possible legislative changes regarding conflicts of interest as a follow-up on the discussion at my last meeting with this committee, which was on May 18, 2022.

[3:05 p.m.]

First, a brief description of my office. My office exists to ensure that members of the Legislative Assembly act with integrity and are seen to do so. The specific concern addressed by the legislation is the need to avoid members using their office to further their private interests. Whether or not members actually favour their private interests over the public interest, the concern is that being seen to be in a position of two opposing allegiances taints the members’ conduct, and the public will lose confidence in the institution of government.

The concern is mainly addressed in three ways, which I’ll summarize. One, all members must disclose their financial circumstances. A summary is available publicly through the Clerk’s office and website. This transparency enables the public to consider whether the members’ ability to perform their official duties may be affected by their financial interest.

For example, the public can learn that a member owns one or more shares in a company, and if that company will be affected by proposed legislation, a member of the public can raise a concern. Or, for example, the public disclosure statements recently enabled the press to write articles about which members are tenants and which members have multiple real estate holdings, on the basis that this information was relevant to government action regarding housing issues.

In B.C. the disclosure is essentially a list of the members’ assets and liabilities. In contrast to some jurisdictions, B.C. MLAs are not required to disclose the market value of assets or liabilities or to divest themselves of certain assets on assuming office.

The second way that the legislation addresses conflicts of interest is to permit members to seek my confidential opinion. If I conclude, for example, that a member will not be in a conflict of interest in a certain situation, my opinion will be binding. As a result, the MLA can act with confidence on the basis of my advice.

The third way is that I can be asked to investigate complaints about a member’s conduct. You may be aware that, in the summer, I released my opinion regarding a complaint by one member against another. Under the legislation in B.C., complaints can be made by four groups: members of the Legislative Assembly, members of the public, the cabinet and the Legislative Assembly itself.

Unlike some jurisdictions, I cannot initiate a complaint myself. This gives members the comfort that, by seeking my opinion, they don’t have to worry that they will essentially be fuelling a complaint that I would then investigate.

Second, I will address financial budget matters. You will see, from the materials we forwarded for this meeting, that the actual expenditures for fiscal ’21-22 — 2022 — were about $617,000. That was under budget by about $121,000 or about 16 percent. I expect that for fiscal 2022 to 2023, we will also be under budget, although closer to budget.

In the 2½ years that I have been commissioner, we have been below budget, primarily because we have spent less than budgeted for travel and for professional fees. We spent less than budgeted for travel because we did not attend conferences, owing to the COVID pandemic. Over the last two years, most of the conferences of interest were presented virtually. That has begun to change.

Last month, I attended the annual conference of CCOIN, which is the Canadian Conflict of Interest Network, in Yellowknife. The meeting was attended by most of the Conflict of Interest Commissioners, sometimes named ethics commissioners, for the ten provinces, three territories, the House of Commons and the Senate. Unfortunately, for personal and family reasons, none of the three members of my staff were able to attend. I hope they will be able to attend future conferences.

I found the CCOIN conference to be a very useful opportunity to learn about the different approaches in different jurisdictions. This is helpful in working to follow best practices. Many of the different approaches were related to different legislation, and learning about that is of interest should the Legislature decide to consider amendment to my legislation.

[3:10 p.m.]

My office continues to be under budget regarding professional fees. This relates to the unpredictable part of my work, since I do not know whether there will be any complaints requiring investigation and, if there are, whether I will need to enter into contracts for outside services, such as for lawyers for court proceedings. The complaint which led to my opinion this summer did not require me to retain outside services. We were able to handle that all internally.

My budget is the smallest of the statutory officers’. It consists mostly of salary and benefits, and for that reason, it’s rather inflexible.

The late Commissioner Fraser was a full-time appointment, and he had a staff of three. The executive coordinator was full-time, while both the legal officer and the executive administrative assistant were part-time. Following his passing, during the tenure of interim Commissioner Lynn Smith, the part-time legal officer’s position was expanded to full-time. I was then hired on a 75 percent, part-time basis. So essentially, since the time of Commissioner Fraser, the commissioner position has shrunk to part-time, the legal officer position has expanded to full-time, and the other two positions have remained the same.

We arrange holidays and flex time to ensure that during business hours, either I or the legal officer is available and either the executive coordinator or the administrative is also available. I think it’s important for members to have ready access to my office, and this arrangement enables that.

Of course, there are times when a member needs an opinion from the commissioner, and I am the only commissioner. For example, there was a need for opinion while I was recently out of town, on holiday. Staff were able to contact me, and we provided the member with the necessary opinion within days.

Third, I will make a comment about the fact that my office is an independent office. I realize you’re meeting with a number of independent statutory officers, and I thought it might be helpful to spend a moment addressing what it means for an officer to be independent of government.

As a former judge, I can say that being independent and being seen to be independent is critical to the work. Independence of the judiciary has been a central aspect of the rule of law for centuries. The public needs the confidence that a judge is independent and does not have a personal need to rule in favour of the Crown or government. I admit that I cringe with every news report from the United States saying that a certain ruling has been made by a judge regarding Donald Trump and that the judge was a Trump appointment or an Obama appointment. The judicial role should be independent.

In my role, the public needs to be confident that I will provide my opinion independent of any need to please or satisfy the party in power. This is the background to the convention that appointments to my position are made by unanimous decision of the Legislative Assembly, on the recommendation of a committee of members of all parties.

The traditional analysis is that independence involves three things: security of tenure, administrative independence and financial security. The concept of security of tenure is essentially that an independent decision-maker must not be vulnerable to being fired if the party in power does not like the decisions. For Canadian judges, that has meant that they’re appointed until retirement age. For my position and many similar positions, this is handled by appointing the person for a specific term, such as the five-year appointment in my case.

The concept of administrative independence is to avoid government getting preferential treatment, such as by cases involving government being heard sooner or later than non-government cases. In my position, the administrative independence arises out of the discretion given to me in the legislation about whether to conduct an inquiry following a complaint into an MLA’s conduct and the discretion given to me by the legislation regarding staffing. The legislation simply says that I may employ or retain persons that I consider necessary.

The independence arising from financial security is to ensure that there is sufficient remuneration so that the decision-maker is not forced to obtain additional income, which could compromise their independence. This has been handled for my position by providing for a salary which is commensurate with the salary of provincially appointed judges. My salary is similar, although as I’ve said, I was hired on a 75 percent, part-time basis, and the salary was adjusted accordingly.

[3:15 p.m.]

Lastly, I thought I would make a comment about possible legislative change, which was the subject of many questions at our meeting on May 18, 2022. As I said then, the legislation governing me is about 30 years old. While the legislative committee recommended changes about ten years ago, the only changes have been minor.

I explained that, in many other jurisdictions, they have newer legislation, and much of that gives a person in my position a broader mandate. For example, many other jurisdictions expand the legislation to include political office holders, which are usually senior bureaucrats. There is, of course, a commensurate cost if there’s going to be the need to monitor financial disclosure and complaints, and so on, for so many more people.

I also explained that some jurisdictions empower the person in my position to investigate what could be called unprofessional or disreputable conduct. I gave the example of the cases involving former Senator Meredith, who was found to have acted improperly in connection with a relationship with a young constituent and a connection with a toxic workplace.

I don’t have the power to investigate that kind of conduct. It is something, if a committee were going to consider changes to the legislation, that they might want to consider. They might think it was more appropriate to have it handled within caucus or in government, but they may think it was appropriate for someone in my position to have a mandate over. So I gave that as an example of possible legislative changes.

There’s one other possible legislative change that I thought might be of interest to this committee. I can illustrate it by reference to the opinion regarding Prime Minister Trudeau and SNC-Lavalin.

I’ll start by saying that the legislation regarding members of the House of Commons is different from the legislation regarding B.C. MLAs.

In B.C., there’s a prohibition on exercising an official power or performing an official duty or function if the member has a conflict of interest or an apparent conflict of interest. A member has a conflict of interest if, at the time of the exercising of the official power or performing of the official duty, the member knows that in the performance of the duty or function or in the exercise of the power, there is the opportunity to further their private interest.

In contrast, the legislation governing MPs, and in several other jurisdictions, has a broader definition of conflict of interest. As well as applying when there is the opportunity for the MP to further their own private interest, in the case of the House of Commons, it also applies to furthering the interest “of his or her relatives or friends or to improperly further another person’s private interests.”

It was the last part of that definition which applied in the SNC-Lavalin case. Prime Minister Trudeau urged the Minister of Justice to reach an out-of-court arrangement with SNC-Lavalin which would permit that company to operate in Quebec, thereby preserving jobs in the Prime Minister’s constituency.

The Ethics Commissioner concluded that Prime Minister Trudeau took steps which provided an opportunity to further SNC-Lavalin’s private interest. The commissioner concluded that the Prime Minister did so improperly because the Prime Minister tried to influence the Minister of Justice in her decision-making, and that itself was improper.

If B.C. considers broadening the definition of conflict of interest in a similar way, it would want to consider the SNC-Lavalin case. One can have sympathy for a member seeking to protect jobs in their constituency. It is open for debate about how broadly the concept of acting improperly should apply and whether it should apply when a member seeks to further a legitimate political interest rather than a private interest.

I wanted to conclude by saying that I have excellent, professional and experienced staff who make the work a pleasure. I think it’s also helpful for members. I don’t see any hesitation in reaching out to my office for advice. I’m sure a good part of that is my excellent staff.

That’s what I wanted to cover today. I think I’m about right on time. I welcome your questions and comments. I might direct some of them to Carol.

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

I’ll now invite the committee to ask questions. The first hand I see is Henry’s.

[3:20 p.m.]

H. Yao: Thank you so much, Victoria, for the presentation. I’m just going to quickly go back to talking about your capital budget, just for my own clarification. You basically request $25,000, $25,000, $25,000 very consistently. If I may, I’d just ask: what is that $25,000 consistent payment for, when it comes to your capital budget?

V. Gray: I guess it’s a just-in-case kind of thing. The only spending in the capital budget that we’ve done in the 2½ years I’ve been as commissioner was that we got new computers for everybody — they were all outdated, and that became very obvious with the pandemic — and we bought some furniture, because there were some ergonomic problems. I don’t foresee any capital expenditures. We bought a new shredder, because the other one stopped working. It has been relatively minor things like that.

H. Yao: So it’s really just in case, and that’s why you’re requesting it?

V. Gray: Yeah. I mean, there has been talk about a new office being built. We haven’t heard about that, really, since the pandemic, but I assume that there might be a need for different furniture and other things if we’re moved into new offices. At this point, it’s really just in case.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Thank you, Commissioner. Thank you for all the work you do. We all look forward to our pleasant annual visits of disclosure with you, every year. It’s always appreciated.

I just want to maybe get your comments on explaining the shift that occurred on the 75 percent basis for yourself in remuneration, versus the 100 percent for the legal officer. How does that work? I’m just trying to rationalize it in my head. You would think that if the legal officer is busy, the commissioner must be busy. How does that all jibe? How does that work?

V. Gray: Well, of course, I wasn’t around when it was anything else, but I think that having that much time means that there is somebody on board, and most things can…. If I take a day off — because I’m part-time — they can handle the urgent stuff a little bit.

I wasn’t part of the committee deciding how I would be 75 percent, part-time. I can say that it does enable us to spell each other off, in terms of holidays and other things. Alyne can answer most questions. She does consult with me, and we will do things together all the time, but in case of emergency, there’s somebody there.

R. Merrifield: Thank you so much for the presentation. I don’t have the benefit of historical data. In your presentation, you did indicate that you were under budget in several years because of travel. Would the numbers prior to that have been much more close to what was budgeted? Then, the differential of the 617 to 738 would just be not travelling in, let’s say, 2021-22?

V. Gray: The biggest difference — I think it’s about $35,000 for travel that wasn’t used, and $35,000 for professional fees that has been budgeted in case there’s a case against the office and we need to hire lawyers, or something like that. I think that the travel budget was pretty well spent before I was here.

C. Hoyer: I would say that we probably spent at least $20,000 every year. We would do that again if everybody were travelling again. Hence, in this next coming year, we could very well use it.

V. Gray: It may well be closer.

R. Merrifield: Okay, excellent. Thank you so much.

H. Yao: I’m going to be asking just a few more questions. I’m looking at the approved budget and the proposed budget. For your approved budget, it’s 754, 767 and 775, and your proposed budget, starting in 2023-2024, is 786, 801 and 816. I assume that you went from 1.76 percent to 4.2 percent as the anticipation of inflation, as we’re dealing with an inflationary challenge right now. Is that a good assumption for me to make?

V. Gray: Yeah, inflation and staff salaries, taking into account a BCGEU settlement and cost-of-living adjustments and that kind of thing. So it’s inflation-related, I would say.

H. Yao: Perfect. Just wanted to clarify. Thank you.

M. Starchuk: I have a question and a comment. Thank you for your presentation. It goes back to my personal bugaboo when it comes to budgeting and not having those inflationary things that are there and coming back at another time.

[3:25 p.m.]

I’m just extremely happy to see that those guesstimations are actually built into this budget so that it’s not a surprise or not coming back afterwards. I believe this is the first time that we’ve seen it incorporated inside of your budget. I really appreciate that on a personal level.

J. Routledge (Chair): Henry.

H. Yao: We can let Ben go first. I’ve asked a lot of questions already.

B. Stewart: I just want to…. There’s a comment in the overview that talks about the increase in operating budget of $9,000 from the ’23-24 budget that was approved in the fall of ’21, which reflects a modest cost-of-living increase. When we met with you last year and we reviewed this, we did ask about cost of living and what was forecast. There was lots of discussion about what settlements were going to be.

What has changed from what you originally planned? Maybe this is for Ms. Hoyer — just to give us an understanding of what happened between last year’s forecast and where we’re at today.

C. Hoyer: Where we’re at today. So what we’re requesting today?

B. Stewart: Yes.

C. Hoyer: It would be inflationary. We try to base it on what the BCGEU just settled on. I think we even…. It was a little less. But we were basing it on 3.5 percent, I think. I’ve got a note on here somewhere.

V. Gray: I think last year the trend had been about 2 percent.

C. Hoyer: I think that’s what we did, 2 percent last year. I’m pretty sure that’s what we did last year.

B. Stewart: Okay. Maybe just to clarify, I guess what it is…. There was a letter that we wrote to all of the independent offices in March — of course, we heard a lot about the changes or what happened during COVID, uncertainty and stuff like that — trying to make certain that the numbers that were put forward to the Ministry of Finance, or recommendations, were more likely to be achieved over the course of the three years, so that the numbers…. In some cases, they’re not adjusted, and it leaves me to believe….

We’re looking at a three-year forecast, which you’ve provided. This one, though, is up. It says it reflects a modest cost-of-living increase. I guess what I’m trying to say is: did you not anticipate a cost-of-living increase last year, when you talked to us?

C. Hoyer: Yes, we did.

B. Stewart: And that was 2 percent.

C. Hoyer: Two percent.

B. Stewart: You’re saying now it’s more like 6….

C. Hoyer: Well, not 6 percent. The 6 percent would be next year, but that’s up to Vicky. That’s basing it on the BCGEU and their agreement. So for last year, we did 2 percent. We might have to go retroactively if she wants to bring up that salary for this fiscal year.

B. Stewart: Okay. The last question I have is: is the forecast for the three years what you believe it to be in terms of the office expense, in terms of all…? I realize that nobody knows what next year’s cost of living will be. Based on today’s numbers and stuff like that, I’m hoping that it doesn’t continue, but anyway…. So is that what you’re currently basing it on — what you know today?

C. Hoyer: What I know today, yes. It could go down.

H. Sandhu: Thank you, Commissioner. Just a question on page 17, under “Information systems, furniture and equipment budget.” The previous budget was $68,625, but now we see that for 2022-2023, it’s $360,000, so it’s almost five times higher. I wonder if you can elaborate further on what was taken into consideration.

C. Hoyer: Sorry. What page was that?

H. Sandhu: Page 17, under “Capital budget, information systems, furniture and equipment.”

C. Hoyer: It’s one of the tables? I don’t have a page 17. That’s the only reason I’m asking.

Interjection.

H. Sandhu: Okay. I have the wrong document open. So sorry. My apologies. I opened too many documents on my desktop. Thank you, though.

[3:30 p.m.]

H. Yao: I apologize to my committee colleagues. Maybe I’m wasting everybody’s time with this question. This has probably been asked before.

I’m looking at the history, just for more educational awareness. For 2018 and 2019, actual expenses were $951,000. Then it dropped back to $640,000, $613,000, $617,000.

I’m just curious. What is that big, major jump? Is that something we should be anticipating in the future or just a one-time capital cost?

V. Gray: I believe that was…. There was an arrangement made with the late Commissioner Fraser that, on his passing, a year’s salary would be paid to his estate. So essentially a government-funded life insurance policy. That was a big bulge that got paid out.

H. Yao: Okay. I appreciate that.

V. Gray: I thought it was a later year than that. It does explain why there is a big….

C. Hoyer: He passed in 2018. That would have been the big one.

V. Gray: That’s probably what you’re looking at.

C. Hoyer: Now I’m looking for page 17. Budget appropriation.

H. Yao: I have another question.

J. Routledge (Chair): Ben has a question, and then we’ll come back to you.

B. Stewart: I just wanted to ask…. The commissioner has raised three points about expansion of the role of the conflict commissioner’s office.

I’m just wondering. To, maybe, Jennifer, who oversees that? Is it through legislation? It is. So it’s something that would have to be adjusted. Okay. All right. That’s not the purpose of the committee. No. Okay.

Thank you for raising that, though.

J. Routledge (Chair): Yes. Thank you for flagging that.

B. Stewart: I thought that was really good commentary.

H. Yao: I’m just going to piggyback on a comment made by my colleague Ben. Actually, I’m a bit confused as well.

I’m looking at the proposed budget again. You’re looking at a $786,000 to $801,000 to $816,000 increase. Obviously, I can see, from $754,000 to $786,000, a 4.2 percent increase, which is quite…. It seems to be matching the current affordability level, but $786,000 to $801,000 seems to be smaller, and then $801,000 to $816,000 seems to get even smaller, even though you mentioned…. The inflation rate you mentioned is part of what we’re seeing today, not what we were anticipating in the past.

Do you mind maybe educating me a bit more so I can better understand why the reduction in the percentage increase?

C. Hoyer: The $786,000 that we’re proposing, unless I did my calculations wrong, was based on the BCGEU agreement. I think it works out to 3.5 percent, rounded up to 4. The $801,000 was based on, potentially, 6.75.

Does that make sense?

H. Yao: My apologies. So 6.75 is based upon a year-to-year increase?

C. Hoyer: Yep. Unless I put it on the wrong year.

H. Yao: I apologize. Maybe my math was wrong.

C. Hoyer: No. It could be me too.

H. Yao: I’m getting 1.9 percent. From $801,000 to $786,000 is 1.9 percent.

C. Hoyer: That’s my calculation. That’s wrong then.

H. Yao: My apologies.

C. Hoyer: That’s okay.

H. Yao: As you probably…. We’re having our discussion right now. We are facing a bit of an inflation challenge right now.

C. Hoyer: Yeah, exactly.

H. Yao: So I’m not too sure whether the proposed budget is actually sufficient to match the challenge we might be anticipating ahead, which is why I wanted to bring this to your attention.

C. Hoyer: Okay. That’s good. Thank you very much.

J. Routledge (Chair): Are there any other questions?

We will note that, about the calculation.

Any other questions?

Okay. Not seeing any other questions, I want to thank you both for taking the time and reminding us about the important work that you do and also making some observations about the important work you could be doing. So thanks again for your time.

Let’s take about a five-minute recess.

The committee recessed from 3:34 p.m. to 3:44 p.m.

[J. Routledge in the chair.]

J. Routledge (Chair): Welcome back, committee.

Welcome to Maureen Baird, our Merit Commissioner, and Dave Van Swieten, who’s joining her here.

We’ve set aside 20 minutes for your presentation and about 25 minutes for questions. So over to you.

OFFICE OF THE MERIT COMMISSIONER

M. Baird: Before we begin, I’d like to acknowledge that I’m joining you today from the traditional territories of the Lək̓ʷəŋin̓əŋ people. Our work extends across the homelands of the Indigenous peoples within what we now call British Columbia.

You’ve already noted that Mr. Van Swieten is with me.

[3:45 p.m.]

It’s a pleasure to be here to address the budgetary needs and status of the Office of the Merit Commissioner. This presentation is a bit bittersweet for me. I’ve advised the Clerk that I’ve made the very difficult decision that I will not seek reappointment in January 2023. So this is the last time that I will discuss the important work of my office with you.

My comments will focus on the current service plan and an update on other ongoing work of our office and primarily address our budget planning for 2023 and beyond.

Turning first to my budget submission, we continue to review the spending patterns and match them to our projected workload, and I’m confident in the numbers that have been put forward. We are not seeking an increase to our budget at this time. Any inflationary costs that my office faces will be managed internally, through reallocation of spending from other commitments.

There are two aspects of the budget numbers before you that I want to highlight. First, you will note that there is an actual reduction of nearly $200,000 for the next fiscal year. This reduction is a result of my office having completed the substantive work to adopt the replacement database for the existing Case Tracker System. We anticipate going live early next fiscal year, and you’ll see in my presentation that in year 2 the balance of capital funding for my office will be returned for this project.

The second highlight is that there is no salary increment built in for excluded management staff. At this time, it is not known what this cost pressure will be, and my expectation is that any current year cost pressures will be managed without increased funding. Going forward into next year, it is an issue which will be updated at the spring appearance before this committee.

The fact that the small staff complement in my office, ably assisted by external auditors and other professionals, can consistently provide the services necessary to fulfil our statutory mandate without augmentation is a tribute to each and every one of them and their dedication to public service. I am eternally grateful for the support and advice they have provided to me during the past three years. I have no doubt that they will provide the same level of professional support to my successor.

I turn, then, to an update of the work of the office and an overview of our service plan for 2023-24 to 2025-26, a copy of which you have.

By way of background and context, the three main lines of business of the Office of the Merit Commissioner are, first, conducting random audits of appointments to and from and within the British Columbia public service in order to monitor the application of the merit principle to eligible appointments; second, conducting reviews of specific appointments at the request of employee applicants as a final stage of the review of staffing decisions; and, third, monitoring the process by which eligible just cause dismissals were made.

With respect to merit performance audits…. As you know, we choose a random sample of these appointments to audit — a sufficient number to allow us to generalize our results to the broader public service. The results of these audits are the best general indicator of the application of the merit principle to appointments across the British Columbia public service.

When I appeared before the committee in the spring, I spoke to the results of our merit performance audit for 2020-2021. We will be conducting the analysis of the audit of appointments for the 2021-22 fiscal year in the next few weeks, and our final report will be deposited with the Speaker by the end of November. The results of this audit, including recommendations to address identified areas of weakness or concern, will be reviewed with this committee at its meeting next spring.

Turning next to my mandated responsibility to be the final decision-maker with respect to staffing reviews. As you will recall, in 2021-22, I received 22 requests for staffing reviews. Of the 19 reviews conducted, three resulted in a directed reconsideration of the appointment. In the other 16 reviews, the appointment decisions were upheld. For the current fiscal year, as of today, I have determined 12 staffing review requests.

Our office gives priority to the investigation and analysis of the complaint or grounds underlying the staffing review request. We target providing a report in response to the requester and the organization head within 30 days of receipt of the relevant documentation for that case.

[3:50 p.m.]

For each request, my staff undertake a detailed review of all relevant information, and I send each requester and the deputy minister or organization head a comprehensive report at the conclusion of the review. As each request we review is unique, the report is specific about the issues raised to ensure the requester’s concerns are heard as well as providing a reasoned basis for my decision.

As the service plan shows, in the past year, we completed these reviews within an average of 28 days, with individual decisions being rendered between 19 and 36 days from the receipt of the appointment documentation. The results of the 2022-’23 reviews will be reported in the 2022-’23 annual report, filed in May 2023.

We will continue to review the dismissal processes as they become available. The results of these reviews will be reported to the Legislature in the Merit Commissioner’s annual report in May 2023.

Last year I reminded this committee that the legislation does not require me to review all eligible just cause dismissal processes. To date, we have chosen to review all of them to provide a robust baseline for comparison going forward. We anticipate continuing this practice for eligible dismissal processes in 2022-’23.

I raise this point to address the issue of the large volume of dismissals related to the implementation of the vaccine mandate. It is not possible to predict at this time exactly when these cases will be eligible for review, given the other administrative and legal proceedings pending. The intent is to review a sample of these cases and not each one.

I also want to update the committee with respect to the status of the transition from our old database application to a new database application, which we use to conduct audits. Originally, the implementation date was predicted to be early in 2023. This date has moved to later in the spring due to shifting timelines in the other offices who are launching before the Office of the Merit Commissioner.

The original costs for the replacement are less than anticipated, as additional staff and the transition element of data migration were not required for our office. My team has put in considerable time and effort into developing the new system and is looking forward to using it. It is expected to strengthen connection to the legislative mandate, improve audit practice and reporting and increase efficiency and analysis.

The priorities for fiscal 2023-’24 will include the oversight of the application of the merit principle to appointments in the B.C. Public Service and monitoring eligible just cause dismissal processes to ensure that they adhere to government standards, practices and policies.

As in the past, we will continue to manage our overall budgets prudently while maintaining our high standards.

Finally, I want to thank this committee for their continued support of my office and its important work. With that, I’m happy to answer any questions. I think I’m well within my time frame.

J. Routledge (Chair): Now I’ll invite members of the committee to ask you questions.

M. Dykeman: I don’t have a question, but I just want to say that it’s been such a pleasure and an honour to listen to you as you come and make your presentations. They’re always so clear, and you’re really going to be missed. I’m sad to hear that you’re not seeking reappointment.

As a new MLA coming to the table, you were one of the first presentations that I sat in on in this committee. It’s really just been a joy every time you’ve presented to us. I wish you well on whatever your next adventure is, but I just wanted to have the opportunity to thank you for all you’ve done.

M. Baird: Thank you very much for your kind words, and I have to mirror that it’s been an honour and really a delight to fulfil these responsibilities. I’ve enjoyed every minute.

M. Dykeman: You’ve done an excellent job.

M. Starchuk: As the chair of the special committee to find your replacement, I would love to negotiate right now the change in all of that and save us a couple of days. But, no. Thank you for what you’ve done. The presentation is easy to follow.

[3:55 p.m.]

I just want to ask the question that maybe you don’t have the answer to. With regards to the vaccine terminations and doing the sample, do you expect your office to have a great workload because of that, because of the potential that’s there? And how may that reflect into your budget in some way?

M. Baird: It has already factored into the budget, because you’ll see that we’re looking for $40,000 in our contract section, which is really in preparation for the potential for a greater workload. The number of these cases and the timing of them is really uncertain, because many, many of them are engaged in various other processes, and, of course, the legislation has a very long lead time for them to become eligible.

There could be some eligible as early as February of next year. My office really doesn’t have a lot of information about that yet. We get our information in coordination with the agency, but the expectation is that that won’t be a very large number because those would have to be people who engaged in no other process in order for their case to become eligible in February. Of course, the vast majority of people are engaged in one or another, maybe multiple processes.

What we understand, because, of course, we’re already planning for how we will deal with these cases…. We understand that there are about 500 of them overall. They will come in waves, likely that correspond with the completion of various processes. So we’re already engaged in planning for them.

But you can see, with that number, that our office won’t be able to look at them all. Indeed, I don’t think looking at them all will be necessary to determine those issues that the Merit Commissioner looks at, whether the processes were consistent with government standards, policies and practices.

R. Merrifield: Thank you so much not only for the presentation today but for your service over the course of the last three years, so very much appreciated.

I noted that the payment structure for the commissioner is a part-time position and is $610, to a maximum equivalent of 131 full-time days. My question is actually in the transition of that. Is that structure set up by the actual position, or was that something that was negotiated in the course of your contract, and that would be possibly changed with your replacement?

M. Baird: It was not negotiated for me. It was the framework under which I applied, and it was part of the order-in-council appointing me. I’m afraid I can’t really comment on what will happen going forward.

R. Merrifield: Right. My piggyback question, then, would be that no changes to that have been anticipated within the budget?

M. Baird: No.

R. Merrifield: Okay. Thank you.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Thanks once again, Maureen. I understand from talking with staff that this is quite a unique office, and throughout Canada is the only one of its kind perhaps maybe in British Columbia. You can correct me if I’m wrong. A little disclaimer. Before being appointed, I didn’t even know it existed.

Thanks for the work you’re doing, and sorry that you’re going to be leaving. Just to piggyback off my colleague here, of the 131 days that’s allotted per diem in your budget, how often, historically speaking, is that allotment of 131 days maximized? Is it always at 131 or…?

M. Baird: I’m happy to discuss how I’ve managed it, because, of course, I’ve been the first commissioner where there was a cap. As I understand it, historically the position has been a part-time commissioner, but there has not been a cap on, I guess, the number of days.

[4:00 p.m.]

The position that I applied to had a cap. So what I have done is I have simply…. Because I’ve spent many years in law, I’m used to recording my time. I record the time I work every day. Some days, like today, for example, I will work a full day, but many days I only work 3½ hours, 4½ hours, five hours or two hours, depending on the work. Those hours are reported, and then they’re accumulated. That’s sort of, practically, how it has worked.

Am I reaching the 610? I actually, personally, don’t pay very much attention to that. Mr. Van Swieten will tell me if it’s problematic. It is tracked. We do track it so that I can manage the work, so that if we get to halfway through a fiscal year, I want to know where we are at with the hours.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Just a follow-up. Maybe you’re misreading me. You’re going to be leaving your position. So I’m wondering. I mean, it sounds like you obviously run a pretty tight ship there. You track everything, and you are allotted…. You have a cap. When the next person comes in to assume the role, is that cap high enough? Would there be more room to move on that? Is it your opinion that perhaps the cap is too low or too high? It’s about $80,000 a year, roughly, or just shy. Is that appropriate? Is that an appropriate cap?

M. Baird: Well, with the knowledge that there was a cap, certainly some adjustments had to occur in the office, and our office has already made those adjustments. For example, to some extent, we use some professional services, perhaps, more than were used in other times. Is it sufficient? It has been sufficient, with the adjustments that have now been made, that are in place and that are the common practice in our office. Certainly our office is, in my perspective, humming quite nicely with this regimen in place.

H. Yao: Bear with me. I’m just playing with the numbers still, right now. On your approved budget for 2023-2024, you suggest approval of $1.442 million and the proposed budget is also $1.442 million. However, when you look at your capital budget, your approved budget was 30, but your proposed capital was 124. I just want to double-check. Maybe I don’t know how to read the numbers properly. Bear with me, because sometimes accounting is not my strength.

Is that actually part of the approved budget or just work from something else? Or were you anticipating a certain amount of movement in regard to accounting so that you guys can accommodate an increase of about $90,000 without interfering with your overall budget?

M. Baird: I think I’m going to defer to Mr. Van Swieten for that.

H. Yao: My apologies.

D. Van Swieten: No. That’s okay. That’s why I’m here. I hope I don’t get too discombobulated on answering your question, but I’ll repeat it back to make sure I got it right.

You’re looking at the two capital numbers for the proposed budget coming up compared to the current budget we have approved?

H. Yao: That’s correct.

D. Van Swieten: Okay. So there’s a drop of $111,000 in that. That speaks to the commissioner’s comments earlier about how we’re halfway through the implementation of the case-tracker replacement project. So we’re turning roughly half the funding back to the committee, and we anticipate in this next fiscal year, in ’23-24, to complete that work. You’ll see that in year 2 it disappears right down to — what is it? — $12,000 to our capital budget, which is more typical of our standard budget, going forward.

H. Yao: Okay. Just for clarification, from the number I’ve been given, it looks like the approved budget for capital was $30,000 for 2023-2024. Am I correct? The approved one.

D. Van Swieten: Of $30,000 in ’23-24? I’m not matching that number in the document.

[4:05 p.m.]

H. Yao: Okay. You know what? Maybe I’m looking at the wrong…. I apologize for that.

D. Van Swieten: It’s okay.

J. Routledge (Chair): Are there any other questions?

B. Stewart: Thanks very much, Commissioner. I just wanted to ask you. In appendix B, you have the ministries and the groups that you oversee. Is there any consistent area where there are questions that percolate up, of the 22 requests that you have? Or is it all over the place?

M. Baird: No, it’s all over the place. Even with a three-year perspective, there’s no…. It really is just all over the place.

B. Stewart: Okay. Thank you.

M. Starchuk: I’m just going off an old tired brain. In the report we talked about, there was an increase of just over 1,000 employees that are in the oversight, talking about the B.C. Public Service.

M. Baird: Yes.

M. Starchuk: Was there not another group that was being brought into your office for oversight? I’m just trying to recall. Last year we talked about it. I don’t know whether what it was ICBC, B.C. Hydro or something along those lines.

M. Baird: No. I think that might be somebody else’s office who was getting additional jurisdiction. My jurisdiction has not changed.

M. Starchuk: All right, thank you.

J. Routledge (Chair): Any other questions? Okay.

Not seeing any other questions, on behalf of the committee, I want to thank you both for taking the time to come and present to us and answer our questions.

I also want to echo some of the comments of my colleagues and thank you so much for your service, Maureen. I think the work of your commission is really, really important, and not many people know about it.

M. Baird: I agree. That’s true.

J. Routledge (Chair): The fact that it is so unique in the country is something I can really identify with. At one point in my life, I represented people who had appeals to the federal Public Service Commission. It was actually quite adversarial. That your role, so much of it, is proactive — so that it actually can solve problems in the future — is really, really important. It’s very clear in your report that you see that and that you take that very seriously.

M. Baird: We do; the office does.

J. Routledge (Chair): We wish for you that you have someone who takes your place who keeps up those high standards. Thank you.

M. Baird: Thank you.

J. Routledge (Chair): With that, we’ll take another little break.

The committee recessed from 4:08 p.m. to 4:21 p.m.

[J. Routledge in the chair.]

J. Routledge (Chair): I now will welcome the Auditor General, Michael Pickup, and his team.

I’ll let you introduce your team, Michael, and I’ll invite you to make a presentation. We’ve set aside about 25 minutes for your presentation and about 20 for questions from the committee.

OFFICE OF THE AUDITOR GENERAL

M. Pickup: Thank you so much. Joining me here today are — I will start on my left and, I guess, your right, if I’m, at 4:30, still directionally okay — Elaine Hepburn, director of executive accountabilities and one of my two direct reports in the office; and on my right, Dave Murray, who does a lot of the work in getting us ready for a day like today. I certainly appreciate all he does. He’s sitting here, right next to me, for the wonderful questions you may have, or comments to help me out as well.

Sheila Dodds, who I know you have met before, most of you. Sheila is the Deputy Auditor General and the lead on equity, diversity and inclusion in our office as well. Next to Sheila is John McNeill, our CFO. He’s our chief financial officer. Similar to Dave, he does a lot of the work to get ready. He’s a little further away from me…

J. McNeill: We can call this arm’s length.

M. Pickup: …but not so far that he can’t be called on to help with questions as well.

I want to thank everybody here and those who support the folks that are here in getting ready for a day like today — which is, honestly, a tremendous effort to achieve, according to the timelines set as well.

I will begin by acknowledging, with respect, that at the Office of the Auditor General we conduct our work on Coast Salish territories. Primarily, this is on the Lək̓ʷəŋ­in̓əŋ-​speaking people’s traditional lands, now known as Victoria. I’m grateful to be a visitor on this land and strive to be mindful of the connection it holds to the Indigenous peoples of these territories.

It is my pleasure to be here with you today and to have the opportunity to present our annual budget submission and service plan. Today, I will provide an overview of our annual report on the completed ’21-22 financial year, a brief update on our current year in progress, a review of our estimate of resources for ’23-24, and a walk-through of our service plan 2023-24–2025-26.

A bit of an organizational update for fiscal ’22. I want to begin with that. Our annual report 2021-22, published in June and included in our submission, sets out our results from the last fiscal year. Overall, I think the report demonstrates that we were able to deliver on our audit commitments, while making what I would call significant progress on internal engagement scores. It also indicates that we had significant work still to do on engagement and staffing outcomes in the face of unusually high turnover and well-known recruitment challenges.

We discussed the concluded fiscal year with this committee in fair detail when we met in the spring. We presented a new 2022-23–2024-25 service plan, with revised objectives and key performance indicators, and included the ’21-22 results of those measures as benchmarks.

[4:25 p.m.]

I therefore won’t repeat those specifics in my comments today. I do want to note for this committee that — as you will see, beginning at page 11 — we have reported our results for ’21-22 in alignment with the revised objectives and key performance indicators we presented in our ’22-23–’24-25 service plan in April.

This presentation ensures consistency in reporting going forward. Really, it is better aligned with our organizational mandate and the reporting principles for the B.C. public sector, as it provides a more meaningful focus on essential drivers of our performance. However, it was also important, from an accountability perspective, to report out on the objectives and key performance indicators we originally identified in our ’21-22–’23-24 service plan. As a result, we undertook to do both, summarizing the results, in alignment with that prior framework, in a separate section beginning at page 27.

Going forward, we intend to maintain the revised framework we presented in April, while, of course, making incremental refinements, as you will see in our new service plan, which I’ll discuss further in a moment.

So how about for the fiscal ’23 year in progress? I want to turn to that work. I’d like to start by noting that three audit reports were delivered to the Legislative Assembly so far: Fraud Risk Management on the Site C project; Oversight of Major Mines: Policies and Procedures to Address Environmental Risks; and B.C.’s COVID-19 Response: Community Economic Resilience Grants. We have already met with the Select Standing Committee on Public Accounts in support of their consideration of two of these three reports. We look forward to meeting with them again in November.

We’ve also delivered our opinion on the largest audit we conduct every year, our audit of the province’s summary financial statements. Our opinion, of course, was published in the government’s public accounts at the end of August. We’ll be tabling an information report based on our audit of the summary financial statements later in the fall so that the matters arising from the audit may be considered by the Public Accounts Committee.

The audit this year, frankly, was particularly challenging and it resulted in three qualifications to the Auditor’s report. That is highly unusual and, I expect, will be of broader interest to members of the Legislative Assembly, including, likely, this committee.

The first thing to note is that the time required to complete the financial statement audit has been increasing. It has been more difficult and required more time to get the required information from the entities we audit. Also, not surprisingly, the nature of the issues involved themselves have become increasingly more complex.

The second thing to note is that we are simply having trouble getting the people we need to do the work. The overall pool of qualified CPAs is not sufficient to meet demand, in general, for financial audit work. This is both in the public and private sectors, as organizations in all sectors are having trouble recruiting. As a result, we have not been able to maintain a full staffing complement, in spite of some recruiting efforts.

This means we require more contractor resources than we have in the past to supplement our own audit team and to get the work done. Because audit resources are generally scarce across the entire economy, we had to pay higher rates. There were fewer auditors available, even at those rates, under contract. That meant fewer auditors overall to do the work, which meant, at times, extending the overall duration and timelines on the audits.

The outcomes of delivering the work in the face of these challenges included reduced certainty and stability in our project planning, a higher training and supervision burden for senior staff overseeing new or contracted employees, employee leaves rescheduled and, of course, the increased stress that goes with all of the above. The necessary adjustments to mitigate some of these impacts going forward have greatly informed our service planning.

Turning briefly to the substance of that audit. Members of this committee may have already reviewed our independent auditor’s report, published in the public accounts in August, which I encourage all members to do. You may have seen media coverage regarding our qualifications.

[4:30 p.m.]

A qualification, in simple terms, is really a concern about compliance with public sector accounting standards, and such qualifications really are meant to be unusual and not to be taken lightly. They represent the issues that the Auditor considers so significant that if uncorrected, could potentially mislead a financial statement user. This year our audit opinion identified three qualifications.

The three qualifications relate to, firstly, a $6.48 billion overstatement of liabilities, by treating certain payments as deferred revenue; a $1.02 billion understatement of contractual obligations for the 2023 and 2024 fiscal years; and a $91 million understatement of reported revenues and corresponding expenses for B.C. Lottery Corp., by treating payments to the B.C. First Nations Gaming Revenue Sharing Limited Partnership as a flow-through.

These qualifications will likely be discussed formally with the Public Accounts Committee in due course. But I hope this information is helpful to the committee as well in understanding the substance and value of our work and some of the unique challenges we have been handling in the first half of this current fiscal year.

I’m also happy to advise the committee that in addition to the report regarding the summary financial statement, we are on track to deliver at least four further reports this fiscal year, which will make us consistent with our service plan target of eight reports, as previously tabled.

On the corporate side of things, we have delivered two service plans to the committee in the current year, one in April and the one presented today. This additional reporting was necessary to bring the time periods covered by our annual service plan and budget submissions into alignment.

I’m proud of the collaborative effort across our leadership group, who made time and space to support meaningful discussions about the challenges and opportunities ahead of us while maintaining their primary workloads and supporting their teams.

My last comment regarding the year in progress. It should be noted that since the committee’s approval of our supplementary budget request in June, we have begun implementation of our leading workplace strategy. This work is proceeding well, but the current construction timeline will result in some changes to the years in which capital expenses are allocated. So before discussing this in further detail, I thought I would now turn to our budget request, referring you to the estimate of resources document. I’ll walk through a few comments related to that.

The factors driving much of our budget request reflect the challenges being experienced across the public and private sectors. Of course, costs are rising due to inflation as well as supply chain issues, and employers in the public and private sectors are finding it harder to attract skilled labour at all levels. With this in mind, I will outline the incremental challenges in our estimate of resources, beginning with the changes to capital costs related to our leading workplace strategy.

Since we received approval of our budget’s supplementary budget request in June, we have been working with the Ministry of Citizens’ Services to move the leading workplace strategy project forward. Appendix A of our estimate of resources includes the draft timeline and project status. Design work is to start in November, with a planned start date for construction in April ’23 and completion in August of 2023, and we’re all hopeful for that. Design fees and other expenses associated with this project will be spent in fiscal ’22-23, as initially planned.

However, since construction will not commence until the beginning of the next fiscal year, we have included a request to move our capital budget, the $1.2 million for tenant improvements and the $370,000 for furniture and equipment from fiscal ’22-23 to fiscal ’23-24. And we do note, of course, the possibility that inflation and supply chain issues may have further impact on the cost, which could potentially result in supplementary budget requests.

Moving now to salaries and benefits. I’ll turn now to operational costs, and I’ll start with the salary and benefits, which are discussed on pages 5 and 6 of the estimates document that you have.

[4:35 p.m.]

We are requesting a 7 percent, or $1 million, increase to our budget allocation for salary and benefits over the projection of ’23-24 provided in our previous budget submission. This represents a total increase of 8.8 percent or $1.3 million more than our current year, ’22-23, salary budget.

So why is this? The first component of this request is to account for expected public sector–wide increases that will flow from current bargaining processes. The projected salary budget for ’23-24 in our last submission included a 2 percent salary increase. Now we are requesting an additional 4 percent, or $620,000. This total increase of 6 percent over our ’23 salary budget represents an increase of $930,000 from our current ’22-23 budget.

This request is to account for expected public sector–wide increases that will flow from current bargaining processes. The increase of 4 percent to our forecast since last year is informed by the recent tentative agreement between the B.C. Public Service and the BCGEU.

The second component of our request, the $390,000, is for essential in-band compensation adjustments. These adjustments will be consistent with the public services management compensation and classification framework and will be directed to situations where there are inequities, including compression or inversion, or key positions that are undercompensated within an employee’s classification band. I know we had some discussion on that at our last session.

In summary, it is a significant dollar amount, but the greatest portion of the request is really necessary to ensure we are able to cover the cost of the expected outcomes of bargaining processes that are really out of our control. The rest is a necessity to address market competition and is simply focused on realigning our actual salaries within their existing salary bands to ensure fairness and hopefully improve recruitment and retention outcomes.

We also intend to take further steps on addressing compensation pressures beyond the critical in-band compensation adjustments I have just mentioned. We will conduct the compensation and classification review to identify where changes are required within the existing public service compensation framework to ensure we are fairly compensating our staff, given market conditions and performance.

This review will be conducted with the support of an external consultant, and the recommendations from that process will inform our budget submission for ’24-25 to this committee next year.

Turning to page 7 on professional services. We are requesting $285,000 for professional services. Why? Because we are required to meet Canadian auditing standards, we will rely on external expertise to ensure our audit work is in compliance. Very simply, recent changes to the standards will necessitate increased costs due to the complexity of some of these changes.

On other operational expenses, we are requesting a $65,000 increase for IT expenses, due to inflation and supply chain issues, and an additional $18,000 for other expenses.

In terms of operational savings, recognizing the importance of looking for cost efficiencies in general, we have been able to leverage our investments in remote collaboration to not only mitigate against the increasing costs of travel, but actually reduce our budget in relation to travel.

I’m getting nearer to the end. Something else I want to raise with you is in relation to FIPPA changes and potentially related financial risk. So the last comment I will make with respect to our budget submission really is an item arising from legislative changes to the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, or FIPPA, in 2021 that have created new legal risks unique to my office and likely other offices of the Legislature as well.

These risks could have financial implications, which have not, of course, been factored in, in any way to our budget submission. The changes have made all but a small number of provisions inapplicable to the offices of the Legislature. Upon learning of this, our office began consulting with government and the Information and Privacy Commissioner’s Office and learned that these outcomes were the result of an error and were not intended. Government has expressed an intention to fix the error to additional legislation.

[4:40 p.m.]

In the meantime, we are mitigating the various risks that have now arisen. For example, we continue to follow previous practices around privacy, security and access to records, but we have to recognize that this is on a voluntary basis now. Many of the risks, however, expose my office to legal and financial risks that we are not able to resolve. Now, most of these risks are of low likelihood but potentially high consequence or impact should they actually happen.

We are relying on good faith of a future legislative solution but may have to return to this committee with a supplementary request if certain, less likely scenarios that none of us want to happen could potentially unfold in the future.

In terms of our service plan for ’23-24 and looking ahead…. By presenting our service plan for the upcoming year at the same time as the corresponding budget, this service plan is now presented in full alignment with the government budget process and the practice of most other officers of the Legislature.

Second, we have made some refinements on our key performance indicators. One key performance indicator, under objective 4 at page 11 of the service plan, has been replaced in consultation with the input of both this committee and the Select Standing Committee on Public Accounts. We will return to using an annual survey of MLAs as a measure of legislators’ confidence in our audit work.

We’ve adjusted our plan targets for some measures that rely on an annual work environment survey to better align them with the available evidence in terms of what is achievable. These measures include the KPIs for both objectives 1 and 2, which you’ll find explained in more detail on pages 8 and 9 of the document.

Our target for the number of audits and information reports delivered under objective 5 at page 12 has also been revised to now be a range. We feel this approach better reflects the complexity of estimating the timing of future audits that have not yet been planned.

Third, we have included more detailed information about our audit work to provide the public and legislators with a clearer understanding of the work we do. While our reports are referred to the Select Standing Committee on Public Accounts, the committee considers them on behalf of the entire Legislative Assembly, as part of this House’s oversight of government spending and performance.

In particular, we have included more detailed information, beginning at page 17 of our service plan, about our approach to planning individual audits as well as changes to the approach to following up on recommendations from audit reports which we are working on with the Public Accounts Committee.

The fourth area of the service plan I would like to highlight for this committee is our strategies, beginning at page 13. We have identified four major corporate strategies for ’23-24.

The first strategy, described on page 14, reflects a focus on improving staffing outcomes like recruitment and retention. The outcome will be a long-term process that will allow us to adapt and evolve to stay competitive in the labour market every year.

The second strategy is a comprehensive review of our corporate policies described on page 15. With changes to our governance and planning, we need to ensure our policies are properly aligned with our current values and expectations, including supporting diversity, equity and inclusion principles.

The third strategy, also on page 15, also builds on work underway, documenting and analyzing the way we manage our different audit resources and projects. In ’23-24, we will apply this analysis to target areas that can be approved and establish a prioritized roadmap to make these improvements.

The fourth strategy, turning to page 16, is a necessary replacement of our current corporate intranet, a hub for sharing information and a home for several customized workflows and applications.

These priorities, we believe, reflect a balanced approach, focused on building adaptation and resilience to continuous improvement while continuing to address immediate organizational needs. In doing so, we strive to model practices that reflect the best of what we find in examining other public sector organizations.

You’ll be pleased to hear I’m heading to the last page.

[4:45 p.m.]

In conclusion, I’m very proud of the work our folks have done over the past couple of years and will continue into next year and beyond. We are continuing to deliver on our audit commitments and meeting difficult challenges with resilience and determination. I strongly believe in investing and building for not only today but for the future as well.

While we are asking for a modest budget increase, we have really limited it to what is necessary to adapt to these challenges. many of which are beyond our control. and to maintain the audit resources we require to continue to deliver on our mandate in today’s marketplace, that considers both the public and private sectors.

At the same time, our leading workplace strategy initiative will both improve recruitment and retention, while reducing facility costs in the longer term. We are taking advantage of our increased capacity for remote work to reduce travel costs.

With that, I will conclude my comments. Thank you for the luxury of providing me that amount of opportunity to provide the opening comments. I and the very capable team of folks with me today will be more than happy to take questions.

J. Routledge (Chair): Okay, thank you, Michael.

I’ll invite the members of the committee to ask you questions.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Thank you to the Auditor General for that very detailed presentation.

You had me jumping around from pages in reports here. I couldn’t keep up quite as fast as I would have liked to.

I can certainly sympathize with the concerns and problems you have with the labour market. I know StatsCan has all kinds of grim news on accountants leaving and not coming back. Of course, you’ve got the private sector to deal with, as far as those headhunters that come out and pick up some of your employees. So your request for increased salaries and benefits is obviously, in my opinion, something that we should be definitely supporting.

When you get to your strategies in the service plan there — I think it’s the employment market competitions plan — is there a cost to that plan? Is that being implemented by a third party that’s doing that work for you? What kind of actual cost is that to the Auditor General?

M. Pickup: Thank you for that question. I’ll probably look to my colleagues to provide a little bit more detailed answer.

Perhaps, Sheila, do you want to provide…? Or John or Dave?

S. Dodds: I think I’ll let Dave do it.

D. Murray: The short answer is no, there’s no cost associated directly with that. The focus there is really on building our capacity to ensure that we have evidence that the steps that we take — some of which may involve contracted support, but we’re not asking for any future dollars for that — are sound, and that we have reasonable confidence that they’ll accomplish what they’re intended to do.

What we need to do to is to understand our own history, to have better data about how many people have been leaving over time, why they’ve been leaving, where they’ve been leaving to and at what different levels within different roles in our organization, etc. — as well as comparative data, looking at other public auditors and the private sector to ensure that we have good benchmarks. Are we doing well? What are the competitive factors that should inform our decision-making?

It’s whether we should be looking at salaries or looking at flexibility, just to speak to two issues that we’ve been moving in recently, or more specifically, where we should be going with that. What kind of flexibility? What does that mean? What are other people doing? How do we keep pace with that?

It’s really about improving our data capacity, to better understand so that our plans to improve recruitment and retention are driven in an understanding of the market and how we can compete better, rather than just looking internally at where we’re at now and how we can improve.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): All right. Thank you.

M. Pickup: If I might add — I don’t want to sound too gloomy about any of this, because I am optimistic, and I think we’re investing in doing a lot of good things: before coming here, we had some discussions about how the first six months of this year are going. I don’t want to take a chance on messing things up or saying: “Well, you know, just because it has happened in the first six months of the year, it doesn’t mean it’s going to happen in the next six.”

If I look at some statistical information that we have, in the last fiscal year, we had 25 permanent departures for the year — 25. If I look at the rate for the first half of this year, we’re at nine. If we had stayed at the rate of last year, it would be at 12½. So if that’s comparable, we’re down, probably, a quarter on the departures.

[4:50 p.m.]

I’m hoping a short amount of time, a short period, six months…. A lot can change. I’m hoping these are indicators of the investments we’re making, whether it’s in our nature-of-work approach that we’ve talked about or a number of these other things, frankly, which the committee has supported us on and has funded us for.

I’m hoping, now, this is the start of a positive climb. Lots of work left to be done. But this is better than going the other way, for the first six months of this year.

I did just want to add that.

H. Yao: Thank you so much for doing your presentation. I’m specifically looking at your wage inflation match. It initially, based upon a previous ask, was 2 percent. Now you’re asking for an additional 4 percent to add on top, which would make it 6 percent. I’m not an accountant. I’m not an expert in this field, but I realize the last two presentations had a different inflation rate.

I’m wondering. Is there any kind of communication, maybe working with the other independent commission offices, so that we can set the consensus on what kind of anticipated projection of inflation is reasonable? We don’t want to undermine your suggestion. Obviously, we assume you’re an expert in this field. Should we be worried about the other commissioners? Maybe their rate suggestion might be insufficient in anticipating the future challenges.

M. Pickup: Sure. Why don’t I start on the answer to that, recognizing that, as those here who are used to me know, I always stand to be corrected, adjusted or whatever verb you want to put there. So my friends here will correct me or adjust what I do say.

The 6 percent really is a build-on from the 2 percent that we’ve had built in for the likely increase that we thought was going to happen. When we up that now, by adding on four to get to six, that is to try to tie in to what we believe and see has happened in the bargaining negotiations and what is happening as a result of that. We’re trying to match up to that versus a CPI number or a general inflationary number. It’s pretty specific.

Now, in terms of…. We do this fairly independently. This is when my colleagues may want to adjust me here. We’re not all getting together as independent officers and sitting down and going through all of these assumptions. This one, to us, probably was fairly low risk in terms of tying it to what was happening in government.

Does anybody want to add to that?

D. Murray: I’m happy to clarify.

It’s really tied to the external processes that we don’t control. This is an example of…. It is an inflationary cost in the sense that it’s not one that’s based on a projection. It’s based on what’s happening in government.

Recognizing that a number of the members of the committee are fairly new to the committee, stop me if this is well understood.

Our salary structure, our classification structure, is tied to the same structure as the B.C. public service. We’re aligned with that process and those rules. So when the B.C. public service negotiates increases across the board, that gets reflected in our office. But because we have to submit our budget now and not in the fourth quarter, as government will, we have to include those in our estimates now. We can’t wait until everything trickles down, including the excluded staff agreement, which will likely be affected by the bargaining unit process that’s happening right now.

Government has a few more months to include this stuff in their budgets. We’re operating on our best guess, based on the best current information, including…. I believe the agreement was just ratified. So we’re settling down in the middle of that. We don’t know how it will trickle down in terms of excluded employees, which includes a lot of our staff as well.

This is less of a guess around inflation. We don’t talk to the other offices about it — or at least haven’t this time, I think — but we certainly are keeping an eye on what’s happening in government. It’s a pretty solid number at this point, but we are speculating a little bit, waiting for final things to trickle out of the government process.

M. Pickup: I know why I bring friends to these meetings now. A better explanation than I gave.

Thank you, Dave.

J. McNeill: One other comment. Just along Henry’s line of questioning is our bit in there about doing some market-based research. That’s going to inform a budget submission for ’24-25. It might be that things are really out of alignment — that might be what the research might find — or that it’s just fine or maybe that we’re over.

[4:55 p.m.]

Anything outside of that normal, what’s been negotiated…. There’s still a gap. That will be informed by that study and will come in fiscal ’24-25. So along that line of reasoning, there will be more to come.

M. Starchuk: Michael, thank you for your presentation. I understand your hesitancy to try to put a rationale around why nine have found other areas. That would be like talking about a no-hitter in the ninth inning in a World Series game. You don’t want to talk about it, but….

John, I recall the trip that we made out there. You had specifically talked about how the renovations and the workplace that you were going to create was going to motivate people to want to stay. So I think you should actually be tooting your horn for retention, to a certain extent.

J. McNeill: That’s where Michael was alluding to. The policy changes and then those soon-to-be physical workplace changes have certainly made a difference for staff, when we see the reduction in turnover. It’s very likely that, to some degree, much of that has to do with the stance we’ve taken on flexibility, in terms of location and schedule.

One of my employees works out of Langley full-time. So it has enabled us to widen our net for recruitment as well. There are people who are able to apply for positions now that may not have been able to before because they were facing barriers in moving from one city to another. So it certainly has been helpful, and we’re starting, as Michael said, to see the fruit of that. Now we’re, like he said, on the upward climb.

There’s still work to do. We still need to finish the construction and then, hopefully, tighten up some of these in-band compensation issues. But we’re on the right path, and that’s where it’s not only the salary side of things. We’re also looking at work environment, work culture and trying to get a holistic — a big, big push there. We’re seeing success, which is positive.

M. Starchuk: If I can, there was another question with regards to the decrease in travel expenses that’s there. Is that expected to be one time or moving forward?

M. Pickup: I think what we’re seeing…. We’re starting to see a trend now where a lot of these things are going to become more permanent. Are they as great as they are now? I’m still a little hesitant to say this is the true state of where we may end up in a year or two or three years because I think it’s….

We’ve always got to recognize that we are auditing others, and while we may be able to technically work remotely, while we may be able to do everything without going to an organization, we have to be respectful and thoughtful of what works for others. So if we get an organization where they say, “Yeah, that’s wonderful. You can do your work from Victoria, but that’s not what we want you to do. We want you to show up here in Vancouver” or “We want you to show up here to come and do this site of a correctional facility,” then we will do it.

I think we’ve seen the floor. I don’t think the top is going to be what it used to be, but it’s probably going to take another year or two years to see where this will end up, for sure.

I just wanted to go back a little bit to what you said before. Certainly, I think that 28 percent reduction that we’re seeing this year in departures is a good sign. I think it’s the nature of work as a leading workplace strategy, but it’s also something I think we talked about in the spring. I think to the credit not only of the folks that are with me here but to many others back in the office who…. When we can do things like increase engagement scores, which we have seen this year, when a number of those things are going well, this also contributes to retaining people and being able to attract people.

I’ve learned now in my two-plus years here in B.C. that while it is 5½ times bigger than Nova Scotia, it is still a small province in terms of people talking and knowing, and they should do that before they consider employment with an organization, including ours. But I’m hearing lots of positive things as well.

Of those nine departures we had, two were retirements, and I think two of those folks were also people who decided that perhaps accounting wasn’t their thing, they wanted to do something completely different or maybe choose not to work anymore, as well. So all positive signs, but I’m still very cautious and will be happier when I see longer-term trends.

H. Yao: Thank you so much again. I do apologize. I know your presentation was very comprehensive, and I’m pretty sure you actually explained it. I might have missed it.

[5:00 p.m.]

I’m looking at your office and business expenses for 2022-23 of $940,000, yet an approved expense for 2023-24 is $540,000, and it asked for $564,000. That’s quite a drop. Maybe you can help me understand. Maybe the expenses moved somewhere else, or is there something accomplished, and therefore, it’s no longer expected?

J. McNeill: What that relates to is that we have a spike in this fiscal year for the office expenses related to our LWS project, specifically the planning. So when that work is completed…. That was like a one-time bump, and then we return back to a normal maintenance amount.

B. Stewart: Thanks very much, Michael and the rest of the team there.

You talk about these departures. I’m just…. The people that have left…. Who’s doing the work to look at exit interviews and doing all of the HR side of it?

M. Pickup: Maybe, Sheila, do you want to take that one?

S. Dodds: Sure.

Thank you for the question. We have an HR team. We have had departures over the last couple of years within that team, so we are doing some recruiting with HR, but we do have an executive director of HR, who is leading that work. We’re doing exit interviews, but we’re also wanting to build in stay interviews to help understand why people are choosing to stay.

We are gathering data. I think, to the information that Dave provided a bit earlier, we are looking at gathering better data to help inform our recruitment initiatives, our engagement initiatives and just planning for the recruitment and retention activity.

B. Stewart: Just if I may, with the leading workplace strategy that you’ve undertaken, part of that was to change the office environment. Now, has that been tested, like in the sense that you’ve actually got some sort of…? Rather than just kind of unsolicited or whatever, have you actually confirmed that that is going to be a retention benefit?

S. Dodds: Maybe I’ll start.

Yes, we’ve had lots of conversations with our staff, and it is part of our new way of working, like navigating how we are going to work in this new world. There is remote, and there’s hybrid, and there is on site.

What we are able to do with the leading workplace strategy is to design the space in a smaller footprint that provides the most effective workspaces for people when they’re going to be on site. If they’re there full-time, there’s going to be dedicated space to meet their needs, and we have some staff that clearly need to be on site full-time.

If people are coming in for meetings, there will be mobile stations. We’re investing in the collaboration spaces as groups come in. People are very excited about the ability to have the workplace support the way we’re working now.

J. McNeill: Could I add something to that?

The policy has been implemented, so we’re doing the practice now in our current building. It’s been working very well and positively, but then we’re feeling that extra space, and that’s why we’re giving up that that floor. The result of living that policy now…. We definitely see that we can give up that floor, and that’s where we’re going to get the savings from, long term, to fund the improvements that we’re making and continue to drive up engagement.

D. Murray: I’ll be really brief, but I think there are two pieces that I want to say.

The first thing is the number. We do have some numbers. It’s pretty early days yet, but we’ve talked about how many people have left and that, overall, the percentage of permanent departures is down. What’s really stark — and we just looked at these numbers today — is that the rate of people leaving for the public service hasn’t changed, and the rate of people retiring hasn’t changed. Those are stable. What has gone down is people leaving for other reasons.

Again, it’s a small sample size. It’s been six months, so we don’t want to say that much about it, but the trend is certainly indicating that our competition vis-à-vis the private sector is improving. Fewer people are leaving there.

Anecdotally, what we’re hearing in the hiring processes is that this is coming up. The flexibility is a reason why people are applying, why they’re accepting and why people are staying. Even some people are looking at coming back who’ve left the organization in the past. That’s anecdotal, and some of that is coming from asking people, but the early numbers are that we’re seeing payoff.

[5:05 p.m.]

Of course, until the building renovations happen, we’re sort of doing 50 percent of flexibility. People have flexibility, but they don’t have a great office that they can come back and forth to and find a beautiful workspace that they can adapt and feel comfortable at. So we’re expecting that that appeal is only going to increase once the work that this committee has supported is underway and finished.

M. Pickup: Thank you for adding that. I was going to add, looking at those numbers, that the number of permanent hires last year, the ’22 year-end, was 28. Six months into this year, we’re at 18. So if that was to continue and that was to get to 36, that would be a significant increase over our ability to hire last year, which I think is a symptom of having these things in place.

I mentioned before that I feel B.C. is a fairly small province in terms of feedback and things. This is some of what I’m hearing from others, that certainly the reputation is there, in B.C., and we have one of the most flexible work environments and approaches in B.C. and probably across the entire legislative audit community in the country, which is not something to shy away from. I think it’s something to be proud of.

I think the other thing, to me…. Maybe it’s the accountant in me or the auditor in me that likes some sort of evidence or indicators of things. I think some of it ties into our improvement in the WES scores on executive-level engagement and supervisor engagement.

I think this is a demonstrator of talking with people, listening to people, learning from people and engaging with people that gets reflected not only in scores but in other things. So I think the evidence seems to be there. Like Dave said, it’s early days. I’m of the same view. Let’s be hopeful but cautious that we’re heading in the right direction.

J. Routledge (Chair): Are there any other questions?

Well, it looks like you’ve covered the waterfront. Michael, and everybody, I’d like to thank you on behalf of the Finance Committee.

I guess, in closing, I’d just like to observe…. One of the things that I’m really struck by — your written submissions, your presentation and the way you answered the questions — is that I think you’re reminding us that the role of the Auditor General’s office is financial auditing and performance auditing. You’ve basically walked the walk here, and you have anticipated what we need to know from you. So thank you very much for that.

M. Pickup: Thank you for those comments. I have to give all the credit to the folks here and the folks that are back in the office who put in a fair bit of work under fairly tight timelines this year to be able to get all this done. So I certainly appreciate everything everybody has done.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you. We’ll take a brief recess.

The committee recessed from 5:08 p.m. to 5:19 p.m.

[J. Routledge in the chair.]

J. Routledge (Chair): The last statutory officer that we will hear from today is Information and Privacy Commissioner Michael McEvoy.

[5:20 p.m.]

Michael, we’ve set 25 minutes aside for your presentation, followed by about 30 minutes for questions from the committee. When you’re ready, take it away.

OFFICE OF THE INFORMATION
AND PRIVACY COMMISSIONER
AND REGISTRAR OF LOBBYISTS

M. McEvoy: Thank you, Chair.

Good evening to all of the committee members.

I would like to first acknowledge and respect the fact that we are meeting today on the traditional territories of the Lək̓ʷəŋin̓əŋ people, the Esquimalt and Songhees Nations.

As an officer of the Legislature, I also acknowledge that I am privileged to work with people across many traditional Indigenous territories covering all regions of our province.

The budget and service plan before you this evening encompasses both the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner and the office of the registrar of lobbyists for British Columbia. As the Information and Privacy Commissioner, I am designated the registrar of lobbyists under the Lobbyists Transparency Act.

Assisting me this evening are deputy commissioners oline Twiss and Jeannette Van Den Bulk to my left, along with Dave Van Swieten — who, as you all know by now, is the executive director of shared services for the four officers of the Legislature headquartered at 947 Fort Street.

In keeping with my past appearances, Chair and members of the committee, I want to shine a light on some of the more challenging files that our office has recently faced, but first I want to explain work that we have done to identify areas of efficiencies and savings for the office. I recognize that this evening we don’t have a significant budget increase request at this time. However, I still believe it is important to continuously identify areas that generate financial savings and improve the efficiency of our service.

As you are aware, we participate in a shared-service model with three other officers of the Legislature located at 947 Fort Street. I credit the foresight of my predecessors in undertaking this arrangement because it negates the need for each office to separately hire key personnel in finance, HR and IT positions. It also reduces office expense because we share in the use and the cost of boardrooms, video conference facilities and common IT infrastructure. This model has worked well and has resulted in considerable savings, over the past decade and more, for taxpayers.

In a few moments, I will detail the increasing demand for our office’s services. I pause here to note that this demand has required us to hire additional staff, and with that, usually follow space pressures. What I can report to you this evening is that we have been able to leverage remote work arrangements to alleviate those pressures. This means we have held our office space requirements steady year over year, even with the recent increase in the complement of our adjudication staff, an increase I, again, want to thank this committee for recommending last fall.

We are also closely tracking expenditures at the employee level to identify recruitment lag so we can reallocate resources, when available, to address internal pressures. In other words, we are making the most of every dollar.

Finally, we continue to take steps to refine our processes. Two examples: the redesign of our consent order forms, which will have the effect of reducing processing times for deemed refusal files, and the improvement of our service coverage for front-line staff when an unexpected leave occurs. As I’m sure you can relate, this has been essential, given the events of the past few years, when unexpected absences were, unfortunately, commonplace.

Taken together, these various measures have made the office more efficient and allowed us to minimize our request for additional funding at this time.

I want to now turn to the recent work and accomplishments of the OIPC since my last appearance in April. Demand for our services continues to rise. When we last met, I noted that our preliminary numbers showed a significant increase in core files. I can now confirm that last year we received a record-breaking 1,822 files, and we are on track to receive a similarly high number this year.

The same story can be told for adjudication. The team received 169 files, an all-time high. In fact, that’s greater than our projection from last year. Together our teams processed more case files in the last fiscal year than was the case in each of the previous five years. This was only possible because each member of our team is truly dedicated to improving service for British Columbians.

Even still, the demand for our services is outpacing the efficiencies and our higher productivity. Simply put, we are more productive in the face of greater demands, but we are on the verge of matters no longer being sustainable. What is at stake is longer wait times for the public.

[5:25 p.m.]

As you will see in the service plan portion of my submission, reducing wait times at all levels is the top priority of the office. We are working hard to complete the hiring of the adjudicators we received funding for in this fiscal year to reduce the wait time for adjudication services. Our first competition filled three positions, and the second is near completion. Given these recent trends and the anticipated effect of soon-to-be-implemented amendments to the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, the high demand for our services can only be expected to increase.

As our written submission states, we expect that recent amendments to the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, bringing in mandatory breach notification and privacy management programs, will come into force in the near term. The good news is that these changes will result in keeping the personal information of British Columbians more secure.

To do so will require far greater interaction between our staff and public bodies around the province. With resources already stretched to the limit, these added responsibilities mean our hard-working team will need additional help. Once the timing and content of the amendments implementation become known, I will carefully review their impact and will return to you with a request for the necessary resources to ensure we are able to continue to effectively serve public bodies and the public alongside our priority to reduce wait times.

Meanwhile, my office continues its responsibilities to report, investigate and comment on privacy and access-to-information matters. Several of those are now in progress, including our report card on the timeliness of government responses to access requests and our review of the impact of application fees on the public’s right of access to information. I will be able to discuss the outcome of these reports in more detail when we meet again next spring.

If there was one word summarizing much of our work this year, it would be coordination — coordination with other Canadian regulators in the access-to-information and privacy space, especially the latter. Working together with other authorities serves to streamline our operation and sends a clear message to organizations that we, as regulators, will not be played off against one another when personal information crosses interprovincial borders. It also relieves the organizations themselves of the burden of having to deal with multiple investigations.

It was in this spirit that Alberta, Canada, Quebec and British Columbia, the four jurisdictions in Canada with authority over private sector privacy, renewed our memorandum of understanding, which, amongst other things, sets out protocols for joint investigations.

The most recent high-profile example was our joint investigation report into a Tim Hortons app that Tim Hortons provided to its customers. What we found was shocking. The app tracked users’ movements every few minutes of every day, even when the app was not open. The investigation also found that Tim Hortons lacked a robust privacy management program that would have allowed the company to identify and address many of the privacy contraventions that we found.

Tim Hortons clearly crossed the line with the surveillance of their customers’ every movement. The report made it clear that organizations can’t spy on their customers just because it fits their marketing strategy. All three recommendations we made to fix the problem, including that Tim Hortons delete any of the location data in its custody, were agreed to by the company.

Another issue our office confronted together with federal, provincial and territorial colleagues concerned facial recognition technology. Every human face is unique. The underlying idea of FRT is to capture that uniqueness through a series of facial measurements. It is both a figurative and literal rendering of who we are as individuals, and it’s for that reason that those renderings are considered highly sensitive personal information and should not and cannot be collected without the closest of scrutiny.

We have called on governments to implement legal frameworks limiting police use of FRT and to put in place restrictions on circumstances where someone’s image can be entered into a comparison database. Together, we also finalized guidance on the use of facial recognition by police agencies, guidance that assists them to ensure their use of FRT is privacy protective.

Most recently, following our September federal-provincial-territorial meeting in St. John’s, Newfoundland, we addressed the importance of strengthening and modernizing privacy protections in our health care system that will ensure your personal information is properly protected as the system becomes increasingly digitized.

Chair, there was one additional initiative of our office that I would like to draw to the committee’s attention. Like many authorities globally, we are focusing on the impact tech companies are having on our children.

[5:30 p.m.]

Many of us that have children these days will attest that kids spend a lot of time online. In doing so, they are subject to all manner of automated systems that can expose them to harmful content, put them in contact with adult strangers, profile them, track their precise locations, nudge them to provide personal information or prod them into staying online for hours on end.

These harms were underlined by the recent U.K. coroner’s report into the suicide of 14-year-old Molly Russell. The coroner concluded that Molly died from an act of self-harm while suffering depression exacerbated by the negative effects of online content. The coroner said Molly viewed images of self-harm and suicide that “shouldn’t have been available for a child to see.” Those images that Molly watched were served to her by apps that she used, and the coroner was clear that they were a factor in her death.

I share her story because this is not something any child should ever have to see — not here in B.C., nor anywhere else. This is a global problem that has been the subject of many conversations amongst us regulators as we try to find a solution to protect our children. I wish it were as easy as having one global privacy regulator who could wave a wand to deal with matters. We don’t. It will be up to all jurisdictions that deal with private sector privacy to take a stand. This includes B.C.

One solution gaining currency around the world is the idea of a children’s code — more specifically, legally en­force­able, age-appropriate codes of practice that would govern the activities of companies online. Our discussions and work on this matter are ongoing.

I believe British Columbia can lead the way in Canada. We can leverage the work already done by other regulators around the world to put up a safety net of enforcement for privacy interests of children in British Columbia.

I now turn to the work of the office of the registrar of lobbyists. I have three key responsibilities under the Lobbyist Transparency Act as registrar: to establish and maintain a registry for lobbyists; to educate the public, lobbyists, media and public office holders about the act; and finally, to oversee and enforce compliance with the LTA.

We aim to ensure the registry is transparent. Our ORL team is continuously seeking ways to make it more user-friendly for lobbyists and accessible to the public. Last year, for example, we reduced the requirement for users to do certain manual updates by adding an auto-complete function. We also streamlined the government funding reporting process in response to input from lobbyists. A system that is easy for lobbyists to use will yield better transparency for the public.

We continue to educate lobbyists and the public about the act and registry. Since our last appearance, we have issued three guidance documents, including simple how-to instructions to help anyone searching the vast amount of information that is available on the registry.

We continue to publish Influencing B.C., our online newsletter that includes updates on recent legislative amendments; the popular feature “Who’s Lobbying Who,” which is a monthly summary of active or reactivated registration returns; and we recently added a section identifying the top five ministries or provincial entities that are presently being lobbied.

On the enforcement side, a number of investigations are underway. As required by the act, any reports following from those investigations will be delivered to the Speaker to be tabled before all MLAs. Thereafter, they will be published on our website.

In my final few minutes with you this evening, I will summarize the two elements of our 2023-24 budget requests, the costs associated with inflation and the update to our case-tracker system.

Most of my budget for the two offices consists of salaries and benefits. We have a complement of 52 FTEs. As you are no doubt aware, on Monday evening of this week, BCGEU members ratified a new agreement. In the budget submitted before you, the lift for my schedule A staff, which is a single person, is included. What remains unknown at this moment is the settlement’s impact on excluded management salaries, both for this current fiscal year and the 2023-24 year. We will, of course, assess those impacts before any return to this committee.

For the forthcoming fiscal year, my office is faced with an adjustment of $176,000 in inflationary costs, which is less than 2 percent of my overall budget. This includes $115,000 for salary increments and adjustments in the current fiscal year, an increase in our shared services costs of $76,000 and an increase in our building occupancy costs of $30,000, with an offset savings and amortization cost of $45,000.

I reviewed our budget in detail and determined that we have exhausted our fiscal flexibility and are unable to absorb these cost pressures without reducing staff resources and disrupting service to British Columbians.

[5:35 p.m.]

With respect to the case-tracker system and its replacement, my office’s share of the cost was approved in 2020, and I have included in my submission an adjustment in coordination with other offices that are part of the Resolve Software implementation. This adjustment makes it a three-year project, rather than a two-year project as originally planned.

The combined operating budget request to cover these new and ongoing cost pressures and adjustments is therefore an increase of $176,000 for the operating side of the budget for a total of $9.272 million, and a capital budget ask of $261,000 for the ’23-24 fiscal year.

The capital budget request actually includes a reduction of $8,000 for inflationary capital costs, including furniture, and a reduction of $91,000 to support the adjusted scheduled for the case-tracker replacement. This represents an increase of 2.43 percent for inflationary cost pressures and a reduction of 0.49 percent for the case-tracker replacement project being delayed, for an overall operating budget increase of 1.93 percent compared to the current fiscal year.

Before I invite your questions, I just wanted to acknowledge our OIPC team, the people that I have the privilege of working with every day. Their dedication is second to none, and it’s my great honour to work with them in this endeavor.

I also want to acknowledge David Flaherty, who died peacefully on October 11. David was a scholar of international renown who undertook groundbreaking work on privacy law long before its high profile of today. His knowledge was put to practice when he accepted an appointment as British Columbia’s first Information and Privacy Commissioner, serving from 1993 until 1999. He built the office from the ground up, issuing more than 300 decisions shaping our approach and understanding of B.C.’s access and privacy laws.

He was a mentor to all commissioners that followed — Elizabeth Denham, David Loukidelis and me — and to countless others who work in this field. To the last, he was a staunch supporter of the OIPC, serving on my external advisory board, supporting research, public education and policy work. He was deeply committed to his province and community, volunteering countless hours to various boards and donating generously to many causes. For all of this, we are grateful and thank him. He will be deeply missed.

With that, Chair, I thank you and the committee for your attention this evening. Of course, as always, we are here to answer your questions.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Michael. Now I will invite the committee to ask you questions.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Thanks, Michael, for the presentation. It seems like old times. We were just talking.

I’m obviously well aware of the disclosure request investigations — the increase that you’re seeing in your office right now. Of course, thank you for the work, as I drink my coffee, on the Tim Hortons app. I’ve had that app, so thank you for that.

I’m obviously aware of the increases that you’re going through right now. Of course, as we proceed into the future and the development of artificial intelligence and technology, as those areas become more prevalent, this office becomes more critical to maintain. That’s my question here: is keeping that maintainable and sustainable?

As far as employees go, the request in the budget here is fairly modest, I would say, considering what we’re looking to in the future. I think you’ve got 52 employees right now. Somewhere around there — 51 or 52, I think I read. Do you see that being an increase, going forward, with all the workload that you’re going to be experiencing?

When we see social media and technologies and things like this, privacy issues, becoming a concern, do you think you’re going to see a larger increase, or are you going to seek more professional advice outside, externally? Where do you see the breakdown occurring in the future, and can we expect, perhaps, in years to come that that budget might increase to reflect that?

M. McEvoy: The answer to your question is, I think, yes. On both fronts, I would foresee that in the future, both at a staffing level and a contract level. On the staffing level, as I mentioned, changes to the act, which I anticipate will come into effect, probably…. I believe it’s imminent.

[5:40 p.m.]

The minister, I think, expressed the view a little over a year ago that the changes would likely be coming in about a year, so we’re kind of in that time frame now. Obviously, it’s presumptuous of me to be out front asking for something that is not yet in place. Once that happens, we will absolutely be back to you.

Concretely, what that means is that there will be mandatory breach reporting on the part of public bodies. There are 2,900 of them across the province. That is going to create increased pressures on the office and staff to deal with those, which are absolutely critical. The expertise we’ve developed over time on that front to assist both public and private bodies to prevent the breach and deal with whatever notices that may have to go out, and so on — those demands will increase.

Privacy management programs are also something that is now going to be compulsory in the public sector. That’s really an important step and a positive step. Some of the larger municipalities, for example, in the public sector, or larger school boards, may have the capacity to deal with some of those things internally — and, perhaps, even the provincial government — but others may not.

If you’re in a community in Cranbrook, in Vernon or in Langley, I would anticipate that we will be engaging directly with municipalities, school boards and other public bodies to assist them in developing privacy management programs. Employing people to take those tasks on to help them develop those programs is going to be vital. That’ll be part of an ask that is upcoming.

You raised a question about contract work, and what comes to mind is technical expertise. The committee was good enough to give us, I think, some additional money for technical expertise a couple of years ago. I would see that increasing.

There are a couple of investigations we’re involved in, where we’re relying very heavily on the technical expertise of experts who can guide us through, if I can describe it, the back end of technical systems and can explain that — in a way that we can then, in turn, explain it to the public in a plain-speaking way, so that they’re able to understand some of the issues that face us, as citizens, and you, as legislators. That demand is only going to increase, I would expect.

In short, in answer to your question, I would expect that you will be seeing requests in the future on both of those issues that you’ve raised.

H. Yao: Thank you so much, Michael. You’ve probably heard me bring this question up before, but I’m going to bring it up again with you, based on your presentation. I do apologize for missing the earlier part of the presentation.

I’ve dealt with a lot of people with language barriers. Unfortunately, when it comes to protecting their rights and protecting their privacy, they often don’t know what kinds of rights they have, or if they have a complaint, they don’t know how to reach out with their complaint. Multicultural community groups often end up absorbing it or accepting their fate.

I’m wondering. In the Privacy Commissioner’s office, what has your office done to help support our multicultural community, to better be aware of what kinds of services you do provide, and if they have to file complaints, what kinds of services and supports they need and that you can provide to help them protect their privacy?

M. McEvoy: That is a good question. It is an issue that we continue to look at: to make ourselves more accessible and open to all British Columbians’ language and cultural issues. I was reminded of this at a recent event I was at. There are increasing numbers of technologies that can perhaps assist in translation of the guidance, for example, that we offer. We’re not there yet. I’ll be frank with you in saying we need to do a better job, but that is part of the work that we undertake.

We’ve got an internal committee, within the office, that looks at diversity and inclusion across a whole range of issues, this being one of the most important ones. I hope, as we move forward, that we can report that to you. You don’t have to wait for another meeting. We’ll convey that to you as MLAs and members of the committee.

H. Yao: That’s great. Can I just have a quick follow-up comment?

[5:45 p.m.]

I also want to, maybe, flag for your office that of course, there are social media in other languages too. That’s what sometimes concerns me. Some of social media want their service now stored here. That could be monitored by a foreign government, and sometimes they function so subtly that the people who are in the social media are not communicating in any other form, and therefore, they don’t know how to protect their privacy or understand the risk of their engagement on social media. So I just want to flag that for you as well.

M. McEvoy: Yes, absolutely. It’s part of the work that we already do. We just have to do that more broadly. But it’s about educating the public and members of the public about their privacy rights, about understanding that they should be looking at privacy policies.

I have to say that it’s two things. One is the individual looking at those policies, and as any of you know, who may have gone through some of them, you can scroll through pages and pages of legalese which is highly inaccessible. Part of the importance of, I think, the work that we do is to ensure that policies are done in a way that is plain-speaking, that people can understand. So it’s about the individual’s understanding, but frankly, it’s also about the companies operating in a way and conducting themselves in a way that is respectful and is compliant with privacy law.

Of course, that’s something we get complaints about in our office all the time, and we engage companies about that. I think our experience is that, generally speaking, companies and organizations want to do the right thing, and when they understand those obligations, they do the right thing.

For those that don’t, there are compliance measures within the act. We believe those should be stronger. You will probably know our office has expressed strong views about that and hope that government will move forward with initiatives that will allow us, as regulators, to impose penalties for bad actors — that minority of organizations that don’t act properly — to ensure that they do.

R. Merrifield: Thank you so much for the presentation. You might have talked about this, so forgive me if I missed it somewhere.

It seems as though your budget is…. The revised numbers are actually going down each year, like from ’23-24 to ’24-25 to ’25-26. But we just talked about the need for staffing and for wages to increase. So what is…?

M. McEvoy: What accounts for that?

R. Merrifield: Yes. I mean, I want that magic. That’s amazing, and if you could dispel that to everyone else and share it. I do have a second follow-up question if there’s time.

M. McEvoy: I think the majority of that, what you would see in I think the third year of that projection, relates to operating expenses to deal with the adjudicators, the adjudication ask that was granted by the committee last year. We asked for seven adjudicators. Five were permanent, and two were temporary in the sense that their term would go out to two or three years, I believe.

We hoped we’d have dealt with the backlog by that point and that they wouldn’t be necessary. So that’s what you see — the salaries of those additional adjudicators no longer on the books at that point.

R. Merrifield: Okay. That makes sense.

The other question I had is…. You noted that one of the costs was related to the new system, the tracker system.

M. McEvoy: The Case Tracker System, yes.

R. Merrifield: The Case Tracker there, yeah. There was a $461,000…. Could you talk about the delay and how that actually increased costs?

M. McEvoy: So it didn’t really increase costs — I think just marginally. What happened, though, was that we have deferred the cost of that to another year. Originally, it was a two-year project. It’s a three-year project. There were some staffing issues within the contractor that we have employed.

But we also want to make sure that we get this exactly right, up front. Our view was that if it took a few months longer to get it exactly right for both the users and the public, we would be served well in the long term. So we moved and shifted money from this year’s budget to next year’s.

Maybe we could just ask Dave. If you wanted to give maybe a little more detail on that.

D. Van Swieten: Sure. I think some of those questions will be spoken to by the other commissioners coming before you on Friday.

[5:50 p.m.]

Commissioner McEvoy, for his office…. He actually hasn’t started the work yet. He’s scheduled to start it in February, and that’s when the bulk of the expenditures are being transferred from this year into next fiscal year.

R. Merrifield: Okay. So it’s not actually an increase of cost. It is just a shift of the cost from this year to the next.

D. Van Swieten: Precisely.

R. Merrifield: Thank you. That’s very clear.

B. Bailey: Thank you very much for the presentation and for your continued world-class leadership, in fact, on this file. I spent a lot of time thinking about these issues, and I think the work that you’re doing is of great importance. I just want to thank you, your team and everyone in your office for doing this important work.

My question is really a tiny one. In fact, Renee kind of got there before me. As a software person, I’m always interested in software management and integration. I was looking at the Resolve software implementation project status, and I don’t know if you’re the right person to address this to. Perhaps your colleague?

I was just concerned because I saw a chart that has green status, for everything being fine. One of those lines is “prior status, on schedule,” and it’s marked green. Yet we have a situation where, in fact, there has been quite a delay — for a year. I’m just trying to understand how that would come to be. Do we in fact know that a year is enough? If we’re predicting green again, it gives me pause for concern.

M. McEvoy: I do think we’re very confident with the schedule as it is now.

Dave, you may be able to speak a bit more to the matters involved in the delay of what, for us, is a year.

D. Van Swieten: Yeah, absolutely. If you go back to the prior report for this one — we issue these reports quarterly — you’ll notice that the schedule was issued as a red, like: “We’re very concerned. We have to adjust the project timeline.”

For the report you have before you, we got together, and we talked about it. We said: “Yeah. There’s no way around this. We have to extend the project by a year.” We’re actually anticipating our go-live date for Commissioner McEvoy’s office to be about this time next year, November, December. So there’s still a three-month buffer. If user acceptance testing, for example, uncovers more than we anticipated, we’ve got about three months left to address that. We are very confident that that addition of time will be sufficient.

B. Bailey: May I just clarify? I think my misunderstanding, then, is that this is by quarter. So when you say “prior,” it is the prior quarter, not the prior year.

D. Van Swieten: Correct.

B. Bailey: Thank you.

H. Yao: Just another quick question. I’ve asked the same question to all the other commissioners as well. For wage inflation, what’s the percentage you guys picked? I was flipping through the report, but I didn’t see the actual percentage.

M. McEvoy: For our wages in the office, after people are hired, the increments are generally in line with what the provincial government and PSEC asks of the provincial civil service and excluded employees.

We look very carefully at each and every division of our team to make sure that we’re retaining and attracting the right candidates. Where we see that there are challenges, there are occasions when we have to make adjustments within the existing band structure to retain and attract people.

It’s a matter that we are constantly keeping our eye on — and, you can imagine, in the current environment, particularly keeping our eye on it — because there are some challenges that we now know are certainly not unique to our office or the previous presenter’s. It’s right across both the public and the private sector. It’s something we’re keeping a very close eye on, to make sure that we’re retaining and keeping the best people.

J. Routledge (Chair): Are there any other questions?

Well, not seeing any other questions, I want to thank you, Michael, and your team for taking the time to come and present to us. I’d also thank you for the work that you do, the work that you lead — your written documentation is very useful to us — and for engaging with us.

[5:55 p.m.]

As I read the documents and listened to the exchange today, it occurs to me that, really, in a nutshell, what you and your staff are responsible for is to keep private what’s private and to keep public what’s public. That is a challenge in this increasingly intrusive world, where everything keeps changing. You’ve so well described what you need to anticipate and the kind of technology that’s coming down the road, and how it could impact on us. Thank you so much for all of that, on behalf of the committee.

M. McEvoy: Thanks to the committee for your support. If you haven’t trademarked that earlier quote, I may borrow it from time to time.

J. Routledge (Chair): You may have that.

We can let you go home now, and I’ll entertain a motion to adjourn.

Motion approved.

The committee adjourned at 5:56 p.m.