The committee met at 8:14 a.m.

[Jennifer Blatherwick in the chair.]

Jennifer Blatherwick (Chair): I would like to call this meeting of the Special Committee on Democratic and Electoral Reform to order.

Good morning, everyone. My name is Jennifer Blatherwick. I’m the MLA for Coquitlam-Maillardville and the Chair of the special committee.

[8:15 a.m.]

I’d like to acknowledge that I’m joining today from my constituency, which is located on kʷikʷəƛ̓əm traditional and ancestral lands, including parts historically shared with the q̓ic̓əy̓ and other Coast Salish Peoples.

The purpose of today’s meeting is to hear from Elections B.C. regarding volumes 2 and 3 of the Chief Electoral Officer’s report on the 2024 provincial general election. After, we will continue deliberations related to the first part of the committee’s mandate.

We’ll begin with Elections B.C.’s presentation, led by the Chief Electoral Officer, Anton Boegman. In recognition of Anton’s term ending shortly, on behalf of the committee, I’d like to thank him sincerely for his public service and dedication as a Chief Electoral Officer for the past seven years.

I will now turn it over to you, Anton, if you would like to introduce your staff and then begin the presentation.

Briefing on Report of the
Chief Electoral Officer on the
2024 Provincial General Election

Volume II: Financing and Expenses
Volume III: Recommendations for Legislative Change

Anton Boegman: Great. Thank you very much. In terms of the presentation slide deck, this is slide 1, and I’ll just keep indicating the new slides as we go through the presentation.

Good morning, Chair, Deputy Chair and committee members. Thank you so much for the opportunity to meet with you today about the second and third volumes of Elections B.C.’s report on the 2024 provincial general election.

Thank you for your kind words. I was also going to reflect that this will be my last opportunity to present in front of this committee as Chief Electoral Officer. I do appreciate the engagement that we’ve had, the respectful discussions with the committee members, and I wish you every success in the continuation of your mandate.

During this presentation, we’ll also be covering two additional topics that were requested by this committee, which are voting place standards and staffing considerations.

I’m joined this morning by a number of my senior staff: Charles Porter, Deputy Chief Electoral Officer, electoral finance and operations; Kerry Pridmore, Deputy Chief Electoral Officer, corporate services; Tanya Ackinclose, senior director of finance and facilities administration; Jodi Cooke, executive director of electoral finance; Aidan Brand, senior director, corporate programs and strategic initiatives; and Danielle Johnston, senior director of communications.

The purpose of having my senior team here with me this morning is just in case there are questions which delve down into some of the details. Many of them are better placed than me to provide fulsome answers to those types of questions.

I’d like to begin the presentation today by also acknowledging that our meeting is taking place on the traditional territories of the lək̓ʷəŋən-speaking Peoples, the Esquimalt and Songhees First Nations, and I do acknowledge with gratitude and with respect their stewardship of the lands we are on.

Slide 2, please. This portion of the presentation will cover the second and third volumes of our report on the 2024 provincial election. The second volume, which was published on September 24, includes information about campaign financing, the reviews and audits of participants’ election financing reports and the costs of administering the election.

The third volume, which was published on October 30, includes my recommendations for legislative change, as well as some areas of public policy that we suggest legislators may wish to consider further. Next slide, please.

I’ll begin with an overview of volume 2, financing and expenses. The campaign financing and reporting requirements under the Election Act enhance transparency, accountability and fairness in provincial elections. They ensure that voters know how much money is being spent on election campaigning and who is spending it. A significant amount of work is undertaken by our electoral finance team to ensure that participants are aware of their obligations under the act ahead of the election.

After the election, the finance team’s focus shifts to reviewing the reports filed by political participants to identify any non-compliance with the requirements of the act, which of course then feeds into our enforcement programs. Next slide, please.

A key success in this area in the 43rd provincial general election was the improved and enhanced processes we use to review these reports. Now, in 2022, Elections B.C. piloted a risk-based compliance program to conduct reviews of the 3,500 disclosure statements filed in relation to the 2022 general local elections.

This was a new process for us, and it really involved taking a different approach to looking at campaign finance compliance. We assessed for risk, and we then reviewed a much smaller but more targeted number of financial reports. Building on this model, we implemented a similar process for the 2024 provincial general election.

[8:20 a.m.]

Now, the compliance process for an election financing report begins when that report is submitted. Upon receipt, each report is assessed for common reporting errors or non-compliance and assigned a risk score of high, medium or low.

Reports are then reviewed or audited, with the highest-risk files reviewed first. Approximately 82 percent of all reports were assessed as low risk. Low-risk files include reports where the filer reported receiving minimal contributions or incurred less than $500 in expenses, and 10 percent of files were assessed as medium risk, with the remaining 8 percent assessed as high risk of non-compliance.

Now, if a compliance review or audit finds that non-compliance has occurred, or if the participant becomes aware of new information that would impact what was previously reported, the filer must submit a supplementary report within 30 days.

Filers may be required to submit more than one supplementary report if further issues are identified. Filing a supplementary report does not preclude further investigation or enforcement actions to address non-compliance. Once the review or the audit is complete, if non-compliance is found, the file is then forwarded to our investigations team for further review and enforcement action as required.

This new review process resulted in significant efficiency improvements. Reviews of election financing reports for the 2020 provincial election were ongoing for more than two years after that election. Under the new review process, reviews of the 2024 election financing reports were over 90 percent complete one year after the election.

On the last slide, I referred to compliance reviews and audits. These are two different processes. An audit differs from a compliance review in depth and in scope. Subjects of audits are required to provide documentation supporting the information reported in their election financing report and are interviewed about the information contained in the report and their accounting practices in relation to their campaign.

The 2024 provincial election was the first provincial election in which Elections B.C. conducted audits of selected participant reports. These were based on the risk score, obviously. But there was also a random component of the audits, which allowed us to do a much broader sample of all the reports that were received. The findings of the audits conducted to date have provided key insights into accounting practices of political participants, the controls in place to ensure that legislative requirements are met, and areas where greater clarity and education are required.

You will see some of the findings on the screen. These represent the most common findings from our audits of candidate election financing reports. In 92 percent of the candidate reports audited, where candidates received contributions, the candidates and their financial agents were not able to demonstrate, through their documentation, that they had confirmed that the contributors were Canadian citizens or permanent residents, and residents of B.C., at the time such contributions were made.

Some 65 percent were found to have discrepancies between the expense accounts reported on election financing report and the supporting documentation, such as bank statements and invoices, and 58 percent included prohibited contributions, including contributions that exceeded permissible limits for cash, anonymous donations, contributions received from individuals who resided outside of British Columbia and in-kind contributions from eligible individuals or entities.

Again, in 58 percent of cases, discrepancies were found between the contributor details that were recorded on the election financing report, such as the name, amount or residential address and the information that was noted on the payment evidence. These findings show us that there’s more work to be done in these areas to ensure that participants understand and follow the requirements of the Election Act. They also help to inform some of the recommendations included in the third volume of my report, which I will discuss later in this presentation.

As discussed earlier, when a compliance review or audit finds evidence of non-compliance, the file is forwarded to our investigations team for further evaluation. We also receive complaints from the public or other stakeholders, or we may open an investigation of our own volition when relevant information comes to our attention. An investigation may conclude that the allegations were unfounded or that the investigation could not substantiate the allegations, or an investigation may substantiate those allegations.

[8:25 a.m.]

Depending upon the nature of the non-compliance and the specific facts of the case, a substantiated investigation may conclude by sending a warning letter to the subject, by applying an administrative monetary penalty or referring the matter to the Crown prosecution service to consider offence charges.

To date, we have opened 270 investigations in relation to the 2024 provincial general election, and 139 of those have been closed, resulting in nine administrative monetary penalties and 45 warning letters; 85 of these were found to be unsubstantiated.

I’ve actually just noted that I do have some incorrect data in my presentation notes because that differs from what you have on your slide. Go with the information that is on the slide. That is the correct information in terms of the 330 investigations — 208 closed, 122 ongoing, 131 unsubstantiated and a warning letter for 64, with 13 administrative monetary penalties to date. My apologies for that discrepancy.

In terms of additional investigations, these are opened as our reviews of supplemental reporting continue. Details about monetary penalties or other enforcement actions, of course, are then published on our website upon conclusion of the investigation.

Slide 7, please. Moving on to the cost of administering B.C.’s 43rd provincial general election, I’m pleased to report that we came in under budget for this event. As stewards of public funds, we are mindful of the importance in providing accessible, high-quality service to all electoral stakeholders while doing so in an efficient and fiscally responsible manner. We are committed to administering our mandate using a prudent financial approach.

Our overall budget for election infrastructure, for readiness activities and election delivery during the four fiscal years prior to the 43rd provincial general election was $94.33 million. From that budget, in actual costs, once the election was concluded, we were able to find $4.51 million in savings.

Elections B.C.’s budget for the redistribution event, which was required following the passing of the Electoral Districts Act in 2023, was $3.84 million. The redistribution is where we implement the new boundaries and the new voting areas into all of our data systems and communicate those changes to the voters. Within this budget, we were also able to identify savings, this time of $2.55 million.

These savings were due to changing our communications approach for the provincewide mailout. Instead of sending direct mail to each voter, we sent region-based householders. This new approach was able to find savings in postage and printing costs while helping us to achieve our communication goals.

Finally, our enumeration budget was $6.39 million, within which we were able to identify $2.27 million in savings. These savings were due to negotiating a reduced postal rate for the enumeration mailout, which reached the incentive rates available under Canada Post standards.

In total, Elections B.C. was able to conclude all overall costs related to the 43rd provincial general election with a $9.33 million surplus, which was returned to provincial funds. In fulfilling our responsibility to deliver secure and accessible elections, we’re committed to identifying operational efficiencies that do not impact election outcomes. Through careful analysis and a commitment to continuous improvement, we’re able to identify savings while maintaining service levels for residents of B.C.

I’ll provide some additional specifics on Slide 8. The planned budget for election readiness and delivery was $84.3 million, with an actual cost of $82.42 million. There were 3.609 million registered voters as of October 19, 2024, which resulted in a cost per registered voter of $22.84 for election readiness and delivery.

If you put this out over a four-year time frame between the 43rd provincial election and the previous election in 2020, on an annual basis, this works out to a cost of approximately $5.70 per registered voter. Elections B.C. believes that this cost delivers good value to all voters of British Columbia.

Now, there were a number of key cost drivers which impacted the costs of this election. They included legislative changes in 2019 and 2023.

[8:30 a.m.]

Costs related to these new legislative changes included establishing a secure network across the province for over 1,000 voting places and 94 district offices, leasing electronic voting books, laptops and tabulators from Elections Ontario, development and support of necessary IT applications, including the electronic voting book software, the strike-off system and the Elections B.C. services portal, which included the online candidate nominations applications service; and support contracts with technology vendors and partners.

A very significant cost driver for the 2024 provincial election, however, was the addition of six new electoral districts as a result of the electoral boundaries redistribution in 2023. This meant leasing and staffing six additional district electoral offices, with the associated cost from the addition of these districts impacting virtually all areas of election administration, including office and voting place supply, shipments and integration into B.C.’s IT systems.

Just as a point of comparison, the last time that B.C. added six electoral districts in between elections, the cost of the subsequent election went up 35 percent over the previous election. That is in line with the cost increases that we saw between 2020 and 2024.

Slide 9, please. Separate from the election delivery cost, during the four-year business cycle preceding the 2024 provincial election, Elections B.C. spent $7.39 million on election infrastructure. This represents costs for equipment that is necessary to support our event delivery mandate but is anticipated to have a lifespan of a decade. So these are infrastructure costs that support more than one electoral event and therefore are not attributed to only a single event. They are reported, however, in our election reports.

The cost to implement the new electoral boundaries, of course, established by the Electoral Districts Act, was $1.29 million, which included costs over two fiscal years. The cost to include the enumeration and voter registration activities prior to the election was $4.12 million, which included costs over two fiscal years again. Detailed breakdowns of all of these costs are in volume 2 of our report.

I’ll now move on to volume 3 of my report. Next slide, please. Our third and final volume includes the recommendations for legislative change and areas of public interest that we suggest legislators may wish to consider further.

Slide 11, please. Our existing electoral legislation provides exceptional accessibility to the ballot box for voters. It’s been a point of pride for me as Chief Electoral Officer that the British Columbia accessibility model in terms of how voters can access their ballot is the best, I believe, in the world. Robust campaign finance provisions, however, are also part of our legislation, and we do have a number of modern protections against emerging challenges posed by disinformation and misrepresentation.

Each election, however, provides a unique perspective on the operationalization of election law and an opportunity for continuous improvement. In order to develop these recommendations, Elections B.C. conducted a comprehensive and detailed review of what went well and what could be improved following the election. This review included a consultation with stakeholders, including senior electoral district officials, including voters, non-voters, financial agents and political party representatives. All of the recommendations proposed in this report are intended to support maintaining the Election Act as fit for purpose on a go-forward basis.

Now, implementing any legislative change requires a deep understanding of the impact of that change. Elections B.C. must consider how the change can be put into effect, where the changes need to be made, and how the change can be effectively integrated into existing processes and systems. Following any change, a plan on how the change can be communicated to impacted stakeholders is required. For these reasons, the recommendations for legislative change are made carefully, with analysis on both the administrative need for the change and the capacity to implement the change.

Once recommendations are developed, Elections B.C. reviews all proposed changes with the Election Advisory Committee, which, of course, all parties in the Legislature are able to appoint members to the Election Advisory Committee. This review is an important opportunity to collect feedback and to refine the recommendations.

[8:35 a.m.]

Slide 12, please. The report highlights six specific issues under three priority areas. These priority areas are optimizing the election calendar, improving compliance and enforcement aspects and enhancing elements of election integrity.

Slide 13, please. There are two recommendations related to optimizing the election calendar. The first recommendation looks to extend the election calendar for fixed-date elections by adding three days to the campaign period by calling by-elections and fixed-date elections on a Wednesday rather than a Saturday. This recommendation will address challenges with important dates, like the close of nominations falling on a Saturday and the very tight timeline in the current calendar with the production of ballots. Voting day, of course, would remain on a Saturday.

The second change is to consolidate the nomination period. This change would consolidate standing and ordinary nominations into a single period and allow the Chief Electoral Officer, rather than each district electoral officer, to declare the candidates.

Currently there are two nomination processes which are identical, except for the times and locations for submissions. Technological advances have made the time and location of candidate nominations less critical. Consolidating nominations into a single period administered by the Chief Electoral Officer would streamline the process, improve efficiency and free district electoral officers to focus on other critical election duties at the beginning of the campaign period.

Next slide, please. The second priority area is improving compliance and enforcement. Again, there are two recommendations in this area.

The first recommendation is to establish administrative monetary penalties for violation of 100-metre rule and other voting offences. This would allow the CEO to impose administrative monetary penalties, or AMPs, for campaigning activity that occurs within 100 metres of a voting place and for some voting violations.

Currently the CEO may only forward files to Crown for prosecution for individuals who have violated the prohibition against campaigning within 100 metres of a voting place and for all voting offences, such as multiple voting or voting when not entitled to do so. Most of these instances, however, are inadvertent, and criminal prosecutions require significant time and resources. They must meet public interest requirements and high evidentiary standards. This means that in most cases, criminal prosecution is not a reasonable enforcement tool.

Administrative monetary penalties would provide a more efficient and proportionate enforcement tool for most of these instances. Then, of course, the option to pursue offence prosecution for more serious cases would be retained. This recommendation would then align provincial rules in this area with federal rules under the Canada Elections Act.

The second recommendation is to expand the authority to issue administrative production orders. This would allow the CEO to issue these orders for communications that violate the misinformation and disinformation provisions.

Currently the Election Act authorizes Elections B.C. to require advertisers to produce information related to advertising contraventions, such as failure to register, failure to identify an advertising sponsor or indirect advertising sponsorship. But this authority does not extend to communications that violate the misinformation and disinformation provisions under the act.

As a result, identifying and investigating these contraventions is challenging. Expanding the CEO’s authority to include these provisions would strengthen enforcement capabilities and enhance electoral transparency and integrity.

Slide 15, please. The final priority area in the report is enhancing election integrity, and there are two recommendations here as well. The first one is to require a unique contributor ID for political contributions. The recipients of political contributions are currently required to record the contributor’s name and address.

This does create challenges when contributors have similar names, use name variations or change their address. It can make it difficult for political participants to effectively track and to monitor the contribution limits. Requiring political participants to use a unique contributor ID would support greater transparency and accuracy in their financial reporting.

[8:40 a.m.]

From the audit presentation part of this, you know that candidate election financing reports found prohibited contributions, including contributions that exceeded the limits in 58 percent of the reports that were audited. Having a unique contributor identifier would provide participants with a good tool to ensure they’re in compliance with contribution rules and provide for better oversight by Elections B.C. of these practices.

The second recommendation here is to authorize Elections B.C. to access information about non-citizens from federal authorities. This would allow the CEO to enter into information-sharing agreements with the government of Canada.

Now, the Election Act establishes requirements for voters to be Canadian citizens and for political contributors to be either Canadian citizens or permanent residents. Elections B.C. requires anyone, to vote, to declare that they are a Canadian citizen and are eligible to vote. There are penalties under the Election Act for making false declarations, including a fine of up to $20,000 or up to two years in prison, on conviction, or both.

While it’s technically possible, in some circumstances, for a non-citizen to register and vote, in actuality it’s difficult to accomplish and is exceedingly rare. As noted in my first report, out of the 2.1 million votes cast in the election, we’re looking at approximately 15 potential cases of non-citizen voting or registering, which represents 0.0007 percent of votes cast. Ten of these were for possible non-citizen registration and five for possible non-citizen voting.

Elections B.C. does have an information-sharing agreement with Elections Canada, whereby we receive a B.C. extract of the national register of electors, and we share the B.C. provincial list of voters. While the national register of electors includes updates based on information that Elections Canada receives from IRCC about non-citizens, Elections B.C. does not currently have direct access to authoritative information on the citizenship or permanent residency status of British Columbians.

Gaining access to this authoritative information would allow us to adopt a trust-but-verify model that could further reduce risk and support better enforcement of the Election Act. The specific authority to enter into information-sharing agreements with the federal minister responsible for the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act would enable this federal-provincial cooperation and a better enforcement model of the act’s requirements related to citizenship and immigration status. This would also provide us with opportunities to improve the accuracy and the coverage of the provincial voters list.

Next slide, please.

In addition to our priority recommendations, the report also includes additional technical recommendations and a number of public policy considerations. Technical recommendations identify areas under the current provisions of the Election Act that are largely technical in nature but cause recurring administrative challenges for Elections B.C. and for its stakeholders. These technical recommendations fall under the categories of administration enforcement and financial reporting requirements.

The third part of this report covers public policy considerations. The considerations identify gaps or emerging issues in the current legislative framework and offer context, examples from other jurisdictions, and provincial approaches that could be explored. The public policy considerations look at setting a minimum age for making political contributions, allowing advertising on final voting day, changes to the automatic provision for close-margin district electoral officer recounts, and considering the potentiality of adding rules to address party mergers.

We do encourage legislators to closely review both of these sections in our report to support a robust discussion on election administration. I’m not going to be covering these areas in great detail during the presentation because of the timing requirements, but of course we’d be happy to discuss any of these if members of the committee wish to do so in the question-and-answer section.

Slide 17, please.

I’ll now move on to the portion of this presentation about some additional areas that were requested by this committee. These are an overview of the minimum standards for selection of voting places, information about Elections B.C. staffing levels and compensation, the approach taken for the 2024 provincial election and how we prepare for an unscheduled election.

Next slide, please.

[8:45 a.m.]

The Election Act sets out criteria for voting place selection. As you can see on the screen, the act states that, so far as reasonably possible, a voting place must be in a convenient location for a majority of the voters and must be easily accessible to individuals who have a physical disability or whose mobility is impaired.

District electoral officers plan voting place locations and voting opportunities in their district in accordance with this legal requirement. In the 43rd provincial election, Elections B.C. publicly posted preliminary voting place locations in June, three months before the election. This was the earliest that we’ve shared preliminary voting place locations. It allowed stakeholders an opportunity to review these locations and provide feedback.

When we received feedback, we carefully reviewed it, and when relevant and feasible, we implemented changes to improve accessibility. This is the approach that we hope to continue to do in future elections as we believe it will help improve accessibility of voting places for all voters. We, of course, recognize that voting is a right for all British Columbians and that access to local and accessible voting opportunities is a key contributor for voters to exercise that right.

Next slide, please.

In addition to our legislated standards, there are steps set out in our voting place selection guidelines for district officers. These include reviewing previous election voting place location information to determine where voting places are historically, what the use is in the community and what the suitability of previously used locations is.

Assigning voting areas to voting places to limit the overall distance required to travel and decrease geographic transportation barriers, which take into account traffic patterns, public transit routes, geographic barriers and weather conditions.

Reviewing socioeconomic or cultural considerations around shared use of spaces.

Reviewing the capacity of voting places to ensure locations meet size requirements and security standards and, for those with full tech, for the new technology in the voting place footprint, that they have sufficient cellular connectivity and power requirements.

Ensuring that locations meet accessibility standards, including ground floor or convenient elevator access; having a smooth, hard floor or tightly woven carpet; and having a minimum 34-inch clearance at non-revolving entrance doors, among others.

All advance voting places, and indeed most final voting places, must be physically accessible to voters using mobility devices. All district offices, of course, are physically accessible.

We have a diverse province, and not every voting place will meet an individual voter’s needs. Recognizing this, Elections B.C.’s accessible voting model includes remote voting opportunities such as vote-by-mail and assisted telephone voting for voters with a disability that prevents them from voting independently, to ensure that all British Columbians have an opportunity to cast their vote.

Next slide, please.

Elections B.C. monitors the likelihood of an unscheduled election on an ongoing basis and uses this assessment to appropriately scale our staffing readiness activities and strategic projects. If we determine that our readiness levels must increase, we enter what is called a ramp-up period, where our staffing levels increase to support preparation of materials and technology, as well as field staff training.

During a ramp-up period, a number of activities critical to election delivery take place, including district electoral officer deputy hiring and/or training, district office identification and selection, voting place planning and selection, election materials procurement, public communications planning, the recruitment and onboarding of temporary staff and other essential tasks. We followed this ramp-up model in 2020 when we delivered the unscheduled 2020 provincial general election.

Next slide, please.

To give a full sense of the scale of change for Elections B.C. that occurs during the ramp-up to a provincial election, we grow from a permanent staff of around 80 to host an additional 160 temporary staff at our headquarters in Victoria. District officers and their deputies are hired in all 93 districts to establish their offices and further hire approximately 1,100 temporary staff across the province. Finally, we recruit election officials to administer voting across each electoral district, which required approximately 16,000 short-term appointment officials in 2024.

[8:50 a.m.]

I’d like to highlight here some of the efficiencies in staffing that we’ve realized through the implementation of technology in voting places.

In the 2013 election, election officials requirements peaked, with close to 32,000 individuals required for that election. Over subsequent elections, we’ve been able to be more efficient in hiring of election officials by adjusting the size of voting areas, particularly in dense urban electoral districts, as well as by optimizing the staffing model.

For 2024, we put in place the first-come-first-serve voting service model, where voters were able to be served by the next available official at any voting station. The technology-enabled voting place only required one official per station to effectively serve voters. As a result, only 15,684 election officials were hired and trained in 2024, which was an overall reduction of 51 percent since 2013.

Compensation rates for election officials and office staff, including DEOs, their deputies and regional field officers, and voting place staff are available online on our elections jobs page, which includes descriptions of the roles as well as the pay scales.

In the case of our headquarters temporary staff, compensation rates align with the BCGEU classification and salary grids used in the B.C. Public Service, which helps in ensuring consistency and competitiveness in recruiting for these crucial positions.

Next slide, please. This brings to the conclusion our presentation on volumes 2 and 3 of my reports, as well as on the additional areas requested by the committee.

At this point, I’m very happy to turn it over to committee members and answer any questions that you have about the topics presented today.

Jennifer Blatherwick (Chair): Thank you very much for your presentation. We will now turn to questions by members. I have some questions from MLA Clare, so perhaps we will start with those and then head to MLA Shah and then MLA Stamer.

Sheldon Clare: I put the questions in the chat, the first ones I have. I encountered, when I signed up as a candidate, the elimination of the paper sign-up when I went to the B.C. Access Centre, the government agent’s office. The government agent was unaware that that provision had been removed.

Now, of course, having a candidate sign up is a rare event at a B.C. service access point, but why was the paper sign-up eliminated?

Anton Boegman: For one, the paper sign-up has not been eliminated. If that was what was presented to you through Service B.C. office, that was actually incorrect, and I do apologize for that.

While we have created a number of new technologies for submitting candidates, including the CNA system, we still continue to accept paper nominations. There were a number of nominations that district offices received. Copies of the nomination documents can be printed from the website, requested from the office, and they can be completed by hand and submitted by mail or by courier.

Maybe I’ll ask Jodi if she has any stats on the number of paper versus the number of CNAS or online nominations that we had.

Jodi Cooke: Thank you, Anton, and thank you, committee member, for your question about nominations.

While this was our first provincial general election using CNAS, we saw a high uptake in the use of it, mostly for the reason that you were able to pay the nomination deposit online. It was something that we had heard was requested quite highly from candidates. They wanted to be able to pay that by credit card over the years. We didn’t see a lot of nominations submitted by paper. It was probably less than 10 percent. However, we will follow up with our partners at Service B.C. to make sure they are aware that the forms can be submitted by paper.

In addition to printing them from the website and mailing and couriering them to our office, you can also drop them off at a Service B.C. location, and they will be forwarded to Elections B.C. for review and acceptance.

Sheldon Clare: The issue that I ran into was I was unable to pay with cash.

Jodi Cooke: You should…. Again, apologies for that. You should be able to pay at a Service B.C. location using cash, the $250 nomination deposit. They should be able to accept that amount, and then we’ll forward it on to Elections B.C. for payment.

Sheldon Clare: The service agency did contact Elections B.C. on the phone, and there was quite a furor about that. They had no idea what to do. So I think there was an educational component there that needed to be dealt with.

[8:55 a.m.]

My second question was with regards to Elections B.C. staff. I had one complaint from an individual who had not been fully compensated for her work in the election, and I think there was some training component as well as the time. I wondered if all Elections B.C. staff have been paid. Were there any outstanding claims or any outstanding audits that needed to be conducted to ensure that everyone had been properly compensated for their work?

Anton Boegman: I’ll respond to that, Sheldon. It is my understanding that all staff have been paid at this time. There were some issues with stale-dated cheques. There were some issues, of course, during the postal strike, where cheques did not go through, but we have followed up in these cases

But I will ask Tanya just to provide any additional commentary, as she is very closely in tune with all of the financial transactions. Tanya, is there any additional commentary there?

Tanya Ackinclose: Thank you, Anton. No, you covered it. Some of the payments were delayed because they got caught up in the Canada Post strike, but they all have been issued. We did receive some stale-dated cheques but a small number. I believe it was just over 200. In those cases, we have followed up with the individuals where we could and reissued those cheques.

Sheldon Clare: Okay, thank you. I had one other question. What examination has been conducted with regards to the size of political campaign contributions, in particular with a view to increasing said contribution limits, especially in the case of rising inflation?

Also back with that, I noticed that in the report you discussed the need to determine the age of contributors in order to better ensure that people aren’t just making donations on behalf of family members who are far below the age of majority.

I guess that’s a two-part question, but I look forward to your response.

Anton Boegman: Sure. Again, I will give a first response to this, and then I will ask Jodi if she has any additional comments to add to that.

In terms of the examination of the size of political contributions, this is not an area that Elections B.C. looked at particularly in terms of this report. Those amounts were set following a detailed review by legislators when the contributions were brought into effect in 2017-2018. It does have a CPI adjustment factor, which is intended to adjust those contribution amounts upwards to account for inflation that’s present to make sure that they still have the same buying power.

I will note that when we did make our recommendation to extend the length of the campaign period, within that recommendation was also a component to increase the spending limits proportionately to account for that increased length of the campaign spending limit.

Across Canada, there are varying approaches to campaign finance and contribution limits, ranging from Alberta, which recently repealed the contribution limits. That was what B.C. was like prior to the campaign finance reform being put in place. Quebec has a very strict limit of $100 per individual. Ontario had an amount closer to ours. However, they’ve also just introduced legislation to increase this. This area, of course, is an area that legislators can look at and is something that could be considered by legislators for the future.

The second part of that was one of our public policy recommendations. What we had found, mostly anecdotally and through complaints that we received, was that some of the contributors are very young children, some under ten years old. While, of course, every Canadian citizen has a right to free expression and the right to support their political candidacy, it does make us think that there are some individuals, perhaps unscrupulous individuals, who may be taking advantage of this to increase the contribution that they’re able to make.

It’s currently allowed, but it does raise this concern. Right now the date of birth is not required to be recorded or reported under the Election Act. Since this contribution limit, as I said, we’ve had a number of these inquiries.

[9:00 a.m.]

We just wanted to raise this as a public policy consideration for legislators. Should there be a minimum age? If so, what should that appropriate age be? Our goal here was really to start this proactive discussion about an emerging issue that we have noted.

Just as an example, with the limit being, you know, currently around just over $1,485 per eligible individual per year, if someone made donations in the names of their three children, then they would actually be contributing $4,455.

We don’t recommend a specific minimum age, but rather we wanted to suggest that this is a discussion that legislators should have to determine if there needs to be a limit put in here to balance between integrity and fairness and the free expression of political views.

Sheldon Clare: Did you not recommend potential ages of either 16 or 18?

Anton Boegman: We did suggest that those were options that were out there, but we don’t have a firm recommendation on that.

Sheldon Clare: Okay, thank you. Appreciate the answers.

Jennifer Blatherwick (Chair): Now I have MLA Shah on my list.

MLA Stamer, you did have your hand up, but did you still want to ask a question after MLA Shah was done? Okay, perfect.

Amna Shah: Thank you, CEO, for your presentation. I appreciate all the work that has gone into this, the administration of the prior election.

I have a few questions, and maybe I’ll start off with the recommendation to have minimum ages for donation. Is there not a declaration that a donor has to make that they are using their own money to donate?

I know that typically, for example, when you donate online, especially if you’re using a credit card, you declare that it’s your credit card, that it’s your money. I’m wondering if that rule or that declaration can be made in some way to donate. I mean, when you have people donating with a credit card, obviously they have to be of a certain age to have a credit card. But that may not be as important if you’re donating via cash.

I’m wondering if you could sort of shed some light on that declaration that that money is yours when you’re donating it.

Anton Boegman: Currently there’s not a legislated requirement for a signed declaration for political contributions. Rather, the requirement…. You know, we suggest that as a best practice to political participants. There is a requirement for the recipients of contributions to ensure that the recipients are done via an eligible contributor.

But there are many ways that that is accomplished, and indeed, if you’ll recall the statistic from our audits, we found that in 92 percent of cases, of those that were audited, the candidate could not validate through documentation that they had actually done that verification.

For online systems, there are varying approaches that different political participants have used. Some simply have a check box that just says: “I declare that I’m eligible to make this.” Others have more detail in that or links to what the eligibility requirements are. There are also political participants who receive funding through third-party providers who fundraise on their behalf, and the requirements of those third-party providers…. They may not be meeting the requirements set under the Election Act.

Again, there’s not a legislative requirement here for the signed declaration, but we do have that as a best practice recommendation for political participants.

Maybe I can just ask Jodi if she has any other specifics to include on that.

Jodi Cooke: Sure thing, Anton.

One of the observations that we noted during our audits of the candidate reports from the last provincial general election…. As Anton noted, they weren’t able to provide the documentation.

[9:05 a.m.]

But we also noted that where they were able to provide the documentation, they shared with us that their systems didn’t always prevent an individual from making a contribution if that declaration wasn’t checked or that there were not always robust internal controls to verify the check box had been properly done before accepting the contribution. Again, this is an area where we want to help educate financial agents to make sure that they are accepting contributions within the rules. However, it is not something that’s currently legislated.

In other parts of the act, particularly for third-party sponsors, there is a legislated requirement that individuals, when making a contribution, have to provide assigned confirmation and consent. However, that is only for contributions that are made to third-party election advertising sponsors, and that requirement does not currently apply under the legislation to candidates and political parties.

Amna Shah: Thank you.

In relation to that, one of the recommendations you made is to assign a contributor ID to donors. Just to clarify, who is it that assigns this ID? Would this ID be different for every filer? I can understand how it would provide some clarity to Elections B.C. about the different donors who are donating to, let’s say, one particular campaign. But I’m wondering, across the system, if the use of that ID is not consistent, because every filer’s ID is different…. How does that work?

Anton Boegman: Jodi, I think you’re probably best placed to provide the details of how that would work, thanks.

Jodi Cooke: Thank you, Anton.

The idea for this recommendation was that political parties would assign a contributor ID to individuals and that that would be used by their candidates and if they have any registered constituency associations. It would not be an ID that is assigned by Elections B.C.

Part of the rationale behind that is that the contribution limit, the annual limit, is applied by political party affiliation, and it is not applied across political parties. So we don’t do as much comparison between the parties.

This would help parties establish stronger internal controls in their tracking of individuals, particularly where we find that individuals have exceeded the contribution limit by party affiliation. It’s where they have a name where they might go by a different name in one instance, so maybe they go by Chris to one candidate and then Christopher to the party, or they move within the reporting period. With just the name and address combination, it can be very difficult for them to make that match and then to be able to confirm that they haven’t exceeded that annual limit.

Amna Shah: Chair, if you may entertain one more question for me. Just going back to the first part of the presentation, I’m trying to wrap my head around the compliance assessment piece, the risk assessment.

I tried to find this in the report, but you’d mentioned that there were 8 percent of high-risk files that were identified. Out of that 8 percent, what percentage of that 8 percent did you ultimately find to be in noncompliance? Is that that chart that we saw? I think you mentioned that the audit is separate from the compliance assessment, but I’m specifically referring to the compliance assessment and the model that you use and just wondering out of that 8 percent, how many did you actually find to be non-compliant after you assessed?

Jodi Cooke: Anton, would you like me to take this one as well?

Anton Boegman: Indeed, I would, Jodi.

Jodi Cooke: Oh, thank you so much.

In response to your question, we don’t have specific statistics on how many of them are from the high-risk category. As Anton mentioned in his presentation, there were approximately 330 investigation files opened. Some of those investigations could relate to the high-risk files, or they may relate to other files that were identified or non-compliant that were identified during the review or audit.

[9:10 a.m.]

I will say that my team has sent approximately a hundred files for consideration to the investigations team, and they’re at varying stages in the investigation process. We’re reviewing to determine whether they would be warranted a warning letter or an administrative monetary penalty.

Amna Shah: I suppose my follow-up question would be, then: how do you know that risk assessment model works well?

Jodi Cooke: That’s a great question. As Anton mentioned, this is our second general election applying this new approach. We adopted an iterative approach, where we review the standards to make sure that non-compliance is being identified in the files that we are selecting.

I will add that, further to Anton’s presentation, we did not just review the 8 percent of the reports. Our team reviewed every report that was submitted by an elected MLA or an individual who was eligible for an election expense reimbursement in order to ensure that those reports were in compliance and that we were dispersing public money in accordance with the Election Act. So we reviewed much more than the 8 percent.

What we were able to determine from our risk assessment is that, while we were reviewing more reports, those risk files would be indicators of potential non-compliance but not necessarily a result of it. For example, an individual who spends very close to the election expense limit may be of higher risk. However, that does not necessarily mean that they have overspent.

What we’re trying to identify through this process is to ensure that files where they are further away from the risk factors, where they have spent hundreds of dollars as opposed to thousands of dollars, are not being reviewed at the same level of scrutiny that we would review the higher-risk files.

Amna Shah: Thank you.

Sorry, Chair. Can I just squeeze one more in there? It’s related to administrative monetary penalties.

When an administrative monetary penalty is issued, where can the public find that information? Is there a proactive effort from Elections B.C. to let the public know?

One of the things that I think we run into — and this happens with a lot of regulatory bodies, as well, in our system — is that it gets posted onto a website. If you’re a member of the public, you would have to have knowledge that that exists to actually go there and see who are these actors breaking the rules.

I think in an election period, where it’s incredibly important for people to actually understand that, hey, this is against the rules…. When you see it, I think it’ll contribute to this larger education piece about what is acceptable and what is not acceptable under the Elections Act.

Anton Boegman: Thanks for that question. We, of course, do post administrative monetary penalties on our website, and there’s a detailed link to the actual penalty and the notification letter. But we also do communicate that through a news release. Whenever we issue an administrative monetary penalty, there is a news release. Then we also put a link to that news release in our social media platforms.

I have found that there is, particularly with local media, quite good pickup of the releases that we have which highlight where the administrative monetary penalties have been applied. I think there’s also a requirement to post them in the B.C. Gazette, although I’m not sure of the readership of the B.C. Gazette.

Ward Stamer (Deputy Chair): Good morning, Anton. A couple of quick ones. Thanks for your presentation. I mean, I know with a presentation that long, there are some assumptions made that we can either agree or disagree with, but I have a couple of questions.

The first one is that the last time we chatted, it wasn’t brought to our attention about time sensitivity around election documents and the legal requirements of destruction. I’ve got a couple of questions around that inasmuch as that, to me, it seems pretty obvious that we’ve got this mandate backwards, where we should’ve been doing our election reform review first and then democratic reform second, but that’s beside the point.

[9:15 a.m.]

My question to you is: can you give us a list of which documents have been destroyed under legislation and which ones have not and which ones would still be available for us to see once we get to the second part of our mandate?

Anton Boegman: Sure. At this present time, no documents have been destroyed. There is a requirement under the Election Act, specifically, to destroy certain materials, such as ballots, which are all sealed and have been sealed for a year, and certification envelopes that remain sealed.

These documents are in the process of getting destroyed under the Election Act because there is a positive requirement for them to be destroyed. It says that they must be destroyed one year following the election. No other election material has been destroyed at this point.

Obviously, the other requirement is that any ballots, ballot accounts, any election material related to any district that is subject to an “invalid election” petition must remain until the conclusion of that petition. So of course in Surrey-Guildford, none of that documentation will be destroyed.

In relation to the other material, there’s not a requirement in the Election Act to destroy it. However, it is part of Elections B.C.’s records destruction program to destroy that on an ongoing basis.

Ward Stamer: Well, I would suggest, from my position, that we should not be doing that if we’re going to be having questions in the second part of our mandate regarding polling data. I have some specific questions in regards to polling data, and I would suggest that we do not destroy any of that at all — I’m hoping that the rest of the committee agrees — until we can ask some very pertinent questions. When it comes to it, particularly what happened in Surrey, it could have a direct result on some of the questions that we may have on other polling stations in other regions of the province.

My second question. You made a statement about “reasonably placed” when it came to polling stations. We can have quite a discussion on that, because part of the questions in the last round was access to schools. So two things. What have we learned in lack of access, or why we weren’t able to have access to going forward, being able to have that access…? You made a statement about making sure that we’re within reasonable distances for people, including people with disabilities, mobility challenges and all that stuff. So I’d like to know what you identified and what we’re going to be able to do going forward.

The second thing is, is there a part in the process where if there are individual MLAs that may have concerns about what happened in the previous election, like myself, those can be brought to the attention of your office so they can look at those individual examples and instances and see if they’re valid or not and see what we can do going forward, regardless of whether we have a snap election or we have a fixed election.

Anton Boegman: Certainly we can establish process to solicit input from MLAs in terms of the voting locations that were used in the past election and recommendations that they may have about new voting places.

We did proactively reach out to the political parties when we posted the voting place locations in June prior to the 2024 election. It’s already been rolled into our plan that we would also proactively provide those locations to MLAs at the same time that they’re provided to the political parties, recognizing that MLAs may have a different perspective on what voting places are accessible and which ones may not be.

In terms of access to schools, we do have legislated access to schools. However, our approach has been, with schools, to work with the school district staff to ensure that we can get access to schools where it’s deemed as being necessary for voting procedures. Most of our use of schools has been for final voting day locations. It being on a Saturday, the schools do not have any concerns about members of the public coming onto the school grounds and using those facilities. But we have used some for advanced voting, and in some locations they’re the best location to be used.

[9:20 a.m.]

Again, we rely mostly on our district officers to do an assessment within their district. They’re the ones that we hire who do have that local knowledge. Obviously, others have local knowledge around there, which is partly why we’ve implemented some of the changes around early notification of planned voting places to include MLAs in addition to political parties that are currently being done.

Ward Stamer (Deputy Chair): What about my first question on the documentation and the process that Elections B.C. has in systematically getting rid of documentation? Can we have an understanding on where we are with that?

Anton Boegman: I think if the committee wishes to examine certain documents as part of their review, we’ll certainly engage with committee staff to determine what those documents are.

Obviously we do have a legislative requirement to destroy the ballots and to destroy the certification envelopes that have been sealed and were not considered as part of that. That is something that we have to do. It’s in the legislation. If there’s other documentation that the committee wishes to see, then we will certainly engage with committee staff and find out which documents you wish to see and make sure that those will be available for the committee’s purposes.

Ward Stamer (Deputy Chair): Okay, so that will be explained to us through staff on what that process is?

Anton Boegman: Yes, it will be.

Ward Stamer (Deputy Chair): Thank you.

Anton Boegman: You’re welcome.

Rob Botterell: Good morning, and thank you so much for your presentation. It’s very informative and helpful. I just look forward to following up and staff following up on the point that MLA Stamer made. I think it’s a huge opportunity over the next few months to do the work of the committee, and having the assurance that the documents will be there if we need them is great. If we can hold off on destruction of documents, that would be great.

I had a couple of questions. At the early part of the presentation, I think you noted that there were 122 complaints that were maybe pending investigation or in progress. I was curious. I’ve got a couple of questions, but that one is…. What’s your target to complete the work on the 122? What’s the timeline you’re working toward?

Anton Boegman: That is one where it’s hard to give a specific timeline because, of course, depending upon the scope and scale, an investigation may take more time or may take less time. What I can say is that it is a priority of our investigations team. They’re actively working on all of those files at present.

We do have a tracking system so that we can note where files are, and as any files are concluded, then we will work on that. So it is a priority for us. I can’t give a specific date just because, given the nature of an investigation, some may take longer, some may take shorter. So they really vary in terms of scope and scale.

Rob Botterell: Okay. No. Thanks very much. I just reflect on that, given the nature of politics in B.C., it would be nice to have things wrapped up before we’re in the middle of another election.

The other question I had was just…. I think earlier in the presentation, as well, you mentioned or you identified I think it was $9.3 million in savings. I just wondered if you could just provide a bit more context for that. Also, is that an example where those savings mean that the funds are not needed so they’re not provided, or is it a case where those are funds that are saved that are available for future needs?

Anton Boegman: Great, so I’ll speak to that, but I’ll also invite Tanya to follow up if there are aspects that she thinks are important to note as well.

[9:25 a.m.]

In essence, when we prepare our budgets, we do this through the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services, and we present our budget requirements on a go-forward basis. Typically for scheduled events, they’re provided one year in advance of that, and then we work through those budgets.

What we actually find is that when we’re doing our plans and we develop the budgets in support of those plans, there may be details that change at a later point in time or that we’re not able to confirm at that point in time. So our budgets are conservative in that they take account of a number of different eventualities.

That means that when we actually go to implement and deliver on events, often there are opportunities for savings. For example, our original plan for the electoral district redistribution event was that we planned on sending a direct mail piece to each registered voter, telling them that they were currently in one electoral district and that as a result of the distribution they would be in another electoral district. This would require 3.6 million individual pieces of mail going forward.

When we reviewed the different approaches to that, we decided that rather than sending a direct piece of mail to each voter, we would send to each residential household in the province, and this would then include a regional map on it and links to some of our other systems. The savings that we are able to accrue through that change in approach were reflected in some of those savings in the budget.

In terms of the enumeration event that I highlighted, the original plan in that was to send direct mail to each residential address in the province, indicating which voters were registered at that location and providing an opportunity for the individual to make any changes to that.

We still proceeded with that approach, but what we found is that after we were able to conclude the agreement with Canada Post for that, we were able to meet the incentive rates for those mailings. So the amount of postage per piece was actually much less than what was in the original budget.

We weren’t sure that we’d be able to get those incentive rates, so we had to put the higher amount into the budget to be conservative in terms of making sure that funds were available. But once we went to do the mailing, we were able to get that rate, so the savings were able to be achieved.

The way that our budgeting works is that we are given the ability to draw down on funds up to a certain amount in the consolidated revenue fund. If we don’t end up needing money, that money just sits in the revenue fund, which means when we report on our accounts there’s actually no variance. It shows up as a zero variance all the time, because we only use exactly how much money we need to do the various activities.

Tanya, I’m not sure if you have additional…?

Rob Botterell: Sorry to interrupt. We should just celebrate the fact that you always balance the budget.

Anton Boegman: Yeah. Tanya, did you have any other comments on that?

Tanya Ackinclose: I do not have anything to add, Anton. You did a great job of answering that question.

Rob Botterell: Thank you so much. I really appreciate your answers.

Rohini Arora: Thank you very much, Anton and team, for being here and walking us through your process so that we can get some information.

I have a couple of different questions. One is on DROs. I’m curious as to when the process begins. I know under a snap election moment, you have to get sorted as quickly as you can. However, in a general election, what is the timeline for you to begin hiring folks up?

I know that many are returns from past elections. I guess the reason I ask this question, as context, is that there are particular areas, especially on and off reserve in rural areas, where, without a DRO, a polling station cannot be set up. I’m curious as to what Elections B.C. does to mitigate that.

Then my other question is on the accessibility of polling locations. In the last election…. By the way, thank you so much for really taking the time to ensure a lot of these offices were accessible. However, because of the atmospheric rain — I think this is something that Elections B.C. should also take into consideration — water was, of course, piling up.

[9:30 a.m.]

People who were parking their vehicles to get in and vote quickly were actually blocking the ramp or the flat area that would allow a motorized wheelchair to be able to get onto the sidewalk. Water also piled up in some areas, and someone within our team in fact had fallen right into the water because of it. That’s just a heads-up I wanted to give you. I thought it was pertinent and important, just something to consider.

I don’t know if you use cones or say, “Do not park in this area” — additional signage just to ensure that those areas are open. Also, a piece of wood or something that’s large enough — if someone needed to be able to cover the water and then be able to get into that little lip or over that flat surface — would allow them not to get stuck on the lip of the sidewalk. Those are my two questions.

Anton Boegman: I will respond to those, and then I’ll also ask other members of my team, if they think there are pertinent points that I’ve not raised, to chime in on those.

In terms of a DRO — that’s the federal term for what we call a voting officer or a ballot-issuing officer here in B.C. — in our elections, those are recruited, trained and deployed by district officers within their district. That is something that they have a responsibility to do.

We support them because many individuals who are interested in working as an election official will send their interest and their résumé to Elections B.C. headquarters through our website. Then we parse those by district and forward them to districts so that they can then select from those individuals to form their teams.

Typically — with the exception of, I think, some of the rural and northern districts, where there are challenges in getting staffing — in the urban areas, we have way more applicants than we actually have spaces. Oftentimes then, it’s trying to say, “Well, this district is completely full. Let’s try to send some people to another district because the distances are not as great.”

There are locations where it is very challenging to try to get staff. In some cases, if the district officer is not able to hire people from within that community — which is the first consideration and which is the priority — they do have the ability to send a mobile team of officials from another location.

As an example, if it was very hard to get election officials from within, say, the community of Dease Lake, to hire and train those officials, they would be able to hire people in Smithers and train them. They would then deploy them up to Dease Lake so that they could administer voting on voting days.

Other times what they will do is they will hire and train a team to do advance voting. That team will travel to a number of different locations during the advance voting window and administer voting at those locations. Those are the approaches that we put into this.

We of course do encourage.... One of the reasons why we hire district officers from the local communities is that they know their communities. They generally have good networks within their communities so that they’re able to hire the people that they need. In our model, because of the more efficient staffing approach that we have for voting places, the need for election officials is much less. It’s 51 percent lower than what it was in 2013.

If we were still in that model, I would be very concerned about the ability, on a go-forward basis, to have sufficient election officials. So we do that approach. If they can’t hire locally, they can deploy other officials from within their district.

One of the other aspects that is, of course, pertinent to this is just that in our model, voters can vote anywhere in the province during voting days. If their location isn’t convenient for them, they can go to another location that might be more convenient. If they’re travelling, if they live in Prince George and they happen to be in Vancouver during voting, they can vote in Vancouver. They don’t have to vote at an assigned location, as is the case in the federal election on voting days, and things like that.

[9:35 a.m.]

In terms of the accessibility of polling locations — thank you for your comments and for your highlighting of some of the challenges that happened, particularly during the atmospheric river that was present and during those types of considerations — our supervisory voting officers typically have one or two information officers at each voting location.

The role of that information officer…. In particular, they’re the greeter. But they also are able to be deployed outside in the area around the voting place, partly to try to make sure that people aren’t canvassing within a hundred metres of the voting place but also to help direct traffic, to make sure that they have signage for parking for people who have handicapped parking stickers. Generally, they’re the ones who are supposed to make sure that if there’s a ramp, that that ramp stays open. If there’s not an automatic door opener, they can actually hold open the door for individuals.

Their focus is really on that voter interaction and trying to help individuals who may need assistance. They would be the ones who would notify the supervisor, for example, if someone who needed curbside voting had shown up, they could drive their car in, but they couldn’t make it from their car into the voting place.

That being said, I do acknowledge and of course recognize that there are unique factors that happen every time that voting days happen. If there’s a high wind, it may blow away signage. If there’s a downpour, that information officer may not be outside helping people. They may be huddled underneath the overhang and other things like that. There are some human nature issues.

But certainly, whenever we are alerted to there being an issue with a voting place, we do follow up directly with the district officer so that they can make sure that their team can address that issue.

Rohini Arora: Thank you so much for that information.

If I may follow up, the reason I asked that first question on balloting officers and DROs is that in an urban setting, as you said, there are many more applicants and there’s access to more resources. There’s expanded transportation. In the case of reserves and more rural areas, sometimes even travel is not possible, especially when you’re dealing with seniors, Elders. There have been cases in the past that I’ve known where buses have been used to transport folks to vote, but that’s really organized by the community themselves.

I think part of what I really urge Elections B.C. to consider as a whole is thinking about not just putting out the call during the election, or even the methods by which you’re advertising that you’re looking for balloting officers. Just because for many people, these terms are new, it’s jargony, they don’t really….

Until you’re into the system, you don’t always understand it fully. I think it’s really worth it to take time to get into those areas, because you may identify someone who’s interested. I think it’s a wonderful thing for someone to be trained and to really understand and have the mutual intelligibility on the voting process, because it can be quite confusing based on nuanced situations.

It does take time to really understand how to apply the law in particular situations — what is allowed, what is eligible, what is ineligible, where someone is able to identify: “Yes, that is my neighbour, in fact. I do live beside that person, and I can verify.” All of these pieces that sometimes have to be figured out on the day of.

I have seen, in many cases, the call going up all the way to you, Anton, because no one is quite sure how to deal with things, especially when they’re new. So I guess it’s just part of why I wanted to bring that up and provide some further context.

Then on the accessibility piece, you’re very right. I think for every single office polling station, it really depends on how busy it is, how many people are parking there, what the condition is at the time. There may be a parking lot, but there may be street parking.

For some folks, if they’re in a wheelchair and they can’t get up, the curbside voting, I think, is also a very important piece. I’m actually glad that I…. For some reason, I somehow missed this in the last election. I think it’s an important piece also to lift up for folks, especially if they can’t get out of the vehicle.

So yeah, just thank you. Thank you for your time.

[9:40 a.m.]

Anton Boegman: Thank you, and thank you for those comments. We’ll certainly make sure that that’s fed back into our process. Appreciate it.

Jennifer Blatherwick (Chair): Thank you so much. I will commend my fellow committee members. You asked all of my questions, and that is a truly impressive accomplishment.

Again, I would like to emphasize how grateful we are to have you come and present so knowledgeably and so thoroughly. We thank you for all your service and wish you best of luck in the future.

Anton Boegman: Well, thank you very much.

Amna Shah: Chair, I just have one final question.

My last question pertains to the B.C. United campaign, or lack of campaign, since they didn’t participate. I’ve noted in the report that the party’s annual financial report remains under review at the date of the publication of your election report.

Could you provide us with an update? Is that close to being resolved at this point? When can we anticipate that review to be done?

Anton Boegman: Thanks for that question. I’ll ask Jodi if she’s able to provide an update on that one.

Jodi Cooke: Yes, we do continue to complete compliance reviews for the 2024 annual financial reports. We do have a number of them outstanding. It is not just the B.C. United one.

Part of the timeline for completing that depends on the responses that we receive from the financial agent for the party. We’ve asked them a number of questions and requested a supplemental report. As Anton mentioned in the first part of his presentation, a supplemental report must be filed within 30 days, and then we will review that report. If it corrects the issues, the file will be closed. If there are still outstanding issues, we will go through that cycle again.

It’s difficult to estimate when a final report will be provided, but you can watch our website and the financial reports and political contributions system for updated information as it becomes available.

Amna Shah: Just to clarify, then, the deadlines for the supplementary reports and the information to be submitted are currently being respected?

Jodi Cooke: Yes, at this point in time, all the deadlines are being complied with. Everyone that we send a supplemental report to is notified of a 30-day deadline to file a report once they become aware of information that has not been provided or that needs to be complete. At this point in time, there is no non-compliance to report.

Amna Shah: Great. Thank you.

Ward Stamer (Deputy Chair): I just thought of something. A question on Surrey, Anton. Can you give us any indication on where we are with this judicial review, where we are in the steps, and what’s actually going on?

Anton Boegman: Right now it’s all in the hands of the court. The justice has had a number of judicial management conferences to hear various applications and these sorts of things. Our best understanding is that it will go ahead in December. However, it’s not in the hands of Elections B.C. It’s in the hands of the courts to determine the dates and timings of the hearings and these sorts of things.

Ward Stamer (Deputy Chair): There’s no timeline in this? Can it just flow like a river?

Anton Boegman: That is correct. I think I mentioned this earlier in our presentation, as an area that Elections B.C. might include as a public policy consideration for members. However, the courts, obviously, are in control of this process now, and that process needs to conclude.

Ward Stamer (Deputy Chair): Yeah. Fair point. I agree with that, 100 percent. You can kick the can down the road as long as you can until you run out of road. I appreciate that.

[9:45 a.m.]

Rohini Arora: We clearly had a chain reaction of questions. It is so rare that we get an opportunity to have all of you in the room together.

I had a question around compliance. This may be directed to Jodi. Of course, I will allow you to make that decision, Chief, as you see fit. You said it’s the second year that you’ve been using the system, and I’m curious about key performance indicators.

Is there an internal threshold of what you’re trying to meet? Is there something internally? Maybe you’re waiting for a few years to start to develop one. I’m just curious, in terms of what would be considered successful.

Anton Boegman: Sure, yeah. Jodi, I’ll ask you to just comment on that, please.

Jodi Cooke: Thank you very much for the question.

When we developed the program, as Anton indicated, one of the challenges was that we were still reviewing reports years after elections. That led to some challenges, not only with enforcement action but also bumping into other events. One of the key performance indicators that we are working towards is making sure that we are substantially complete, or around 90 percent complete, on our reviews within one year of the election that has occurred.

As I mentioned, this is our first provincial general election using this model. We used it with the 2022 local general elections, and we were able to come close to that target. We have refined it further, and we look forward to continuing to develop this program so that we can provide timely compliance moving forward.

Jennifer Blatherwick (Chair): Excellent, thank you.

Rob Botterell: Just to maybe make an observation with respect to MLA Stamer’s earlier point, I’m sure the courts aren’t trying to kick this down the road as far as they can to avoid having this dealt with. But there are some pretty stringent time frames that courts work with in addressing matters like this. Like MLA Stamer, I’m certainly looking forward to hearing what the court has to say and what it finds.

Jennifer Blatherwick (Chair): Again, we thank you, and we will allow Elections B.C. to retire from the process before we go in camera. Thank you again to you and your staff for your participation today.

Anton Boegman: Thanks very much. I appreciate the opportunity.

Jennifer Blatherwick (Chair): Oh, Sheldon.

Sheldon right now is holding up my father-in-law’s book.

Rohini Arora: That’s lovely.

Jennifer Blatherwick (Chair): I think, Sheldon, you have one of the last edition paper copies. He’s no longer producing paper copies, so the information is now only online.

Sheldon Clare: I’m sad to see that, and I’ll have to get you to get an autograph on it one of these days.

Jennifer Blatherwick (Chair): He would be delighted, Sheldon. It’s really meaningful to him when people care about it, so I’d be happy to do that for you. All right, folks.

Sheldon Clare: I’ll haul it out of my office here and bring it down to the Legislature.

Jennifer Blatherwick (Chair): I love that.

What I will do is ask us for a motion to please go in camera.

Motion approved.

The committee continued in camera from 9:49 a.m. to 2:29 p.m.

[Jennifer Blatherwick in the chair.]

Jennifer Blatherwick (Chair): The committee is now in public session. Can I have a motion to adjourn?

Motion approved.

Jennifer Blatherwick (Chair): This committee now stands adjourned.

The committee adjourned at 2:29 p.m.