The committee met at 8:01 a.m.

[Peter Milobar in the chair.]

Peter Milobar (Chair): I’ll call this meeting to order. My name is Peter Milobar. I’m the MLA for Kamloops Centre and the Chair of the Select Standing Committee on Public Accounts.

We have two items for today’s agenda.

The first will be consideration of the Office of the Auditor General’s annual follow-up report, performance audit recommendations, 2019-2023.

I will turn it over to acting Auditor General Sheila Dodds — the meeting. We’ll hear the presentation, and then we’ll jump into questions.

Consideration of
Auditor General Reports

Status of Performance Audit
Recommendations (2019-2023)

Sheila Dodds: Thank you, Chair, and good morning, Members.

The Office of the Auditor General acknowledges that we live and work with gratitude and respect on the traditional territories of Indigenous Peoples, and we acknowledge that our office is located on the traditional territories of the lək̓ʷəŋən People of the Songhees and Esquimalt Nations.

Our report, titled Annual Follow-Up Report: Status of Performance Audit Recommendations (2019-2023), came out on October 7. It takes a real complete team effort to put together a report like this, and many members of the OAG team had a hand in putting this report together.

I want to extend my thanks and appreciation to each one of them, including two people who are with me this morning. Laura Hatt is the assistant Auditor General for the performance audit portfolio, and Laura Pierce is a performance audit principal who was instrumental in getting this report published.

Today we’re discussing the third annual follow-up report on performance audit recommendations. For the benefit of newer members, the follow-up process is relatively new, and it was developed in collaboration with this committee. Our follow-up involves working with organizations that we’ve audited to get updates on what they’ve done to implement audit recommendations that they’ve accepted. These recommendations were also accepted by those organizations.

In this report, there were 151 audit recommendations from the 29 audit reports published between 2019 and 2023, and they involve performance audits of ministries, Crown corporations and school districts.

Now, Laura Pierce will lead you through the details, but I’ll underscore the importance of this follow-up report. It gives you, as MLAs and members of the Select Standing Committee on Public Accounts, a way to keep an eye on which recommendations have been put in place and the timeline for completing others. It also includes information on the status of those improvements to programs and services.

Before I pass it over to Laura Pierce for the detailed presentation, I want to acknowledge and thank many staff from the organizations we audited for their help as we gathered the information for this report.

With that, I’ll ask Laura to walk you through our follow-up process and results.

Laura Pierce: Good morning, Chair and committee members.

We are happy to present our third annual follow-up report that we tabled on October 7. As Sheila highlighted, this report covers 151 recommendations from 29 performance audits that we published between 2019 and 2023.

Our follow-ups are cumulative, meaning that we add an additional year of audits and recommendations each year we undertake this work, so this report builds off last year’s report by adding five audits from 2023, with 21 recommendations.

Before going over the results, I’ll provide a quick overview of the process we use to carry out our follow-up work.

We started this process in January, when we asked organizations to prepare a progress report that confirmed whether each recommendation was complete or incomplete as of March 31 of this year.

[8:05 a.m.]

We also asked organizations to provide a short summary for each recommendation, along with an anticipated completion year for those recommendations that were still outstanding.

After receiving the progress reports, we reviewed them to assess whether they were a faithful representation of progress. This involved meeting with staff, reviewing key documents and carrying out additional procedures as needed. The public report compiles the results of this work.

In each progress report, we found that entities had faithfully represented their progress. The progress reports showed that as of March 31, 2025, government had completed 66 percent of the 151 recommendations that were accepted between 2019 and 2023. The reports also showed that government intends to complete 42 of the remaining 51 recommendations, but not the other nine. These nine recommendations come from six audits, which are listed on the second page of the Report at a Glance.

A few other trends that we wanted to point out. Over the past year, organizations implemented 13 of the 56 recommendations that remained outstanding as of last year’s report. We also saw that audits published in 2020 and 2022 continued to have the highest completion rate, around 80 percent, while audits from 2029 continued to have the lowest, at 55 percent.

Sheila Dodds: 2019.

Peter Milobar (Chair): Sheila just audited your dates. So 2019.

Laura Pierce: Lastly, I’d like to highlight that nine audits are now fully completed. Once all recommendations from an audit have been fully implemented, we no longer request progress reports. There are another four audits that we won’t request progress reports for next year, as entities confirm they will not complete the remaining recommendations.

Each year after we complete our work, we look at how we can improve the process, moving forward. After our first report, we asked organizations to provide an anticipated completion date for outstanding recommendations. We also shortened the process to ensure the report was more current when the committee received it.

This year we shifted the timing of our report so the committee would receive it at the start of the fall session, giving members more time to deliberate and call back organizations should they want additional information. These changes are part of our commitment to continuous improvement.

Before wrapping up, I’d like to echo Sheila’s sentiments and thank all the entities that were involved in the follow-up this year. We continue to see a lot of engagement and support for this work across government.

I’ll now turn it back to the Auditor General. Thank you.

Sheila Dodds: Thank you, Laura. Sorry to interrupt.

As Laura mentioned, we are always looking to improve the process for this follow-up process. Now we’ve done this for three years in a row and just want to check in with the committee and actually raise a possible change to the process for consideration.

When we first came to this committee in March 2022, we discussed following up on performance audit reports for ten years. Although some recommendations take a long time to implement, this could result in a very large annual follow-up report over time. In our first three years…. We started in that first year with 18 audits included in the report, and this year you have 29 audits included in this follow-up report.

We have concerns that continuing to add reports to each year is going to add quite a significant volume and that the volume of recommendations will be difficult to manage and potentially become less meaningful to the committee.

As time lapses, recommendations may become less relevant. If we’re talking about recommendations that haven’t been implemented and it has been eight years, it’s possible there have been changes in programs, services, government priorities, staffing. So there may be reasons where I think those recommendations become less relevant over time.

To keep the report focused and meaningful to members of the committee, we would like to suggest limiting the follow-up to include four years of reports. If this made sense to the committee, it would mean next year’s report would focus on the recommendations from audits published from 2021 to 2024. But that would also mean dropping the recommendations from the 2019 and 2020 audits. There are 17 outstanding recommendations in those older audits at this point in time.

This change to managing the number of years a little more tightly brings us more in line with some of our other Canadian jurisdictions with a similar follow-up on audit recommendations. For example, in Nova Scotia, which was the jurisdiction that we really looked to when Michael was here to model this follow-up process, they follow up on recommendations for three years.

[8:10 a.m.]

We recognize that this is a change, and we’re really happy to get some thoughts and input and to discuss what you would like to do with the process. It just felt that it was important to bring it forward, as we see the volume of it increasing with the number of reports that we continue to table.

With that, Chair, I’ll conclude our remarks and welcome your thoughts and questions.

Peter Milobar (Chair): Okay. Just for the newer committee members, today’s meeting really is about trying to figure out which…. I guess on the at-a-glance one, on pages 3 and 4, they have them all listed there that the Auditor General does, all the outstanding reports.

It gets a little messy near the end here, where we start trying to figure out how best to prioritize which ones we want to see come back to the committee to present, either in written form or in presentation form. That’s the second part of today’s meeting.

I’m going to suggest that maybe we should be asking questions of the Auditor General right now on the main report itself. Then we’ll dive into your suggestion around the four years, maybe, once newer members have had a chance to kick around with you why some of these are outstanding or not. Then that might better inform their conversation around cutting it off at four years, five years, six years or ten years like we’re currently doing.

Any questions about the actual report that we’re dealing with, to the Auditor General?

Kiel Giddens: Thanks very much for compiling all this. Again, it’s my first time going through this, as a newer committee member, but I appreciate seeing it all summarized in this way. Good to get all these status updates. Obviously, I appreciate knowing completion rates for all of these, all side by side.

Is there any particular reason, cumulatively, why 2019 was a really tough year, obviously? It was the highest for the lowest completion, I guess. Was it because of getting into the pandemic? Did that impact the ministry’s ability to implement recommendations? Was there any reason why that year is particularly higher than others?

Sheila Dodds: Thank you for the question. I’m going to start, and I think I’m going to ask Laura Pierce to add on.

I would say that our approach to some of our performance audits has evolved over time, where they’re more focused now. When you go back to some of our 2019 audits, we tackled some very large projects and provided some very comprehensive, complex recommendations.

The organizations are still working through, to respond to the recommendations. Oftentimes the recommendations were things that were going to need systemic changes, and they were likely to take more than five years to implement.

Do you want to just add to that, Laura?

Laura Pierce: I think you hit the nail on the head.

With some of those audits, you’ll see, too, when you look at the recommendations, that they’re multi-pronged. There will be one recommendation with several subrecommendations.

Even though it shows as one recommendation, there are several elements, which reflect the depth of what we looked at and what we made recommendations on. They’re complex, and they’re quite large — the recommendations.

Sheila Dodds: I can speak to that from personal experience, because one of those audits — I think we spoke to the Deputy Minister of Children and Family Development a few years ago — was on the oversight of contracted services for children and youth in care. I was in a performance audit at the time.

It was a very comprehensive audit, and those recommendations were very broad and really pushing for that systemic change. The ministry, as you’ll see in its response, is still committed to implementing those recommendations, but it’s taking time to make that progress.

Peter Milobar (Chair): Any other questions?

I guess I have one, particularly, on the oversight of contracted services for children and youth in care. I can appreciate that it’s systemic, but that was also the one that created a little bit of controversy with this committee about a year ago, when we were all in agreement to bring them back to present. Then, frankly, the government MLAs reversed that decision at the next meeting.

We’re still only at one of four recommendations on something as critical as youth in care six years later. Have they provided any rationale or timeline as to why they’re still only at one out of four, on something as critical as youth in care?

[8:15 a.m.]

Sheila Dodds: The rationale is provided in the report. I would have to just quite quickly find the page — 21.

They have identified in a fair amount of detail that they have the intent to complete. When you look at recommendation 1, they’re intending to complete, but there’s…. Do they have the timeline in there? They’ve got December 2025 as when they anticipate having that recommendation completed. The second recommendation was completed. The third one, they have December 2026 because of a system that they’re implementing. And the fourth recommendation that’s outstanding, they have December 2025.

Work is still going on, but they would have to speak to where they’re at. There are the expected completion dates included in the reports.

Peter Milobar (Chair): I know it was in the report. I’m trying to get it, because some people don’t actually go through and read the reports in the public, but they will listen to the transcript. That’s all. I just was asking that as a pre-emptive before we get into the timeline of how long for a report.

Are there any other questions around any of these before we discuss the timeline? Okay.

Any questions around or discussion around the Auditor General’s recommendation around timeline?

Kiel Giddens: It was quite interesting to see differences in how ministries responded, like intend to complete. Some gave a date with that as well. I think my one concern with it would be to limit it too much. Some gave a date — for example, the Ministry of Forests. On the forest service roads piece, they gave a 2026 timeline. This is from a 2020 audit, I believe, so it seems like it takes a very long time for some of these to actually complete. And then the committee would not see.

I want to have it long enough, I guess. I think the current, at least back from five or six years, depending on how the committee would like to see us go forward…. But I think some of these — like, as we just talked about, the children in care one — are very long-term ones for the ministries to complete.

I think limiting it too much would be a bit of a concern because we wouldn’t know what would be happening with some of those longer-term recommendations and what the status was. I can appreciate that ten years might be a little bit long, but I think I wouldn’t want to limit it too much. I think probably in the six years’ time frame might be something that would be more reasonable perhaps. But that’s just a suggestion for discussion.

Mable Elmore: Thanks for the presentation.

I take your recommendation with respect to four years. And you referenced — was it New Brunswick, or is it Nova Scotia?

Sheila Dodds: Nova Scotia.

Mable Elmore: Nova Scotia, yeah. Generally, what’s the…? Across other jurisdictions…?

Sheila Dodds: There is a real variety. I think even if you look at our experience in B.C., we’ve tried a number of different ways to approach this.

Laura, what was sort of the range that you were seeing, looking across the country?

Laura Pierce: Well, keeping in mind that we have a pretty distinct follow-up process here, where we ask entities to provide an update, and then we review the information, if we look at other jurisdictions that have a similar model, that would be Nova Scotia and Manitoba who are closest to us.

As Sheila mentioned, Nova Scotia follows up for a three-year period, so they look at reports for three years. Manitoba, they don’t have a set period, but it looks like, looking at the past three reports that they’ve issued, that it’s a two-year follow-up cycle. So four years would be still on the lengthier end of things in terms of jurisdictions that are similar.

Mable Elmore: Yeah, thanks. I’m in favour of your recommendation for four years.

Stephanie Higginson (Deputy Chair): First-timer trying to follow all the bouncing balls here. My understanding is currently five years.

Sheila Dodds: We’ve grown to five years, right? We started with three.

Stephanie Higginson (Deputy Chair): Ten.

Sheila Dodds: Yeah, and with the plan to grow to ten.

Stephanie Higginson (Deputy Chair): The plan is to grow to ten. Okay, and you’re recommending four.

Sheila Dodds: Yeah, recommending four, recognizing it would mean dropping off some audits that are of interest to you. It doesn’t need to be that.

[8:20 a.m.]

You could look at something different with a rolling five-year and maybe drop a year. It seemed to be a manageable piece, because you would have each of those audits that would be followed up for four years before it would disappear.

Stephanie Higginson (Deputy Chair): I guess my wonder is if there’s sort of a hybrid version that’s possible, which would be at the four-year mark. Looking at the ones from four years, right now it would be the 2000 and…. I’m just trying to see how many outdated recommendations there are here.

If, at the four-year mark, we still had reports that had a number of outstanding recommendations, could we just say we want to follow these ones next year, as opposed to all of them? For some of them in here — for instance, the member brought up the one about MCFD — I feel okay about letting that one move on, because the reasons are very detailed. There’s clear intent; they’ve outlined the intent.

Some of the other ones aren’t as clear, but a number of them either are completed or are not going to be completed, with very clear reasons about why they’re not going to be completed. There are very few that are in that muddy area.

My wonder is if there’s not a hybrid option that’s at the four-year mark. We’d look at the ones that…. Well, we might actually just want to follow these two next year. That would give us the opportunity to still continue to follow through on ones that may not be living up to the expectations of why or not giving enough detail, as mentioned. The level of detail is different for each report, in terms of completion and intended to complete or not to complete.

My wonder is if it’s possible, at the year that a report is about to be dropped off, for the committee to say: “Actually, we want to follow this one next year, but the rest of them are okay, because we’re good with the level of intention.”

Peter Milobar (Chair): I was thinking on something similar to that too. My worry is that we’d essentially just say to audited entities, “If you slow-walk, you’re free in a couple of years,” which kind of defeats the whole purpose of trying to hold them accountable. It starts to feel like the whole exercise gets to be: why are we even bothering? Why do we need an Auditor General at that point?

I do agree that the whole reason we scaled back and tried to reshape this was that it was getting overwhelming — the volume of reports, the extra time it was taking the Auditor General to compile everything for us, and to check back with the agencies.

This is a small list compared to when I first started on this committee a couple of years ago, and a lot of them were going back to…. What was that? I think we started dropping off some that were from 2012 and 2013 even, not really with any relevance to anything.

I do think there might be a sweet spot there where, at a certain point in a year, we can re-evaluate this list and say, “Okay, we’re comfortable with anything from the five-year mark,” and start identifying which ones we’re fine with saying: “Drop off.” But we’d have the committee say which ones are dropping off, versus just the agency saying: “Well, we’ve passed the three-year mark, so we’re free.”

If they don’t have that kind of feeling that there might still be follow-up oversight on them, it just gets very easy for organizations and government to come up with reasons why things are so complex: “Oh, we’re still working on it.” Then it falls off, and substantive work really hasn’t actually been done. With some of them, frankly, even by the title, I think the committee and the public interest would be served.

This is where we have a differing view on the MCFD one. It’s not necessarily that you need to hang them out in any way, shape or form, but it’s to make sure the public is well informed on something as critical as children and youth in care. Have them here presenting in a very public way, on the record, with transcripts, so that if media, if they so choose, want to report on it, people can understand what truly is unfolding or not unfolding.

We may put that lens of our own on some of these issues versus, frankly, the executive expenses in school district 36 that they flat out said are not going to change. That’s five years old, and I’m not going to lose a lot of sleep if that doesn’t show up in year 6, because it’s that far gone already and there have been multiple school trustees reappointed into there. They can deal with their own internal executive expenses, I guess.

That’s kind of where my headspace is at, but I guess the bigger question is: you don’t need an answer today, right? We could have this conversation today as a committee, think about it a bit and maybe give some clearer direction to you, let’s say, at our next meeting and figure out what we’re all comfortable with as a group.

[8:25 a.m.]

Sheila Dodds: Absolutely.

I just wanted to say that one of the pieces on the follow-up process that we’re doing that’s different from what we did in the past is that when we get information from the organizations, we review it, and we make sure that it’s reasonable, that there’s nothing that doesn’t make sense. It’s so that we can provide some assurance to you that what they’re saying they’re doing and the timeline that they’re providing are reasonable — so that bit of extra work.

Yeah, absolutely consider it. There are many different ways to go at it, and there is always the opportunity to invite somebody back to speak to one of the older reports before it falls off the list.

Peter Milobar (Chair): Any other questions on the possible timeline? Or is everyone comfortable if we just all, now that we’ve got the broader view of it, not rush to a next step on that one? Okay.

Any other questions on the Status of Performance Audit Recommendations (2019–2023) report? Okay.

Do we need a motion to actually accept the report or not? No. Okay.

This is the next part where it gets a little bit more interesting, where we’re juggling multiple years. We’ve done it various ways over the last couple of years, but probably the easiest way would be to almost run year by year and figure out if there are any 2019 ones, any 2020 ones, and just kind of throw them out on the floor for discussion.

Then we’ll see how long the list is, or not, and whether or not we need to start coming to agreement on which ones we could still stand to not bother bringing back or are adamant that we should see them come back.

I’ll kind of throw it open. Are there are any 2019 ones that people are interested in having coming back to the committee or a more detailed written report?

Kiel Giddens: We’ve already had some discussion about Oversight of Contracted Residential Services for Children and Youth in Care. I think that’s probably one that was bound to be up for discussion, just noting that it’s still showing three-quarters of the recommendations as incomplete.

It was a good example for us to be discussing the length of time we need to monitor these, because systemic changes were recommended, and it is important for us to continue to know what’s going on in that case.

I’d say, out of the 2019 ones, that would be my number one priority. I think for the public, it would be the number one priority to understand what’s going on, for sure, and to get an update. I think it would be healthy for us to learn about it.

The second one would be Access to Emergency Health Services. In the response, they did note that they were more willing to provide targets and metrics in urban areas, particularly the Lower Mainland, but they really had no response yet for rural B.C. I think that would be an important question to find out what the long-term plan is for that.

Peter Milobar (Chair): Okay. Any other suggestions for 2019?

I’ll just kind of compile a list, and then we’ll come and double-back once we see how long that potential list might be. We won’t make any final decisions right now. Any others for 2019? All right.

Then 2020. So 2020 might luck out.

Kiel Giddens: No. That one caught my eye as well.

Peter Milobar (Chair): That’s fair enough. We’re throwing them all out.

Kiel Giddens: On Management of Forest Service Roads, obviously, this had recommendations for the ministry in their reviews, classifications, inspections of forest service roads as well as for B.C. Timber Sales. Given the nature of needs in the forestry sector right now, it would be important, I think, to get a status update on this particular one.

I also think that there are a number of conflicts happening with back-country users, classification of roads, decommissioning and things like that, which are a real concern that the public has been raising. Knowing what is happening in the inspection or declassification or decommissioning of FSRs, I think, is critical for us right now to respond to communities.

[8:30 a.m.]

I know at UBCM this came up, significantly, and in my riding, in Mackenzie. I know that in the Kootenays, this sounds like a very big issue as well. I think it would be important to look into this, given what we’ve been hearing from communities.

Peter Milobar (Chair): Okay. Any others from 2020 to add to the potential list?

Okay. We’ll move on to 2021. Any from there?

How about 2022? Yeah, 2022 was a very good year.

Then 2023 would be the first year that these would have an opportunity to come back for any status updates. I would offer up the Mental Health and Substance Use Services, just to get, again, an update, if nothing else. Given that they’re in the process of trying to implement anything, it would be probably a decent course of action for us as a committee.

Okay. You guys are much easier than the previous group of MLAs. I’m just going to throw it out there. It’s the eight o’clock start, instead of 8:00 p.m.

We only have four that there has been any interest shown by the committee to have come back. That’s actually lower than last year, I think, or in the same ballpark, anyway.

Are there any of those that people would find problematic to bring back or don’t see the value in bringing back? Are we comfortable with the four?

Stephanie Higginson (Deputy Chair): It’s not that I don’t see value in this, but when we’re looking at Oversight of Contracted Residential Services for Children and Youth in Care, the report is pretty clear to me. They’ve got very clear dates by which they intend to implement these things. There’s one recommendation that actually impacts the ability to implement another recommendation, and it has to be complete.

I feel quite comfortable with what’s in the report here about it and don’t know if we need to take the staff away from trying to implement the reports to come and tell us when they intend to implement them, when they’re trying to implement them and they’ve been very clear about it.

So I’m not sure that we need to have them come. Maybe it’s just a more detailed written follow-up, but I was comfortable with what they wrote in the report. It was probably the most detailed response that we got, which demonstrated to me how seriously they are taking those recommendations.

I’m always conscious that when we’re asking people to come in to report, you’re taking them away from doing the actual work. But being public and transparent is also an important part of the work, so it’s a balancing act.

Peter Milobar (Chair): Okay. Yeah, for me, we’ve had similar conversations around this specific one. Personally, I don’t see the harm. Again, this is, for what it’s worth, much more of a public venue, I guess, than the report itself. I recognize that the report is publicly available, but there is just something different about that Q and A and the back-and-forth for people, frankly, to get a better sense of if they’re actually still on track for their timeline.

And 2026 is only a few months away…. I’d hate to find out we’re sitting here next year and then they say, “Oh, well actually, it’s going to be 2027 now because we hit a delay, through no fault of anyone’s,” perhaps, or whatever. There are a lot of moving parts when it comes to MCFD and various policies and things of that nature. Personally, I don’t mind trying to hear from them in person again, but I’ll hear what the will of the committee is, I guess.

[8:35 a.m.]

Kiel Giddens: Yeah, to follow up from Stephanie’s comments and from Peter’s, just given that there are dates included, I think dates can change and their risks can change over time. Obviously, we have the BCGEU strike going on right now. I think that likely would have impacted.

Noting what’s going on there, I think that getting an update on the timelines, knowing what’s happening in the ministry at this time, would be helpful. As well, it gives a chance…. Given that this is something that has gone on since 2019, I think it is important for the committee to review things. It has been in the ministry’s hands for quite some time now, so I think it’s good to just continue to remain updated.

Tara Armstrong: I think, given the nature of the ministry, it’s very important that we do this, that we carry on and we learn more about where things are at with this. So I tend to agree, as well, with Kiel and Peter.

Peter Milobar (Chair): Just before I jump to you, Mable, I’ll maybe get an answer from the Auditor General, because all these reports take a little while to collate, for you to put them into your report to get them to us. They sit for a little while before we actually get to meet.

When would their reporting back to you and what went into this report actually have been provided?

Sheila Dodds: They were asked to report effective March 2025. That’s the status at that point in time.

Peter Milobar (Chair): I guess that’s my point. If they’re talking a 2026 timeline, there has been another six, seven months from the time they reported and gave that timeline. So more progress should’ve probably been made, but we wouldn’t know that necessarily.

Mable Elmore: Is it possible to request a written update and then assess from there? If there needs….

Peter Milobar (Chair): Yeah. The committee always has two options. We can ask for a more detailed written report back, or we can request a presentation in person. Both of those are available to us on any of these, but certainly on this one as well.

Okay, it sounds like we’re between either an in-person or a written update. So we’ll park that, just for the time being, and come back to it.

We still have a potential around Access to Emergency Health Services from 2019, Management of Forest Service Roads in 2020 and the Mental Health and Substance Use Services piece in 2023. Any of those problematic, in terms of people wondering if we should bother bringing them back or not?

Stephanie Higginson (Deputy Chair): Not with issues, but on the Management of Forest Service Roads, Kiel mentioned about…. I’m looking through the recommendations to make sure that I didn’t miss something when I read this, because it’s voluminous.

You mentioned a sort of conflict between use and understanding, like local users using the roads. I’m not sure that I saw that exact part of the recommendations. A lot of this, to me, was around maintenance and permitting. Maybe that’s where you’re talking about the permitting.

I just want to make sure that we’re not going outside the scope of what was originally recommended. If the intention is to ask questions that are not part of the originally recommended, there are probably other ways to get that.

Kiel Giddens: Maybe just to clarify my comments. I recognize that it’s about the maintenance inspections, but there are many decisions that are being made on FSRs, and without the inspection records and all of that proper documentation, it’s hard for the ministry to make proper determinations.

In some cases, even in my riding, the district of Mackenzie has asked for some of those records and has not been able to get any answer as to why certain roads that are in perfectly good condition were decommissioned. I do think it’s important just for the public to understand what’s going on.

I think the audit did some excellent work in the recommendations here. The ministry, it looks like, is in earnest trying to work towards 2026, and they were specific about that in some of those. But I do think that getting an update now on what any risks there are…. Is that 2026 timeline realistic? All of that, I think, would be good to understand.

Peter Milobar (Chair): Okay. Any other questions around that one or the other two, on mental health and emergency health?

[8:40 a.m.]

Maybe we’ll do a motion for a presentation of the 2019 Access to Emergency Health Services, the 2020 Management of Forest Service Roads and the 2023 Mental Health and Substance Use Services for Indigenous People in B.C. Correctional Centres back to the committee.

We do have time at our November 28 meeting for those presentations. We should be able to get through three. Then we’ll deal with the oversight one as a separate stand-alone, figuring out which way to deal with that.

Kiel Giddens: I move:

[That the Select Standing Committee on Public Accounts request the audited organizations appear before the committee on November 28, 2025 to provide an update on the status of implementing recommendations in the following reports of the Auditor General of British Columbia: Access to Emergency Health Services, Management of Forest Service Roads and Mental Health and Substance Use Services for Indigenous People in Correctional Centres.]

Peter Milobar (Chair): Mable seconded it.

Motion approved.

Peter Milobar (Chair): Now the Oversight of Contracted Services for Children and Youth in Care. It sounds like there’s more of a willingness now granted.

Committee structure is just like anything in this place. It’s majority rules. Been around long enough to know.

I’ll look to the government side of the committee. It sounds like your preference would be to have a more detailed written report come back to the committee. Is that a fair assessment?

Stephanie Higginson (Deputy Chair): I feel that that’s reasonable, based on the detailed response that they gave to the audit question.

Peter Milobar (Chair): Do we need a motion for that? Okay.

Stephanie Higginson (Deputy Chair): I move:

[That the Select Standing Committee on Public Accounts request the Ministry of Children and Family Development provide an update in writing prior to November 28, 2025 on the status of implementing recommendations in the report of the Auditor General of British Columbia titled Oversight of Contracted Services for Children in Care and that the Chair and Deputy Chair work with committee staff to finalize the text of the request.]

Peter Milobar (Chair): Mable seconded.

Motion approved.

Peter Milobar (Chair): Okay. So we’ve got the four. We’re done with this portion of it, I guess, unless there’s any other reports anyone has just thought of that they would have an interest in.

Otherwise, just before we double-check about any other business and adjourn, I’ll point out that to the Auditor General’s request around potentially dropping back the number of years, we’ve only actually requested one or two from 2019 — so the farthest away — one from 2020, and then the rest would be 2023.

I think there might be a way, if we all put our minds to it between now and our next meeting, of coming up with a way that we could conceivably still lessen the need to follow up unnecessarily over the next five or six years but still provide more of a true guiding oversight to some of these agencies and the work they are supposed to be doing — or have agreed to do, more importantly.

It’s one thing if you’re an agency like some that have just said: “We’re flat out not doing it.” Okay, I might not agree with that, but at least I know where you stand, versus trying to take the agreement route and then just slow-walk recommendations. So just to kind of highlight that for our own thought process between now and the next meeting.

Any other business? Then, a motion to adjourn.

George Chow: Yeah, we can adjourn the meeting.

Peter Milobar (Chair): Excellent.

Motion approved.

The committee adjourned at 8:45 a.m.