2011 Legislative Session: Second Session, 39th Parliament

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC ACCOUNTS

MINUTES AND HANSARD

MINUTES SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC ACCOUNTS

Thursday, February 10, 2011

10 a.m.

Douglas Fir Committee Room

Parliament Buildings, Victoria, B.C.

Present: Bruce Ralston, MLA (Chair); Douglas Horne, MLA (Deputy Chair); Spencer Chandra Herbert, MLA;
Guy Gentner, MLA; Rob Howard, MLA; Vicki Huntington, MLA; Richard T. Lee, MLA; John Les, MLA;
Joan McIntyre, MLA; John Rustad, MLA; Shane Simpson, MLA

Unavoidably Absent: Kathy Corrigan, MLA; Norm Letnick, MLA; Lana Popham, MLA; Ralph Sultan, MLA

Others Present: John Doyle, Auditor General; Stuart Newton, Acting Comptroller General; Josie Schofield, Manager, Committee Research Services

1. The Chair called the Committee to order at 10:06 a.m.

2. Resolved, that the Committee meet in-camera to consider its draft report to the House. (John Rustad, MLA)

3. The Committee met in-camera from 10:07 a.m. to 10:19 a.m.

4. Resolved, that the Chair and Deputy Chair work together with staff to finalize any remaining amendments to incorporate any business undertaken on February 9 and February 10, 2011. (Doug Horne, MLA)

5. Resolved, that the Select Standing Committee on Public Accounts approve and adopt the report of the annual summary of activities as shall be amended by the Chair and Deputy Chair. (Doug Horne, MLA)

6. Resolved, that following approval by the Chair and Deputy Chair the Chair present the report to the Legislative Assembly at the earliest available opportunity. (Doug Horne, MLA)

7. The Committee continued their consideration of the Auditor General's Report No. 10, 2010/11: Guide for Developing Relevant Key Performance Indicators for Public Sector Reporting

8. The Committee recessed from 11:09 a.m. to 11:12 a.m.

9. The Committee considered the Auditor General's Report No. 7, 2010/11: Upkeep of the Provincial Roads Network by the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure

10. The Committee recessed from 12:04 p.m. to 12:19 p.m.

11. The Committee resumed consideration of the Auditor General's Report No. 7, 2010/11: Upkeep of the Provincial Roads Network by the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure

12. The Committee recessed from 12:42 p.m. to 12:46 p.m.

13. The Committee considered the Auditor General's Report No. 8, 2010/11: An Audit of the Management of Groundwater Resources in British Columbia

14. The Committee considered the resolutions for Records Retention and Disposal Authorities submitted by the Public Documents Committee

15. Resolved, that the 16 resolutions recommended by the Public Documents Committee in February 2011 be adopted as presented. (Doug Horne, MLA)

16. Mr. Guy Gentner, MLA, gave notice of the following motion:

     That the Auditor General, the Clerk to the Committee and the Chair of the Committee, report back regarding the rationale behind the public release of reports of the Auditor General before they are released to the Select Standing Committee on Public Accounts and the appropriate time frame between the Auditor General's release of a report and discussion of that report by this Committee.

17. The Committee adjourned at 2:16 p.m. to the call of the Chair.

The following electronic version is for informational purposes only.

The printed version remains the official version.

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS
(Hansard)

select standing committee on
Public Accounts

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Issue No. 15

ISSN 1499-4259

[ Page 411 ]

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2011

The committee met at 10:06 a.m.

[B. Ralston in the chair.]

B. Ralston (Chair): Good morning, Members. We have an agenda before us. I'm going to assume, unless I hear otherwise, the agenda is adopted by consent.

The first item is the consideration of the draft report of the Select Standing Committee on Public Accounts. Ordinarily, our practice is to consider that in camera, so I'd entertain a motion to move in camera.

J. Rustad: So moved.

The committee continued in camera from 10:07 a.m. to 10:19 a.m.

[B. Ralston in the chair.]

Committee Report to the House

B. Ralston (Chair): We are back in public session, and I just want to report that at the conclusion of our brief discussion, the following motions were moved by the Deputy Chair.

"I move that, on behalf of the committee, the Chair and the Deputy Chair work together with staff to finalize any remaining amendments to incorporate business undertaken on February 9 and February 10, 2011.

"Further move that the Select Standing Committee on Public Accounts approve and adopt its report on the annual summary of activities, as shall be amended by the Chair and the Deputy Chair.

"And further move that, on behalf of the committee, following approval by the Chair and the Deputy Chair, the Chair present the report to the Legislative Assembly at the earliest available opportunity."

Those motions were passed by the committee in camera and now form part of the record.

[1020]

We'll now move to the next item on the agenda. I'll invite the representative of the Auditor's General office and the Ministry of Education to return and continue our discussion on Guide for Developing Relevant Key Performance Indicators for Public Sector Reporting. So once Mr. Nyquist and Ms. Summerville are seated, we can begin with questions from members.

Welcome back. Once again, I do apologize for splitting your appearance here.

I'm going to turn it over to members for discussion on the report. Who wants to be first?

Auditor General Report:
Guide for Developing
Relevant Key Performance Indicators
for Public Sector Reporting

B. Ralston (Chair): Just while we're waiting for others, I have a question. I know my experience in business is that key performance indicators are useful for guiding, generally, financial performance. I think there's an expression that "if it isn't measured, it can't be managed."

How effective do you think key performance indicators as a management technique are in managing non-financial matters? Obviously, in the Ministry of Education you're managing achievement and other non-financial matters that are sometimes fairly intangible. I understand the work that's gone into thinking of this range of key performance indicators. How effective do you think these key performance indicators will be to assist management in achievement of some of the broader goals of the ministry?

P. MacFarlane: Well, from the ministry's perspective, I think it helps us to focus on those key items that are, as has been said in yesterday's discussion, of most importance to the public that we serve — so from that perspective, helping us to focus our work and, as you said, to measure what it is that we're able to do. I think that from that perspective, it is useful. I really can't speak to the financial piece of it.

J. Doyle: Chair, traditionally, key performance indicators have been welcomed within different jurisdictions with some enthusiasm because they offer the opportunity to measure not only financial but also non-financial performance in a way that's one step aside from the traditional formats of, say, a set of financial statements or costing information and such like.

The process of bringing them into a jurisdiction seems to go through a familiar cycle, which is that it's a good idea. There's a lot of enthusiasm around it. There's a lot of effort put in by different entities to develop them and make them relevant.

The next stage of the cycle is perhaps not so pretty. That's when the KPIs are turned into scientific calculations, and as a consequence, the value of them can actually be diminished. They become, if you like, adjuncts to the financial statements and less relevant and less useful.

[1025]

Then, hopefully, it kicks back into: "Now, these are guides. These are indicators, not definitive measures." What you need is a raft of these sorts of measures to be able to assess how things are going within an organization, whatever that organization should be. The important thing isn't the measure itself, but it's the variance analysis as to where you expect to be and where you think you are and why there's a difference and what that informs you in regard to where you should be going from a management perspective.

Some jurisdictions in the world have a quarter of a century of experience using KPIs and the equivalent of the B.C. service contract type of arrangements, where indicators are used as a mechanism to, first of all, state
[ Page 412 ]
what is going to happen and then to actually track what did happen. In some organizations it works very, very well indeed. In others, where the outcomes are a little bit esoteric, it's perhaps not been as successful. Therefore, it can be patchy.

The key issue is, first of all, whether management use them to drive direction, and you can always test that by looking at the executive committee or the various governance committees within an organization to see whether or not these are regularly reported. The second key issue is whether they're used by committees like this to actually ask questions to appraise the actual performance of entities within government as to how well or not well they're actually doing.

So they're a useful tool, but they're not a means to an end.

B. Ralston (Chair): I had a further question. Paige, in what you talked about for the ministry, there was some reference to interprovincial comparisons in an attempt, using these key performance indicators, to make that a meaningful comparison. I think there was also some reference to international standards.

There are some recognized international tests that test accomplishments of schools, teachers and individual achievement across a number of countries. We're compared to Finland and Taiwan and various other jurisdictions.

I'm wondering the degree to which it's been possible — and I think you touched on this, but I would appreciate a little bit further discussion — to integrate some reference to those international standards and interprovincial standards in order to make future comparison perhaps a little bit easier.

P. MacFarlane: British Columbia is in the fortunate position of being able to participate in the international assessments that you noted. Obviously, it takes resources to participate in those kinds of assessments, but we have made it a priority so that in cases where we need to be oversampled, we make every effort to do that so that we will have the data that will break out British Columbia as separate from Canada as a whole.

In many of the results from those kinds of international assessments, you will see a result for Canada, and then you will see some of the jurisdictions that have oversampled, British Columbia being one of them. So we have our own idea of where we fit, if you will, on that international assessment ranking, for lack of a better term.

So we do make it a priority to do that. That provides us with the kind of information that we need to see how we're doing relative to Canada as a whole, to those other jurisdictions within Canada that also do the oversampling and have their own distinct perspective, and also how we're doing as British Columbia when compared with our global competitors, if you will.

B. Ralston (Chair): Just one further question. Obviously testing, as we know from recent debates in the province, can be controversial. To what extent do you think that these key performance indicators capture or are able to suggest the qualitative side of, say, student achievement and, I suppose, professionalism of instruction by teachers?

[1030]

P. MacFarlane: That is a challenging question. I think that the benchmarks or the key performance indicators that have been identified in our service plan and our annual service plan reports are…. By virtue of them being key performance indicators, they are a quantitative rather than a qualitative measure.

I think where we try to provide more context around them is in the text, the contextual pieces that go along with the reporting of the numbers. We do try to provide that contextualized information in the text that surrounds the numbers as they are reported in the service plan and in the annual service plan report, to provide a bit more of a fulsome picture. Obviously, there are many, many perspectives on which pieces of information should be taken into account when you try to measure the effectiveness of these various items.

B. Ralston (Chair): One final question. Some of the criticism that I've heard of testing has been that while it provides a diagnostic and maybe an analysis that flows from that diagnostic, the ministry doesn't always provide the resources to follow up, to correct the problems that may have been identified by the diagnostic.

So in the service plan and in the long-term objectives of the ministry, what's the relationship between assessment of key performance indicators and an attempt to deal with areas of concern that are identified by it?

P. MacFarlane: Let me start by saying that I'm not an expert on pedagogical assessment.

B. Ralston (Chair): Neither am I.

P. MacFarlane: However, there is a range of different types of assessments aimed at different things. Diagnostic assessments are quite different than summary assessments. Some of the terms that we refer to in our ministry.... There's assessment for learning, and there's assessment of learning.

So summary, summative assessments at the end of a particular grade, for instance, will have a different purpose, of course, than will formative assessments as a person is learning throughout. Assessments in general need to be looked at within a broader context in order to provide that fulsome understanding of progress.

One thing I will mention, though, in terms of the recommendations in discussion with the OAG through
[ Page 413 ]
this process is that the ministry has been advised to be cognizant of what our stakeholders are asking for in terms of information from the ministry and the effectiveness of the work of the ministry in terms of steering the education system. So we do try to balance what stakeholders are looking for with the measures that we do have available.

B. Ralston (Chair): Thanks. Those are all the questions I have.

R. Lee: One question, I think, from this discussion is that the assessment purpose is a snapshot in a time frame. I think what's most important in another aspect is following the elements, or the students in this case, throughout the system over years, in time, so that the performance compared to performances, to grades…. That probably is an indication of how good the system is or how bad the system is or, in certain locations, that the student has performed or, depending on the students, other factors — the family, other aspects of that.

I think right now we have the ability to track some of the students over the years. Are those indicators being used over time to indicate the progress of the students?

P. MacFarlane: Yes. We're fortunate in British Columbia to have a robust data-tracking system. We call it PEN, which is a personalized education number. Every child entering kindergarten is provided with a PEN, and in fact, we're starting that tracking process with our StrongStart centres now, so pre-kindergarten.

That PEN can follow the child, of course with appropriate privacy considerations. It can follow the progress of that child as he or she proceeds through the system, so it does provide us with that opportunity to track individualized progress throughout the system.

R. Lee: Are there any results available or ready on those…?

P. MacFarlane: I would have to defer that to my colleagues who are experts in that area.

R. Lee: Okay. But the potential is there to….

P. MacFarlane: The potential is there, certainly from the perspective of a system perspective. I'm not sure that we can get down to the….

[1035]

I'm not sure about how we could track that, but I know that we have a department within the ministry that deals specifically with data and with tracking and trying to get the best information that we can out of that information.

For instance, from a systems perspective, I know that we can…. If we have a cohort in grade 4 that does poorly on the FSA, for instance, we now have statistically valid information that will be able to project the probability of that cohort graduating from high school several years later.

R. Lee: Another question. In some measurements, some studies, you have different variables. You get different measures. The correlation between those variables may be worthwhile to bring out the relationship between, say, the given indicators. How often do you use this multivariate analysis to make recommendations?

P. MacFarlane: As I've said, the ministry does have a department that is focused on data and making the best possible use of that information that we gather from the PENs; from the EDI, for instance, the early development instrument; from FSA results, provincial exam results and completion rates; and, no doubt, from many other data points. It does make those multivariable comparisons throughout to try to inform policy and policy direction.

J. Rustad: Actually, I've got two questions that are unrelated. I hope that's okay.

B. Ralston (Chair): I hadn't noticed that being related was required.

J. Rustad: Paige, first of all, thank you for the presentation, the information. I've got a question, though. When we're talking about key performance indicators….

I used to be a school trustee before entering the world of provincial politics, and at one of the conferences I went to, there was a very good presentation around a longitudinal study which tracked students well past their educational year to see how they performed ten, 20, 30 years out. They found that the performance of a particular teacher made an enormous difference in the life outcomes of various cohorts of students that went through, given the same kinds of socioeconomic backgrounds and stuff they went through.

What I'm wondering is: with the tracking system that we have in place, are we going to be in a place where we can actually see the performance of various teachers over various cohorts as they go through the education system?

P. MacFarlane: None of the key performance indicators, the data points that we've been discussing, relate directly back to teacher effectiveness. They simply don't make that leap.

However, the study to which you refer or the body of research to which you refer…. There is really no question about the importance of teacher effectiveness in terms of how that will impact a student's achievement, whether positively or negatively. We know that teacher
[ Page 414 ]
effectiveness is the most important variable on how well a student achieves.

J. Rustad: Thank you for that. That's why I'm just wondering. We're going to do a lot of effort around tracking kids and the particular performance of kids, but in reality, there are certain components of our education system that have far more impact on the results of children than many other factors. It seems to be odd that we're not tracking that as part of a performance indicator in terms of what we need to be doing with our education system.

P. MacFarlane: I think the challenge there is coming up with a relevant indicator that would actually, in fact, determine with some validity the effectiveness of a particular teacher.

J. Rustad: If I may, now the second question. The report, Guide for Developing Relevant Key Performance Indicators. Just a general question in terms of governments in general, our government in general, in terms of the performance indicators that are being used by various ministries and that go through. I guess the question I have for you is: do you think we are doing a relatively good job? Do you think there's some room for improvement? Do you think there are some glaring issues that need to be dealt with?

[1040]

J. Doyle: Thank you for the question. First of all, I should say we're talking here about key performance indicators. That's probably about five, maybe ten, that cover the whole organization as opposed to the detailed analysis and what can be done underneath that level. There's a lot of information collected that could guide and inform different components of programs.

Here we're looking at the overarching total, and therefore the use of the phrase "key performance indicator" talks really about something that's all-embracing. You really need to dig into it to get the fine detail, just in the same way as if you get an economic briefing and they say: "The CPI is X." You really need to delve into that to find out what's actually causing that and why it's there.

These key performance indicators have been in place now within B.C. for a few years. My office actually did an analysis each year for about three or four years, looking at how well different entities were coping with this requirement in the legislation. What we found was that the Crown agencies did a pretty good job of adapting to, developing and reporting on key performance indicators. I'm trying to remember the name. Building Better Reports was the name of the series.

We found that ministries were not as good. Some had managed to achieve in the maturity model some good progress, and we tracked that progress over the three or four years that we actually produced this report. But some found it quite challenging. In some respects, I had some sympathy with some of them. How do you work out a key performance indicator for what they were doing? I struggled with the thought.

The simple answer to your question is that some areas have been very good, but they're usually the Crowns. Some ministries have made a lot of progress in developing, particularly the larger ministries. But there is a challenge about the simple, huge, massive statistics and figures and calculations and just what is important and what isn't important. There are some difficulties with that at the moment.

I'm thinking that we may need to go back and revisit Building Better Reports from the view of: what is the maturity at the moment, and also, what is its relevancy to actual operations on the ground? Whilst this was put into place through legislation some years ago, the question now is: well, looking back, did it make sense? Is it an appropriate use of resources? Is it making a difference? Those sorts of questions.

That's usually a policy decision, but we just sort of look at the outcomes, which I think is the root of your question, to see whether or not, in fact, it is making a difference to performance and it is making a difference to the information that's available to citizens around how well government is actually delivering services.

I'm looking at that at the moment, and I hope to be able to answer your question more fully perhaps in a year's time, if we decide to go down the road of actually producing the work that I've just described.

J. Rustad: If I could just follow up to that. One of the reasons why I asked that question, of course, is as a former chair of one of our government caucus committees and reviewing many of the service plans and looking at many of the indicators of all the ministries, as well as being on the Finance Committee and this committee and looking at many of the officers of the Legislature, their service plans and key indicators that they have.

I'm just wondering if you've extended that look to the officers of the Legislature just in terms of how those reports and those key indicators are put in place. Sometimes some of the indicators, I guess you could say, I have some challenges with — things like indicating the number of reports compared to a different year. Not your office, sorry, but in some of the other things as an indicator.

In terms of the relevant performance and filling the role, I'm just wondering if you've ever decided to look at the officers, as well, as part of that kind of research and report that you would do.

[1045]

J. Doyle: As you'd be aware, my office does detail a full set of key performance indicators and publishes
[ Page 415 ]
them on a regular basis. We have them audited, which makes us the exception rather than the rule amongst the independent officers. I'm quite happy to do that. In fact, if we weren't required to do it, I would still do it. That's what I feel about transparency and openness.

We have not analyzed or looked at any of the independent officers in regard to their performance indicators. What we looked at when we were doing this work before was individual organizations, the Crown entities that I mentioned before, and I think we looked at most, if not all, of the ministries. But we didn't go anywhere else.

I'll take that on board as an option because, frankly, any organization within the government reporting entity is required to produce this information. I would say that the same test should be applied right across the whole system in regard to what is good practice and what is not good practice.

My limiting comment, though, would be that I've only got so much in the way of resources. I'm not complaining about the resources I've got. It's just that I've got to marshal my resources and apply them to the areas that I think would provide the most benefit. It may well be that this particular group of officers might not fit into that category at any particular point in time.

I'll think on it. It's certainly something we'd like to do — look at key performance indicators across the system. But they might be too small in regard to the overall big picture.

V. Huntington: The question basically follows on John's and is perhaps more to the comptroller general. When you have a guide as effective as this…. I think the initiative itself is quite unique. Congratulations for participating in it. But how do you — or is it your office? — attempt to ensure that it goes governmentwide?

Do you work with management teams to initiate these types of indicators or this type of management process? For instance, are you involved in setting up the indicators for the new natural resources operations ministry? Do you get involved at early stages to help set up those management performance indicators ministrywide?

S. Newton: In relation to what happens specifically in ministries, those are ministry responsibilities — to undertake to determine the appropriate measures. Certainly, there are areas in my office that are available to help ministries when they're doing that, which would be…. Internal audit does do some work with ministries. Specifically on this, we haven't been asked.

We also, on the financial side, have some policy expertise to help, but that's based on the requests from ministries. So we're not actively, from the comptroller general's office, working with ministries to get key performance indicators put in place. There is a requirement that they do it. Should they require assistance, we can provide that.

V. Huntington: Okay, so how would you then anticipate this report being used and successfully disseminated, if the requirements are already there but nobody is monitoring whether they're being put in place and how they're being developed? If you're not proactive, how do you anticipate the actual use of these in an effective manner?

S. Newton: I think it goes to roles, as far as performance indicators and the requirement to use those. Our office doesn't have a role, as far as making it the requirement or actually disseminating the information.

Certainly, as we look at key risks across government through our internal audit program, as key performance indicators and ministries' ability to manage effectively, using them becomes a key risk. We sometimes end up in the same place as the Auditor General, looking at it as a high risk and then determining whether we need to do some work on that or not.

V. Huntington: Who does have that authority, or is it just an amorphous cloud out there — that you grab hold of these directives or not?

S. Newton: I'm not too sure where the authority comes from in government, so I can't answer that part of the question for you.

B. Ralston (Chair): Doesn't it come from the Queen?

[1050]

V. Huntington: I haven't yet seen her in my lifetime put her foot down about anything, as much as I wish she might sometimes.

S. Chandra Herbert: Just back to the earlier point that Mr. Doyle was making around the report Building Better Reports. Looking at, as I guess it is now, the former Ministry of Tourism, Culture and the Arts, I often wondered about the key performance indicators, how they were arrived at. I, too, would think it might be useful to go back to that report, to take a look at ministries and how they're doing, because it seemed sometimes to change based on how things were going.

I'm wondering what kind of advice might be given to ministries and other groups so that they don't create performance indicators which might get them to so-called teach to the test. I know that's been one of the arguments around the FSA, that you would crowd out other things that are important as an indicator — it could be learning, for a student; it could be tourism; it could be something else — and that you could achieve success in one area but actually decline in success in another area, just because it may not be the top indicator but may also be useful. What sort of advice would you provide?
[ Page 416 ]

J. Doyle: Sorry, Chair. I don't actually provide advice.

S. Chandra Herbert: Thank you. I thought this guide was advice.

J. Doyle: This is to fill a gap that I had identified. I put the gap on the table, and if no one picks it up, then no one picks it up. However, I will say that my teams, when they go and do additional work, will be following these principles, because these are entirely in line with the legislation and the B.C. reporting principles.

I'm just being useful and helpful to people, to say: "This is what we perceive to be a reasonable approach." Now, you don't have to slavishly follow it. If you diverted away from it, I'm sure there's a very good reason, but it's not because it's not rooted in good-quality research or anything else.

I think we've just got to be a little bit careful. There are some serious challenges about getting out meaningful indicators for some activities, and at the moment the whole process is: everybody's got to do the same thing. The other issue is that we're talking here about the key indicators, and underneath the key indicators there's a raft of other indicators. Whether you call them indicators…. I prefer to call them performance indicators as well. Then underneath that, there are statistics. It's the hierarchy of indicators.

Sometimes organizations will choose indicators that show good performance, and the issue you just raised is that that could mean less-than-good performance in other areas that haven't been selected. That's where you need to be able to dig down into the other areas of activity.

It's equally important that teams of management need to be able to look at these key performance indicators and say: "These are relevant and probably the best fit because of this, but we also have these other things that we want to look at." It's an interaction between those, which takes place internally, that improves the management of different organizations. But what are published are the key indicators.

Now from memory, we saw some agencies, when we were doing this work, with 40 or 50 indicators and others with three. I don't know — and I don't propose to say — what the right number is, but it seems to me, though, that key performance indicators should be a reasonable number to hang onto, and then there should be supplementary information beneath them.

One of the danger signs I've always had is if the indicators keep changing in their structure and form each year. It's a bit like changing the basis of accounting in financial reporting each and every year. Obviously, we go to great lengths to ensure that there is continuity and comparisons between years, but no indicator, by definition on its own, will be able to give you the whole story or act as a measure. You've got to look at a raft of them and then actually understand how they've been developed and how they've been grown over time.

[1055]

S. Chandra Herbert: Just one follow-up. Thank you for that response. On tourism, just as an example, we could say: "This month we've increased tourism business, and this is great." But if you compared it to two years ago, the increase that we saw today might be only catching up with where we were at two years ago, because we've had a big dip. It all depends on what you compare it to.

I'm just wondering if there are any steps or anything in the power of the Office of the Auditor General to look at the change of indicators that a ministry might undertake. They may have a very good reason for it, or it may be something else. I'm just wondering what kinds of steps the Auditor General could take, or does take, in those circumstances.

J. Doyle: The mandate that I have under the Auditor General Act is that I can go and have a look at most things, including what you've just described. The practical reality is that I have a limited number of resources, and therefore, I must pick and choose. It is the role and the responsibility of management to deliver meaningful communication, accountability and transparency.

As another member mentioned earlier, there are committees of the Legislative Assembly that do look at service plans and service performance on an ongoing basis during the year. I'm not the only player in this exercise.

As I say, I am thinking about how we can contribute further as we go forward. It takes up a lot of time and energy to do this, and we've got to make sure that it's worth that time and energy.

S. Simpson: One question. It follows off of a comment that the comptroller general made in response to Vicki. He spoke a bit about how, clearly, every ministry has an obligation to put performance indicators in place and to measure and that that's the responsibility and obligation of every ministry as part of government. But I believe he spoke about how his office isn't directly involved in that unless asked by a ministry to come and provide advice and that.

It would seem to me that the likelihood — and this could be clarified — is that we may have quite different criteria around those indicators in different ministries, and they might all function quite differently in terms of how they apply the indicators.

My question to the Auditor General is: in your opinion, is there an upside to having better consistency or continuity across ministries in terms of how they look at indicators and how they apply them?

I'd certainly welcome the comptroller general's comment on this as well. Should we be looking at some
[ Page 417 ]
better continuity across the board with ministries as to what they look at and how they apply them, understanding that there will always be differences because of the different work and applications in ministries? I would think that there is a consistency that could be of value.

I'd be interested in your comments as to whether that's something we should aspire to get the ministries to do across government.

J. Doyle: I hesitate to provide opinions, because in my world they mean something quite different. I'll give you an insight into my experience in this area. I've seen some jurisdictions where….

Well, the role of creating the key performance indicators is correctly identified as being at the ministry or the agency level. Guidance to assist them to do that is probably always welcome. But there is another ingredient that has to be there, and that is that people, observers, have got to be interested in those key performance indicators. Otherwise, why are we bothering to do them?

And so the various committees of the Legislative Assembly that look at these and explore how well or not well the budget process itself…. They look at not only the financials but also what is going to be achieved with the appropriations that are going to be provided.

[1100]

Management reporting in the form of annual reports, or public accountability documents, are produced by all of the Crowns but by no ministry at all. All these are important ingredients to actually provide citizens with an understanding of what actually has happened and how well things are going according to plan.

I have seen jurisdictions where there is a committee in Treasury — the equivalent here would be the Ministry of Finance — which actually adopts and approves each and every key performance indicator that's published as a key performance indicator and ensures that the mechanism to develop that indicator is, in fact, auditable and suitable and appropriate. That's one end of the extreme.

I've seen other jurisdictions where, basically, whatever people want to say can be said, and there is, in fact, no review or assurance process that takes place. Naturally, being who I am, I would steer towards the area where a great deal of assurance can be applied. These are never going to be perfect, absolute, exact numbers or assessments. They're indicators, and I keep emphasizing that to the point where it becomes boring, I hope. But it's an indicator.

I think the way that they're developed can be explained, and the fact that they can be assessed by someone outside the ministry is probably healthy. I don't know which agency would do that, but I've mentioned Treasury. There isn't a Treasury here in those terms, but the Ministry of Finance maybe.

In some jurisdictions they are audited and actually form part of the opinion on the financial statements. So the financial statements opinion, the controls opinion and the key performance indicators are all part of an opinion issued by the Auditor General. Again, that's one end of the extreme. In some jurisdictions they don't exist at all, although that is becoming less and less of a norm.

I'd like to see assistance provided to those people who have to develop these things to give them an opportunity or to set them up to succeed so that at least they can see that the work and the effort and energy that they're putting into these is relevant and not just compliance or ticking a box when it comes to legislation. I think that many public servants that I meet and see and that my staff meet and see are of a similar view.

S. Simpson: A bit of a comment there. I know, as a legislator, when I look every year at the service plans that are submitted as part of the budget process for ministries, I could see some real value in having the key performance indicators be a required part of the service plans to give some indication, sort of as an annual reporting, on how each ministry is doing around these key issues.

Maybe the service plan is a place to incorporate that as part of the discussion for the ministries. I think that might be an interesting exercise, but of course, that's a matter for the government to direct ministries to do within the context of service plans.

J. Les: Obviously, a performance measurement is extremely important right across government, and we do a great deal of it, actually. We hunt down interesting things like the connectivity of parks and air quality, and all those kinds of things are things that we measure nowadays, and I think all to the good.

There probably can be no more important measure of performance than that which applies to about 700,000 children who are in school every day — our most important human resource. The commentary that evolves around that at certain times, when those results are released, can be characterized in many ways — "adult" probably not being one of them.

I really think we need to do a lot better. We've got to get this right. We talk about stakeholders, which is a term that is widely used, and I'm not sure many days what it actually means. There's always a hierarchy of stakeholders.

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I would suggest, first and foremost, that right at the very top of that list of stakeholders should be the parents. Those are by far the most important stakeholders to be consulted when it comes to the welfare of their children.

Perhaps a question to the Auditor General. Given the discussion and lack of agreement in determining what the determinants are to be derived from key performance
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measurement in this area, I'm wondering if the Office of the Auditor General would be able to be helpful in determining what an appropriate measurement regime ought to look like in the education system and what kind of outputs might be helpful.

B. Ralston (Chair): Mr. Doyle, do you want to tackle that one?

J. Doyle: I was just going to say that I don't normally provide that kind of advice. One of the concerns I've got, if we were to do that piece of work…. I'm reminded by a member sitting quite close to you that every time I conduct an audit on a performance audit area, I get asked where my knowledge or background is in that particular area.

I would say the Ministry of Education has got to come up with what it believes to be the situation. I don't mind going through and seeing whether the process that they follow and the numbers add up correctly and there's quality in the information fields. I mean, auditors do that regularly. But to actually step into "these should be the measures" is quite difficult for me, and I think it probably exceeds the boundaries of my mandate.

I can observe the quality of indicators. I can make observations around the process of collection and the value of those. I've been trained as an academic researcher. I'm a full professor. I've done all that sort of stuff. Actually, one of the areas of my expertise was in performance indicators, so it's an area where I have a little bit of knowledge. I think I would be reluctant to actually come up with a regime or a framework, but I would be more than happy to provide principles and to have ideas bounced off me.

J. Les: Just as a follow-up. I'm not for a minute suggesting that the Office of the Auditor General ought to be leading public policy in the province. Certainly, that's not the case. But I think that what you were suggesting latterly in your answer would be quite helpful — for the Office of the Auditor General to comment on the performance measurement that goes on today and the effectiveness of that or not, the objectivity of that or not, and whether, at the end of the day, it is helpful to achieving the objective that I hope we're all trying to achieve.

B. Ralston (Chair): On that happy note, I think we've concluded this report. Thank you very much.

We'll move to the next report, and I suppose we could play a few bars of "Life is a Highway" before we move to the next report. We'll recess for a couple of minutes.

The committee recessed from 11:09 a.m. to 11:12 a.m.

[B. Ralston in the chair.]

B. Ralston (Chair): We're dealing with report 3 on our agenda, Upkeep of the Provincial Roads Network by the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure — Mr. Doyle and Mike Macdonell, who is the executive director, resourcing group, in the Office of the Auditor General. Responding on behalf of the ministry, David Duncan, who's the assistant deputy minister, highways department, Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure; and Shanna Mason, who's executive director in the same department, the highways department, Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure.

Welcome.

It's over to you, then, Mr. Doyle. Away we go.

Auditor General Report:
Upkeep of the Provincial Roads Network
by the Ministry of
Transportation and Infrastructure

J. Doyle: The provincial road network is an essential part of community and commercial well-being in British Columbia. I think we all know that. Roads and bridges have long life cycles and can be significantly extended with timely and appropriate periodic maintenance. Minimizing the cost of that life cycle of these assets requires long-term planning, action and professionalism across the entire road network.

Overall, government is managing its road maintenance programs very well, taking the necessary steps to ensure that contractors are completing their required work and that there are clear, well-defined roles for the ministry and the contractors. We found that the ministry runs a results-orientated management system, strives to continuously improve routine maintenance operations, and clearly values customer service and public engagement in discharging their own and contractors' responsibilities.

With an eye to continuous improvement, there are a number of areas that we identified for improvement, which are explained in the report.

I have with me today Michael Macdonell, executive director and engagement leader for this particular audit, and I will turn it over to Michael now to go over the report in the briefing.

M. Macdonell: Thank you, John.

Good morning, Chair, ladies and gentlemen. I'd like to take a moment to introduce, behind me, Kenneth Ryan-Lloyd, seated in the gallery, who was the field manager for this audit and did what I call the real work on this file.

Thanks, Kenneth.

I don't need to tell anybody here that B.C. has a lot of roads. Nor do I need to point out that the road network is quite literally the circulatory system carrying B.C.'s human and economic lifeblood. The road network is, on
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a day-to-day basis, likely the most used and highly visible of public services.

Responsibility for maintaining B.C.'s 90,000-kilometre circulatory system rests with the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure. The road network encompasses the whole range of road sizes and materials. This includes the network of numbered highways and major roads, and it also includes side roads and unpaved roads that are also critical components. Each has unique needs for planned, timely upkeep that are critical for long-term economy and functionality.

The ministry does little direct road upkeep work itself. For many years the ministry has instead managed a large portfolio of contractors, so the ministry's management of contractors was a significant focus of our work.

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We sought to answer three questions related to the effective upkeep of the road network. Does the province adequately plan for the upkeep of roads? Does the province adequately manage the activities of contractors who do the upkeep work? And does the province know how well it's meeting its responsibilities for road upkeep?

Between April 2009 and March 2010 we visited nine of the 11 district highways offices, all three of the regional highways offices and many worksites in the field, and interviewed several contractors. In August 2010 we also conducted some supplementary work at ministry headquarters before reporting out. I'd like to say we enjoyed complete cooperation from ministry and staff at all levels doing this work.

The deterioration of roads, bridges, tunnels and other structures typically follows a simple deterioration curve. The asphalt deterioration curve shown in this graph is typical for unmaintained surfaces. Roads and structures are designed to last many years, but after a certain point without ongoing upkeep they deteriorate rapidly.

The ministry must intervene with the correct treatment before the decline accelerates. The higher cost to restore a damaged road base or reconstruct, at the lower right-hand of the curve, represents the least desirable state, because after a certain point rehabilitation is no longer economic.

It should be understood that routine maintenance — things like filling potholes and cracked sealing — will not prevent overall deterioration profiles such as that shown. Although these are critical inputs, larger interventions known as rehabilitation are required to maximize service life and economy and include major activities such as repaving.

No two structures deteriorate at the same rate or in the same way. Deterioration depends on the kind of use — for instance, heavy traffic volumes or heavy loads — the weather, the location, the grade and the construction materials used. The heritage timber bridge on the left side here in this picture — I believe that's the St. Mary Wycliffe Bridge, a one-lane timber bridge located just outside of Cranbrook crossing the St. Mary River — was constructed in the early 1900s. It's still in active use.

Pictured on the right is a newer structure, the Salmon River bridge near Prince George. It was constructed in the 1960s. It's a two-lane bridge with no sidewalks, but it's slated to be replaced in 2013. It has a completely different load profile — different kinds of use.

Because deterioration will vary, timely inspections and accurate inventories are crucial parts of the maintenance planning regime. Side roads, often unpaved, can deteriorate rapidly if neglected. They're inspected regularly and graded on a regular basis. Unincorporated settlements, such as the one pictured, rely on the ministry to clear snow and ice from their only viable land transportation route.

Overall, our findings and conclusions were quite positive. We concluded that overall the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure has been doing a good job in managing road upkeep, demonstrating careful regard for cost, efficiency and effectiveness — in other words, music to the Auditor's ear. However, while real-time work was well managed, we identified opportunities to improve long-term planning and management as well as improving practices for measuring results and reporting performance.

The report contains ten recommendations focused primarily on the improvement of long-term upkeep planning, life-cycle costing, the relation of upkeep to safety and enhancing how contractors are managed. I'm pleased to note that these recommendations were accepted by the ministry, and we look forward to seeing them implemented.

It's my understanding that the ministry's presentation discusses not only our recommendations but its response to them in some detail, so rather than be repetitive, I think I'll stop here.

B. Ralston (Chair): Thanks very much.

D. Duncan: Thank you, Chair and Members, for the opportunity to be here today. I'm very, very glad to be here, with my colleague Shanna Mason, to provide a response to the Auditor General's report on road upkeep.

[1120]

I think I'll just start by saying that we very much appreciated the good working relationship that we had with the Auditor General during the preparation of the report. Auditor General staff were thoughtful and went out to the field and met with our staff. There was a good dialogue back and forth. Very much appreciated the collegial working environment as we worked through the topics, so I want to thank the Auditor General for that.

Just quickly a restatement of the purpose of the audit. From our understanding, the purpose of the audit was to assess the current state of the ministry's planning and management of both routine and rehabilitative maintenance services on B.C.'s road network. The scope of the
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assessment included both the current road and bridge maintenance system that the ministry oversees, as well as the ministry's road rehabilitation and preservation program, or our upkeep program.

Just in terms of a brief overview, I think at the beginning of the report the Auditor General identified that a safe and reliable road network is critical to the daily well-being of British Columbians and to the province's economy overall. That was a statement that really resounded with us. It's core to what we feel and believe we're responsible for. Certainly, we understand that transportation is a key driver of quality of life and economic growth in the province, and it's something that's very important to us and that resounded very strongly with us.

In terms of the overall findings, the Auditor General, as mentioned, provided overall positive results, identifying that the ministry is doing a good job of managing the road upkeep programs and demonstrating careful regard for cost efficiency and effectiveness; that the ministry is managing the maintenance of the province's road network well; that the ministry runs a results-oriented management system and strives to continuously improve routine maintenance services; and also that the ministry values customer service and public engagement.

As mentioned, the Auditor General also identified a number of key opportunities for improvement. These really related around, I think, three key areas that we understood. The first was how the ministry plans its rehabilitation and preservation programs; secondly, how the ministry measures and reports on safety metrics and safety performance; and then lastly, how the ministry collects and analyzes public inputs and inquiries into that process.

In terms of the key actions and recommendations from the Auditor General, those fell into three primary categories: planning current and future work priorities and standards, managing day-to-day road and bridge maintenance, and monitoring performance and striving for improvement.

In terms of planning for the current and future road priorities, areas of strength that the Auditor General identified included that we adequately plan road and bridge preservation and rehabilitation programs and that our staff at a project level do a good job of doing detailed inspections that complement the assets and that identify the condition in need of repairs.

Some of the recommendations that the Auditor General made in this area included that we need to do a better job of identifying and monitoring the factors that affect road condition standards, that we need to set firm and attainable timelines for updating inventory databases and that we need to complete the development of a network-level planning tool. So basically, while we do a good job of identifying needed improvements on a project-by-project basis and sometimes on a regional basis, there's, I think, a value in looking at that on a network basis and looking at a tool that monitors that program on an overall network basis.

Just one general comment on the actions. As was mentioned, we appreciated all the recommendations the Auditor General made, and we are currently in the process of putting together a detailed action plan that assesses all ten recommendations in full and prepares a response to each. What I've got today for you are some of the actions we've identified to date that we'll be working on, and then we'll be, obviously, continuing to work on a more fulsome action plan in the months ahead.

In terms of these recommendations around the planning of the road network, the ministry will update its road inventory database through our current system. We've set a deadline of spring 2012 for having that complete. Staff have begun that work, and that work will be complete by spring 2012.

In addition to that, we are undertaking to complete a network-level planning tool, as suggested by the Auditor General, and the development of that tool we plan to have complete by the fall of 2012.

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In terms of management of the maintenance activities of the ministry on a day-to-day basis, a couple of the strengths that we identified from the report that we're really pleased to see was that the ministry manages the maintenance of the province's road network well. That was great to hear. Also, that the ministry staff know that the contractors are fulfilling their contractual obligations was something that was good feedback to receive. And then finally, that our contractors value and utilize public input for improving their services, I think, was also something that we were very glad to hear reported back by the Auditor General.

In this area a number of recommendations for improvement included working more closely with the contractors to collaborate and determine if performance incentives are effective and if recommendations for changes to that system can be made, for trying to strive to improve stakeholder feedback methods and how those feedback methods are incorporated into the delivery of the work and the assessment of the work.

Finally, a review of our service area configurations. We currently have 28 maintenance contract service areas around the province, and while that has been reviewed on a number of occasions since the inception of privatized road maintenance, a review of boundaries and configurations to make sure that they still remain and are the best ways to break down those areas is something that was recommended.

We appreciate those recommendations. We are undertaking a service area and incentive model review, and that work is currently underway and will be completed, again, by the fall of 2012 also. We're also going to take a close look at stakeholder feedback methods to see if there are opportunities for improvement.
[ Page 421 ]

The third main category of recommendations from the Auditor General focused on the monitoring and improving of performance over time. Some areas of strength identified in this were that the ministry sets reasonable high-level goals for road maintenance and that the staff across the province, through the interviews, acknowledge that safety is always their first consideration in planning and implementing works and programs.

Some of the recommendations that the Auditor General made were that we can improve on the reporting of safety-related performance measures, that we can improve how we seek customer input into our rehabilitation and preservation programs, and a review of not only how we measure and report safety in a public way but also how we internally set performance measures for our own internal staff around the administration of maintenance contracts. That was another area of priority that we identified.

We are currently initiating a review of industry best practices around safety and maintenance-related performance measures. That work is underway currently. It's our intention to also develop an internal maintenance administration performance measures regime by the spring of 2012, building on some of the ones we already have in place. We're absolutely going to consider further opportunities for stakeholder involvement into our programming process.

Now, while we currently do reach out on a regular basis to mayors and councils and a number of other key industry and public stakeholders, there's always room for improvement there. That's something we're going to be looking at.

I just think, in conclusion, that providing a safe, reliable and efficient highway system is absolutely one of the Ministry of Transportation's top, top priorities. We understand the importance of that system to ensure livable communities across the province as well as to ensure stable and positive economic growth in the province. We really understand the connection there, and it's something that's a priority for us.

We also, I think, recognize and understand the Auditor General's recommendations and completely agree with them — that the system, while being well managed, does require continual improvement. That continual improvement is something that we understand is critical to the ongoing success of our infrastructure as well as to customer satisfaction, which is something that we place a priority on. So we're going to continue to focus on that continual improvement, and our action plan in response to the report will focus on that.

I guess, finally, we will be developing a full action plan based on all ten recommendations, and we'll be sharing that with the Auditor General once that's in place. Then we'll be moving forward to implementing that with a focus on continual improvement.

Thank you for the opportunity.

B. Ralston (Chair): Thank you.

Guy had put his name forward. Anyone else who wants to…?

G. Gentner: I'd begin by asking: is there a good relationship between auditors, or accountants, and engineers? I mean, you're both complimentary with each other here, and I agree that we've traditionally had some relatively good maintenance of our road works. But I want to start off by asking, on your key findings….

[1130]

We talked about what were relevant performance criteria and how you evaluate it. When we look at the key findings and recommendations — performance standards, inventories, inspections and costing — I don't see anything here, and maybe I've missed it, that speaks to the notion of capacity of roads and the planning.

When I look at studies throughout the world, California found that 80 percent of the maintenance costs are due to trucks. The graph I see on 13 — I assume that is sort of a general gradient of poor and fair versus time in years. But you can't separate policy from operations if this province is going towards a new type of truck road system on current roads that are built with weight capacities far different than where we're going, in light of the fact that we're following standards that are being dictated at TILMA, etc., and other standards Stateside. I think this is a major piece — a point that's been neglected here — on how we're going to deal with that.

Heavier trucks. This is, again, from studies in California: "Heavier trucks deteriorate the pavement structure at an accelerated rate. A study at University of Texas found that one big rig pass causes the damage equivalent to 2,000 or 3,000 cars. However, the extra pavement damage from long combination vehicles may be mitigated by the increased number of axles."

So where are we talking here? We're seeing now in my community truck trains being introduced. Truck trains are now being introduced all the way up to Kelowna from the Lower Mainland, and yet our infrastructure was built on something very, very different. Axle load affects our situation. We can talk about suspension, the weight factor, speed factor. So where in this evaluation, current and future, are we dealing with the new 21st century of moving our goods and transportation?

B. Ralston (Chair): Who wants to go first?

J. Doyle: Chair, I'd like to make an observation about the cozy relationship between engineers and chartered accountants. I don't think there is one. I'm looking at the team and the lead members of the team, and they weren't chartered accountants. I'm not sure what inference I could draw from that, because this is a very good report.
[ Page 422 ]

Let me also say that this audit was about the upkeep, and I think that the member's comments are quite valid. The change in traffic is going to have an impact on the deterioration of roads, which is going to have an impact on the upkeep. But what we were looking at is how that upkeep is managed, how deterioration is detected and so on. So we were looking at the consequences of usage, as opposed to trying to predict the future in regard to what it would look like.

Some of our recommendations, though, are germane in that we looked at: what is the long-term planning? That obviously must build in, as I'm sure the ministry will confirm in a moment, actual use of those roads and of those various assets and the impact on those assets of whatever the traffic is, going into the future.

I'll turn it over to the ministry now to provide whatever observations they would like to provide.

D. Duncan: It's an excellent point. I think, as the Auditor General's report mentioned, there are a number of factors that affect the condition of a road network over time. Those include climate. They include topography. They include the usage of the road network. That's a different profile for each road, and we have, I think, an intimate appreciation for that.

We do a number of things on an annual basis to ensure that we monitor and assess the condition of the roads and review the deterioration curve that was mentioned in the Auditor General's report. We have a roadway pavement management system where we define and monitor both the distress of the pavement and the condition of the ride surface. It's an electronic system. It's a truck that drives the inventory every year and makes assessments.

We assess the pavement condition of our main highways every two years. We cover the entire 25,000-lane-kilometre main highway network every two years. Then we graph that deterioration curve over time, and we use that information to help us determine resurfacing priorities.

[1135]

We also do a full, detailed inspection on each of our major bridges on an annual basis and, I believe, a semi-annual basis for our secondary bridges. We monitor those conditions closely to ensure that the assets are remaining safe for the intended use.

Absolutely, as the economy continues to grow, truck traffic grows. We're working closely with our neighbouring jurisdictions through the new west partnership. That's Alberta and Saskatchewan. We're certainly striving to streamline those regulatory environments for truck traffic. We want to make sure that truck traffic coming from Alberta and from the south can make its way into B.C. and that truck drivers can have reasonable and consistent expectations of how they're going to manage their loads as they're travelling. We want to make sure that's as well streamlined as it can be, and that's a priority of one of those initiatives.

In terms of the condition of the roads, we do vary our program on a year-in, year-out basis to address the condition of the roads as we monitor its change over time. For example, since 2001 we've resurfaced 25,000 kilometres of hard-surfaced highways in British Columbia. We've replaced 140 bridges.

We do everything we can to manage that inventory. There's always a balancing act to be struck between ensuring that you use the road network to support and promote economic growth while at the same time ensuring that you manage its condition over time.

That's something that's a priority for us, and we're working hard on that.

G. Gentner: Just a supplemental, if I could. It sort of evolves into what we're talking on. Upkeep of road is equal to the amount of money we put into it. I said that 80 percent of the road deterioration is caused by trucks, and studies show that trucks pay for only about 55 percent of their responsibility. I take it that's through weigh scales and permitting and the like.

How short are we on maintaining proper weigh stations in this province to ensure that we get our value to pay for the beat-up roads caused by overweight trucks? I'm just wondering: do you have a long-term vision for this? Is it pay-for-usage? Are we getting value from proper inspections in Delta?

We had inspections on what is now, probably without question, the truck route from Asia to Montreal through Deltaport. In a two- or three-hour period we had 100 percent of trucks, I think, fail inspections. Now, I still think, even though some due diligence on behalf of the ministry, that we're still way ahead of the national average relative to proper inspections. Trucks are getting through the proper inspections. These are beating up our roads as well.

I guess I want to know: are we getting the value from the usage of trucks on our vehicles, and do we have proper weigh stations to ensure that our roads will be kept to a proper standard?

D. Duncan: In terms of "are we getting value?" I think that trucks all across the province deliver the vast majority of the goods and services that we use on a day-to-day basis all across the province. So absolutely, truck traffic is a huge component of the reason our network is there and a huge component of the services they provide.

In terms of the details of what truck traffic contributes to the specific funding of the road network, I don't have that information in front of me today. I can certainly make efforts to put some information on that together.

In terms of weigh scales, commercial vehicle safety is a key part of the highways department program. We have staff all across the province that focus every day
[ Page 423 ]
on commercial vehicles and safety and on ensuring that commercial vehicles are congratulated when they're doing a good job and addressed when they're not.

We're certainly striving to incorporate technology into that process. We obviously have a balance between weigh scales and portable inspectors, and we have those all across the province. We have a series of scale facilities that are strategically located at key entry points to the province as well as at key routing locations, and we maintain and upkeep those facilities.

[1140]

A couple of examples of areas where we've recently made significant improvements in terms of our commercial vehicle inspection facilities…. We've got a new integrated weigh-in-motion facility in Golden — obviously, a key commercial entry area to the province. We've also recently just opened this year a new weigh-in-motion commercial vehicle scale in the Red Rock area just south of Prince George.

Along with those facilities we're bringing in transponder technology to enable a better transfer of information between the weigh scales and the commercial truckers, so as trucks approach weigh scale facilities they can transmit information to those facilities to help our operators expedite their travel and help expedite the review process.

That includes information around the loads they're carrying and the last time they were inspected so that we can try to avoid situations we've had in the past where we have multiple stations inspecting trucks for the same thing, so that we can inspect them once, make sure that they're following their required approvals and then get them on their way.

We're working closely with the RCMP, as you mentioned, on the inspections across the province in different areas, focusing on load securement and focusing on other areas of key priority. That's something that's a focus for us and something we continue to work on.

G. Gentner: Just one more on this, I suppose. Of course, maintenance is equal to the amount of money we're willing to spend, and I'm wondering: do you have a recycle-replacement program relative to the infrastructure used by heavy vehicles? Do you have a comprehensive transportation plan that knows what the origin destinations in this province are in the next 20 years relative to truck traffic and how you're going to apply that information to the upgrade and maintenance of the current infrastructure?

D. Duncan: I think the ministry does network planning on an annual basis. We have corridor plans for all of our main highways that identify the existing traffic on those corridors — identifies the projected growth, looks at the socioeconomic and community factors that revolve around those corridors and projects into the future to see what kind of industry and community changes may be coming forth that are going to affect the usage of the highway.

We use those corridor plans to help assist both our rehabilitation and our capital improvement planning. Those plans have led to projects like the Kicking Horse Canyon project, like the replacement of the W.R. Bennett Bridge, and we continue to upgrade those plans on about a five-year cycle. Those plans are rolled up on a provincial basis as well. Obviously, there was the Opening Up B.C. document that came out, I think, in 2002 or 2003 around that, and we do continue to monitor those corridors and update those plans on a regular cycle basis.

G. Gentner: Just one comment. I take it, therefore, that there's no real comprehensive plan that looks at the whole province. You're talking about individual projects, but you're not looking at the future of the capacity coming into Prince Rupert, truck traffic there, in the next 20 years. The province does not have a comprehensive plan — correct?

D. Duncan: Well, I think that the planning studies we have provide a comprehensive overview of the highway network. They include Highway 16, which is obviously centred on the Port of Prince Rupert as well as the container logistics facilities through Prince George and then all the way out to Tête Jaune and the Alberta border. It includes Highway 97, which is obviously the primary north-south corridor in the province. It includes a comprehensive review of Highway 3, which is one of the three east-west corridors in the province. I think that the studies we have provide a comprehensive look at the province's road inventory.

J. McIntyre: I just sort of have a comment and then a brief question. I just wanted to start off by saying I was very reassured with the positive results that came out of this report. As most of you know, I have the award-winning Sea to Sky Highway that basically links all of my communities, and I very quickly found out as an MLA five years ago that my riding is a highway, pretty well.

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I just wanted to thank you, because our office deals with a number of transportation issues, as you can believe, with road events and Mother Nature events and all sorts of things. We get lots of questions about upkeep and maintenance and certainly the road clearing and things like that. As you mentioned in your presentation, we have contractual arrangements for the upkeep of the road and especially for snow clearing and things and like that.

I was just wondering if you could elaborate. I know there are standards in your contracts — right? — with the suppliers, obviously, and also, I think, some sort of performance incentives. Sort of to our earlier discussion here in the room about performance indicators and
[ Page 424 ]
things like that — how are those actually monitored? I know I give constituents assurance that those standards exist and that there's monitoring, but how does that actually work? Can you elaborate a little bit how their performance is monitored and how you deal with them?

S. Mason: We have a program that's called the CAP program, contractor assessment program, and it's quite a comprehensive monitoring program. We have staff that are assigned to small geographic areas, so every square inch of the province and our highway network and secondary road network is assigned to an individual, and that individual lives and works in that local community.

On a daily basis they drive and do what we call daily monitoring. They write monitoring records. Good or bad, they observe what's happening on the road on a day-to-day basis. They are probably in contact with the contractor, I'd say, half a dozen times on most days. It could be just to share information on things that they saw to make sure that the contractor has also seen that. It could be to talk about what plans they have for the following week. There's a regular dialogue that goes on between what we're calling our area managers and the local contactors, the local road foremen.

In addition to that, they do weekly audits. There are teams within the district that are assigned to go out and do a weekly audit. The weekly audits are generated, actually, by a random pick in sort of an algorithm that we have of the specifications that are entered into a computer system. They hit the button — I kind of think of it as the wheel going around on The Price Is Right kind of thing — and a specification will pop up, and they go and they do an audit on that particular specification.

We came up with that in the last round of maintenance contracts because we wanted to make sure that there was a randomness, that it wasn't just that people were focusing on their area of comfort or their wheelhouse areas and that they were looking at the various specifications that are in the contract. That happens on a weekly basis.

Then biannually we actually have teams from other districts that will go in and do an audit. They will do a more fulsome audit, a more structured audit, in terms of what they're seeing on the road. So they will drive the inventory and make observations on that inventory and what they're seeing in terms of performance and service. Then they'll go into the contractor's office, and they'll look at their records and do some comparison between what they've seen and what they have for the workplans and work history.

The reason we set that up is that we wanted to have folks that don't have that day-to-day relationship and interaction with the contractors come in and give their view on what's going on in the area. That happens in summer, and that happens in winter as well.

In addition to that, we do a summer and a winter stakeholder assessment. We have a list of stakeholders. They range from the school districts and school bus operators; local RCMP; local paramedic station; usually key industries — you know, the Excel and the Lomak trucking kinds of industries that are out there; the local community city councils, if we have roads that are going through the local communities; and regional district reps.

Then they will phone them, and there's a structured list of questions that they'll ask them about the performance of the contractor over the summer or the performance of the contractor over the winter.

Those things all have a weighting to them — a rating and a weighting. Then that is added together to get a numerical rating for each of the contractors.

Did you want to add anything to that, Dave?

D. Duncan: No. Thank you, Shanna.

B. Ralston (Chair): Joan, anything further?

J. McIntyre: I just want to thank you, because I know we have calls, and the response time is unbelievable. We've called, and sometimes within an hour or two you've had people out dealing with a particular situation. Anyway, I just want to thank you on behalf of constituents, because I live and breathe these issues all the time, and it's been very positive.

J. Les: Guy focused on truck traffic. I have a question in relation to that.

[1150]

First of all, just let me say that without truck traffic, we probably wouldn't have an economy, so it's important that we have the infrastructure available to handle truck traffic. Now, individual trucks have gotten a lot larger, and the inference, I think, sometimes is that that then beats up on our roads more so than before.

I'm wondering if that's necessarily the case, because the other thing that I've noticed is that as trucks have gotten larger — that is, they're heavier — it's pretty common nowadays to see quite a number of axles under these trucks — drive axles and steering axles as well. So I'm wondering if there's any knowledge out there that deals with that and could answer a question of, yes, trucks are heavier, and therefore they must beat up the roads more — or not.

D. Duncan: Well, thanks for that. That's a good question. I think you're exactly right. At the end of the day, it's the individual axle loads, the loading on an individual axle, that has the greatest determination of its damage to the road.

You know, axle loadings haven't changed in this province in a number of years in the maximum load
[ Page 425 ]
an individual axle can have. So while you have heavier trucks, they tend to be supported on a greater number of axles. So you've got tri-axle trailers where you used to have tandems. You've got tri-drives where you used to have single drives.

Then at times when you have larger trucks, that means you have less trucks on the road. So I think that the increase in damage for truck traffic is really solely related to whether or not we're moving more goods.

If we're moving more goods, there will be a greater impact on the roads over time because there's physically more load on the road that takes place. Then we have to make sure we manage our programs to deal with that. But the individual size of a truck can at times actually reduce the impact on a road if the truck is managed with lower axle loadings or if it means that there are less trucks on the road. So if you use a longer truck or a large truck, it may be replacing three trucks with two.

There are new technologies related to the trucking industry, where they're looking at different types of tires. In Alberta they're testing wide-base tires instead of the standard sort of dual-tire axle, and that can have changes in impacts on the road as well as some of our side-road networks.

We have the logging industry looking at…. As they get off the main highway onto the side roads, they're actually using automatic systems that vary the tire pressure in the tires, because if the tire pressures vary, it can spread the load of the tire out. It spreads the load over a larger area, and if you've got more area, you have less impact on the road.

So there are a lot of technologies out there we're looking at, and a heavier truck doesn't necessarily mean more damage to the road.

B. Ralston (Chair): Page 30 in the report says: "Safety results are not being effectively measured by the ministry." Now, I may not have read this entirely thoroughly, but I didn't see any mention of the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia.

I know of cases in certain municipalities where there have been high-collision locations and there's been identified an engineering problem that may be contributing to the collision frequency. In the past I think even ICBC has been willing to spend money on behalf of or with the municipality to reduce the danger of a given intersection or a given section of municipal road.

I don't see a relationship here in terms of assessing safety with ICBC, and I would think that's one of the advantages of having a provincially regulated Crown corporation that has crash and collision data for the whole province. Quantitative analysis is pretty common in business now. There might be able to be some locations or assistance that could be contributed toward assessing the safety of the highway network.

Am I wrong in thinking that that's omitted, or is that something that's being done and just wasn't in the report?

S. Mason: Thank you for that question. Yeah, it is a great question. We work very, very closely with ICBC and the RCMP. It simply wasn't part of this particular report, but on a very regular basis — and I'd almost say probably monthly — our safety and traffic engineers are working with ICBC to identify what ICBC considers to be some of the higher-crash locations.

[1155]

What happens is that the RCMP actually gather the crash information. They enter it into a system that then shares that information with ICBC and with us.

We meet on a regular basis to look at segments, and we actually have a three-year rolling program in order to identify trending. It's tough to do it on a year-by-year basis. You need a little more of a data set, but over a three-year rolling program, we absolutely identify the crash-prone locations around the province. Then those feed into our planning as well.

B. Ralston (Chair): I have one more question on a separate topic. There's a discussion of contractor incentives and just generally the requirements of contractors. The incentive portion is on the bottom of page 25 and over to page 26.

The comment from the Auditor General is: "No contractors we spoke with identified the incentive as effective inducement to perform beyond the contractual requirements." Then skipping over a few sentences, there's: "Striving to perform beyond expectations in these circumstances, when it is only a financial disadvantage to do so, is only self-defeating in a for-profit firm."

Obviously, the incentive isn't structured in a way to get the result that you're seeking. Is there any thought as to either eliminating the incentive or restructuring it in a way that might incent the kind of behaviour and the kind of performance that you're looking for?

D. Duncan: Thank you for that. I think the incentive program came into place in 2003-2004, during the most recent retendering of the maintenance contracts. It was born from the recommendation from the Auditor General — in 2002, I believe, if I'm not mistaken — around working with the industry to try and encourage improvement in performance through some incentive measure and regime. I don't have the specific language in front of me.

Certainly, I think it has proven out that incentives are a good way to work with industry to encourage improved performance and to encourage an improved level of service on the road.

We continue to monitor the existing program. We certainly have seen an improvement in the performance of our contractors over the term of the contract. For example, I think that in 2006 we had four contractors in the province that received a maximum bonus for the performance of their work. In 2010 that went up to 14.
[ Page 426 ]

We've seen a steady increase in the performance of the contractors over the last three- to four-year period. Now, what are the factors that are effecting that? Is it better knowledge of the area? Are they becoming more comfortable with the area over time? Are they gaining a better understanding of the inventory as they get more experience? Are they changing their workplans? Are they bringing in improved technology? Or is the incentive playing a role in that?

It's certainly clear to us that the incentive's important to them. It's something that we dialogue with them on an annual and regular basis about, and it's one that is a priority for them when we're talking to them annually about how things are going. So we see it as important.

Can it be improved upon? I think, absolutely, it can. This was our first foray into contractor incentives in the maintenance contract program, and the recommendation of the Auditor General that we look at that model in future contracts and look at ways to work with the industry to see if there's an opportunity to improve is absolutely something that we plan to do.

While we think we've seen some successes and improvements, there's definitely more to do there.

R. Lee: Before construction, during the construction and after construction there are impacts on the environment sometimes — with, say, the drainage of water, that kind of thing. Are there any audits after the construction over time to see what the impacts were on the environment?

The same question, also, on the surrounding area. The matching of the roads between the provincial network and with the municipalities. Sometimes there are exits and entrances that create problems, and how you design them and audit those traffic accidents in those areas…. Sometimes they say it's a provincial responsibility in that segment, but sometimes it's a municipal responsibility. How do you resolve those issues with the local governments?

[1200]

D. Duncan: Maybe I'll handle the environmental, and then I'll hand local governments over to you, Shanna.

I think in terms of environmental management, it's a good point. Many of our projects, all of the large ones, have environmental management plans that we implement during construction when we monitor sensitive environmental habitat, and we look at ways to minimize and mitigate the impact of those new structures through that area.

We also have many environmental monitoring programs that we continue to follow up and monitor. The flow of drainage along and through our corridors — we have environmental staff in every region of the province that undertake those roles and work closely with our counterparts at the Department of Fisheries, federally, as well as the Ministry of Environment, provincially. We work closely with those stakeholders to minimize and mitigate any of those challenges. It's something that we monitor on a regular basis.

S. Mason: In terms of capital improvements that we do and their connectivity — I think it's what you're talking about — with the adjacent city or municipal road network, we work very, very closely with the cities and the local communities.

The one project that comes to mind is the recent improvements that we did in Domano intersection in Prince George. Obviously, that particular intersection and Highway 16 connect with the municipal street network. So it's critical that they're part of the planning process leading up to the construction and that they have input into the design of that particular intersection or the roads that are going to be connecting with their road network.

Then we regularly meet with them to discuss not only that particular project but issues that are happening around their network and our network. I would say that we probably meet with the municipal staff or have conversations or e-mails with them at a district level — smaller communities probably more frequently than some of the larger, more congested, more urbanized areas — weekly in the smaller communities, for sure, if not on a monthly basis, to talk about how their network is working, how our network is working.

We also engage with regional districts, as well, on a regular basis and talk to them about what we have planned, what has been completed, if it's working, if it's not working and what their thoughts are about that.

R. Lee: Do you have maintenance programs matching the two sides, the provincial side and the municipal side? The road conditions — if they are quite different, then you reduce the efficiency.

S. Mason: Certainly, where our roads run through a municipality and it's an arterial highway, we maintain those route roads through arterial highways. Again, using the Highway 16 example, when you go through Smithers and Terrace, we maintain the highway through Smithers and Terrace.

Municipalities individually decide on the level of maintenance that they're going to provide their communities, and that is outside of our authority. I think they do look to us for advice and for counsel at times, but certainly that is up to individual municipalities to decide how they're going to manage their inventory.

D. Duncan: Adding to that, certainly in terms of efficiency, if we've got a road network that we're running on and then we're on to a side road network, the last thing we want to do is lift the blade or turn off the sand
[ Page 427 ]
hopper and stop that work from going on if we're on a municipal road.

What we quite often do in a lot of communities across the province is have road-sharing programs, where we look at how our trucks circulate through the community. We look at how their trucks circulate, and sometimes there are opportunities where we're better positioned to work on one of their roads than they are, and they're better positioned to work on one of our roads. So where there are opportunities to share and help each other out, we certainly try to do that.

I know when I was in Cranbrook as a district manager there, we had an agreement with Fernie where we did that. I know that happens across the province.

B. Ralston (Chair): There is a lunch here. I'm going to suggest that we recess for about ten minutes, people gather up food, and then we'll continue on. I'm anxious to press forward.

If we can just recess for ten minutes and then reconvene.

The committee recessed from 12:04 p.m. to 12:19 p.m.

[B. Ralston in the chair.]

S. Chandra Herbert: I was in the Cariboo, and in travelling through that region, one of the things that was pointed out to me was that roads were often built to various people's homes because the minister of the day — and this was quite a number of years ago — was the Highways Minister. The MLA for the area was the Highways Minister.

The joke was that he built roads to his friends' houses and various things like that. Since that was created, people wondered why their roads weren't continuing to be maintained, because they were paved and maybe they should have been a dirt road or a different quality of road. They wondered: "Well, it used to be top quality, but now it's gone down because the province won't maintain it anymore."

I'm just wondering how we and how the ministry are ensuring a basic level of fairness, so that the very important roads are maintained to the top quality and other roads, which may have at one point been deemed very important but over the years.... Maybe the projections for population growth in the area might never have come about, or for a variety of reasons, maybe the road was put to such a high quality that wasn't warranted.

[1220]

Just wondering what kind of procedure is done to ensure that the roads that count are truly done up in the best way they can be and those that maybe only serve one home might not be maintained in a highways kind of a maintenance level.

D. Duncan: Thank you for that. For highway maintenance, we have a series of road classifications. We classify roads all across the province. As the Auditor General mentioned, there are 90,000 lane-kilometres of road that we operate, 47,000 kilometres of overall inventory, and each road that we manage is given a classification. The classification system is both for winter and summer maintenance, and it's based on a series of factors, including traffic volumes, including the adjacent land use factors like school bus routing, which play into classification. So we have a classification system.

Each road that we have goes through that assessment. There's also, I think, a grandfathering that goes on with roads. So roads that have historically been maintained continue to get maintained.

Then, obviously, we are constantly adding new inventory as people build new roads to new homes and things like that. As they do, we review the road in terms of to what level it was constructed, as well as what the existing land use is, and make decisions around the maintenance regime for that.

Once that road is being maintained, maintenance is not typically stopped unless, perhaps, there was one resident on the road and that resident moves away. Sometimes if there is no one living on the road, we will cease maintenance. Then, of course, if years later someone moves back again, we'll reconsider that on that basis. There's a system that we go through of classification and then consideration of maintenance based on the different characteristics of each individual road.

S. Chandra Herbert: Just a follow-up. How important is public opinion or public complaints, interactions with the public, about a road quality? You know, maybe somebody complains this turn is not very safe, or there are too many potholes, or it is kind of washboard — that kind of thing. How much weight is given to, say, the number of complaints, or what is the process that is undertaken around public input for the road system? I know that's one of the recommendations the Auditor made in the report.

D. Duncan: Public input into both our maintenance activities as well as our planning of rehabilitation and improvement activities is extremely important. There are no other sorts of inputs that are any more important than that. Both the ministry as well as the maintenance contractor have practices in place to ensure that we collect and review that feedback. Each maintenance contractor in the province has our 1-800 number that's staffed on a 24-7 basis to receive feedback.

Each inquiry or complaint that's received is assessed by them. We also review their complaints on a regular basis through the maintenance contract review process that Shanna was referring to earlier. In addition to that, each staff member we have that works in the community
[ Page 428 ]
establishes close relationships. We have telephone numbers and contact information that we provide to folks, and it's absolutely a critical component of our review process.

S. Chandra Herbert: I just asked that because I know that I've certainly talked to…. Particularly in the tourism industry, they've spoken quite highly of their connection with maintenance staff. The number…. They get called back right away and all of that kind of thing and how useful it is for them. So I was a little puzzled in the Auditor General's report about the need to have a process for analyzing and organizing the public inquiries and complaints for continuous improvement, because I'd heard good words from MLAs, from tourism folks across the province about the process.

I guess I'm just trying to get to what that process would look like to ensure a more accountable process, so it's not just…. I've also heard from people who've said, "I called and complained, and then I never got a call back, and then when I called they said they'd never heard of my complaint" — those kinds of things.

So just curious what that process is looking like and what it could evolve into to ensure that there's a greater accountability.

[1225]

D. Duncan: I think there's one specific example, sort of along those lines, that's important, and where we took feedback from the Auditor General. It's good feedback. One of the areas they identified, as Shanna was mentioning, is that as part of our contractor assessment program stakeholder review, we do detailed interviews with a number of identified stakeholders, but those interviews are done by local staff. Those local staff, who already have relationships with those folks, reach out to them and ask them those questions. There is thinking that perhaps there could be some greater independence to that process.

Perhaps if staff that aren't from the area or an independent individual contacted, maybe we'd get additional feedback that people are reluctant to provide because it's our staff calling them. I think that's an example of a great comment that the Auditor General brought up around stakeholder feedback. It's one that really struck home with us and that we're looking at in thinking of a way to improve that. That would be an example, I think, of the kinds of things that we heard feedback on around stakeholder interaction.

V. Huntington: John made the comment that without trucks and infrastructure, our economy would suffer. I don't think there's a single person in the room that would disagree with that. But from my perspective, it's how that infrastructure is made available, whether the cost-benefit analyses have genuinely measured impact on community and environment, and how the trucks using that infrastructure are being monitored for compliance.

From the public's point of view, those are three very important components of providing infrastructure for the community and economy at large. From my perspective, there have been some pretty big failures in that regard lately.

I wonder if Mr. Duncan could…. Why do you not put weigh stations, especially for the provincial…? I don't know how it works, actually, on the P3s that are maintained and operated by a contractor, but why don't you put the weigh stations just at the large industrial depots like the port and the rail yards that are off-loading? So many problems are inherent in overloading or incorrect loading. Why aren't you capturing the large number of trucks that you could be at those depots? It seems to be the most efficient way that you could handle the use of trucks, on the local infrastructure network at any rate.

D. Duncan: We do, on a regular basis, review the locations of our facilities, and we try to find locations that best capture the largest component of truck traffic that we can. We use local knowledge to try to find out where trucks are going from and to, and try to strategically position them where we can have the greatest impact.

Areas where trucks are having to naturally funnel into, because there may only be one route through, are good areas for a weigh scale. Areas where main highways come together are good areas for weigh scales at times. We try to avoid areas where the facility can be a contributor to congestion.

I think we do have some examples around the province, historically, of where we haven't been successful because we've placed them in those areas. We look at a number of factors. I think that for areas where the commercial traffic is concentrated, the suggestion you're making is a good one. Absolutely, those are good areas for facilities. We try to balance that stationary technology out with mobile enforcement.

Again, it's not centred down in your neck of the woods, but an example would be that up in northeastern British Columbia we found that because industry has such a wide network of roads and work in so many different areas, our stationary facilities weren't becoming very effective. There were so many ways to get around a stationary facility that we actually ended up moving away from stationary facilities and going to an increased number of local inspectors with their own equipment on their own vehicles, going out to the industry, to work with the industry to address that.

But your point of trying to find the areas where the trucks are going, and making sure that we've got our facilities in those spots, is a really good and fair point. It's something that we do look at and that we are looking at as part of the Lower Mainland strategy.

[1230]
[ Page 429 ]

V. Huntington: Well, I would think that in the Lower Mainland — at least to the extent that certainly the member for Delta North and I have been told many, many times — you have the destination and origin just down pat. Certainly the gateway project supposedly has. I would think that there could be some very strategic locations.

I agree that putting them in those locations could end up backlogging and congesting the system. But do you not use an electronic way, so that if the truck is going over the scale, everything is registered electronically against its licence, and then electronically ticket them if they're overweight rather than hold up the system? Is that technology not being used in order to capture…?

I know that the trucks coming out of those rail yards are heavily overweight. The drivers don't like it, but they're forced to take it, or they're fired. I think the system should be stepping in to try and monitor that safety concern. Also, it's a public purse concern. If they are going to be overweight, at least pay.

D. Duncan: Absolutely, that technology is there today. It's something that some of our older facilities don't have, but in the new facilities we're putting in place we use that technology. It's in place and just opened up in Prince George this year with a new facility there. New facilities in the Lower Mainland will definitely have those technologies.

It's amazing how you can weigh a truck at highway speed now and get the information to the inspection building and have them make an assessment about any issues with the truck and then give them the green light to go or call them in because there is something that needs to be discussed further or reviewed further, all while they're travelling. It's amazing technology, and it's something that we're working hard to embrace. It's something that will come over time.

Again, your point about strategic locations for facilities is very topical, so thank you.

V. Huntington: Well, I recognize that it's sort of a minute discussion within the larger framework, but it's one of interest to my riding anyway.

J. Rustad: When I think about safety around my end of the woods — I do a lot of driving along Highway 16, and I do a lot of driving throughout rural B.C. — the road maintenance is generally pretty good, I have to admit. There are weather incidents that create problems, and there are some differences from one area to another, but the bottom line is that those roads are actually pretty good.

I'm just wondering around some statistics. Something that came to mind was an accident that happened a number of weeks ago where there was some slush on the road, and a vehicle which had some tires that probably shouldn't have been out on winter roads slid across and caused a fatal accident.

I'm just wondering about other jurisdictions such as Quebec and Sweden, where they've got some different rules in place — how we compare from an accidents perspective on our winter roads, from the maintenance perspective as well as from the regulation perspective, particularly around winter tires.

D. Duncan: In terms of winter tires, I think first and foremost that having good winter tires when you're out travelling during the winter months is of critical importance. It's where the rubber meets the road, for lack of a better term. Of all the things to focus on….

Interjection.

B. Ralston (Chair): A bit of a highway joke there, I think.

D. Duncan: There is no more important interaction you can have on your car than having good-quality tires that will enable your car to operate as it should, especially with new vehicle technologies that we have out there nowadays. Critical tires are of major, major importance, and the ongoing campaign and education to work with people to ensure they've got the right tires is something that's a major focus for us. It has been, working with WorkSafe B.C. and with ICBC this winter, and it continues to be a focus for commercial vehicles as well as passenger vehicles.

In terms of accident statistics, I don't have data on statistics for accidents in terms of our comparisons between jurisdictions like Quebec and Sweden and ourselves. I would imagine that they are comparable, but I can have that checked for sure.

[1235]

In terms of practice, I think, as has been pointed out in the past, Quebec does have a mandatory winter tire regime. They are the only jurisdiction in Canada that does that currently.

Interestingly enough, I think there are some key differences between B.C. and Alberta that have to be kept in mind on that. We do currently have the legislative ability in British Columbia to require winter tires or chains where appropriate. There are currently about 80 sections in the province, mostly high winter passes, where we have that in force, and we've required either winter tires or chains. Then we have staff out…. We had them out in force this winter, inspecting that and making sure people had the right equipment.

In terms of the difference between the jurisdictions, I mean, one of the challenges is that in B.C. we have such varied topography and such varied areas, whereas almost all of the residents of Quebec, especially the metropolitan residents, live in heavy winter environments. Quebec, Montreal — those are heavy winter communities.
[ Page 430 ]

In fact, before Quebec put their tire regulations to play, 90 percent of the vehicle owners in Quebec already had winter tires, largely because they live in that environment, whereas in British Columbia 60 percent of the people live in Metro Vancouver in an environment where you get snow less than ten days a year.

I think winter tires are incredibly important. We're always looking for new and better ways to encourage people to use them. The regulatory approach that we've taken so far is: let's require them in areas where we know they're required, and then let's work on an education and awareness campaign. At the same time, in areas where they're probably not needed, let's encourage good all-season tires and not put those members of the public through that additional expense to purchase those tires.

That's the regime we've taken so far. There's more work to do.

Your point about the accident. There have been a number this winter. Those are tragic events, and we want to minimize those and get those to a level where they're not happening. We still have work to do to make that happen, but that's the current regime.

J. Rustad: Just a follow-up comment around that. I agree with you entirely. It would be ludicrous to suggest that we need to have vehicle regulations for, say, the capital regional district or the greater Vancouver area, where they don't have the kind of winter that you would have in, say, Atlin or even in the Kootenays or central B.C. So if some sort of regulation were to be in place, it would certainly have to be reflective of the various types of climates.

Like I say, the point is…. I've heard that in Quebec the reduction was around 15 percent or thereabouts in terms of the accident rates when it went to mandatory winter tires. I don't know those facts for sure. That's just the number that I've heard. It would be great to be able to see the comparison.

I also know that in Sweden, with mandatory electronic stability control on vehicles and mandatory winter tires, they're actually in a regime where, as far as I know from what I've heard, they don't even use salt on their roads, and they have a lower accident rate than we do. Now, perhaps different topography, different realities on that. But it's interesting to note how those different jurisdictions that do have significant winter driving conditions have treated the issue differently and to be able to compare what kinds of results we do so that down the road — no pun intended — perhaps we could be looking at some sort of issues here that could reduce the amount of accidents that we have.

I bring this up specifically because in a community such as Burns Lake, where they often have to travel for things like health care and doctors have to travel on the road frequently, etc., those road safety issues are magnified in terms of the overall health and well-being of the community in general. That's why I raise it.

D. Duncan: Those are very good points. Thank you.

D. Horne (Deputy Chair): I just want to commend the report. Obviously, as legislators we're always faced with the ability that nothing is perfect, and there's always a chance for opportunity to change and make improvements. That being said, I think the report clearly demonstrates how the Ministry of Transportation…. Obviously, government does things well and not so well in some cases. But overall, I think the Ministry of Transportation is doing an exceptional job at maintaining the roads. I think that's clear.

[1240]

One of the things we talked about earlier is safety and training and maintenance of trucks and, obviously, their ability to create more damage and more maintenance issues with our roads than other vehicles.

One of the things that I wanted to point out, because I know the province has many programs, is that recently in my own riding I attended an event with Clark Freightways, who received the first COR, which is the certificate of recognition, for their safety program with the Trucking Safety Council of B.C.

I think it's programs and companies themselves that step up and actually put the training, put the maintenance, take the time and spend the money to do those things that are going to make our roads better in the long run. More programs to push and to make it so that those using the roads do the right thing — I think it's great.

I think one of the things that is great about the COR program, as well, is that the WorkSafe B.C. rates for those that receive the COR certificate actually are reduced as a result of their record and the systems they've put in place.

I just wanted to mention that. It's not much of a question, but I think it's important, and I welcome your comments on other programs as well.

B. Ralston (Chair): I don't see any further questioners, so thank you very much, Dave and Shanna.

If we could just recess briefly, we'll set up for the next report, and we'll get going in a couple of minutes.

The committee recessed from 12:42 p.m. to 12:46 p.m.

[B. Ralston in the chair.]

B. Ralston (Chair): We're now going to deal with the report entitled An Audit of the Management of Groundwater Resources in British Columbia from December 2010. In addition to the Auditor General, we have Wayne Schmitz, who is executive director of the sustainability and environment office of the Auditor General; Lynn Kriwoken, who is the director of the water protection and sustainability branch of the en-
[ Page 431 ]
vironmental sustainability division of the Ministry of Environment; and Celine Davis, who is the manager, watershed science and adaptation, water protection and sustainability branch, environmental sustainability division of the Ministry of Environment.

John, if you'd like to open, and then maybe I'll leave it to you.

Auditor General Report:
An Audit of the Management
of Groundwater Resources
in British Columbia

J. Doyle: The provincial government has identified groundwater as a hidden treasure. Approximately one million British Columbians, which is 25 percent of the province's population, rely on groundwater for daily use, and that doesn't include industry or agriculture. In much of the province it is the primary water source for residences, industry and agriculture, and it continues to contribute significantly to the maintenance of healthy ecosystems.

This precious resource can all too easily be depleted or contaminated and needs to be protected for both current and future generations. I've found that government is not yet a good steward of this treasure but is moving in that direction. An appropriate framework for managing groundwater sustainability is needed. The requirements of such a framework are well understood by government, and some initiatives are already underway.

I'm also pleased to see that government recognizes groundwater's vulnerability and has made its protection a priority. The commitment to improving the protection of groundwater for its many uses, as stated in the province's plans to modernize water legislation, is also encouraging.

Normally, Morris Sydor would present, but he's away at this current time, so I have with me Wayne Schmitz, who's going to make a presentation and provide an overview. Managing the technology is Jane Bryant, who was a manager on the project.

W. Schmitz: Thank you very much. Good day, everyone.

This presentation deals with our audit of the management of groundwater resources in British Columbia. Approximately one million or 25 percent of British Columbians rely on groundwater for a variety of purposes such as for drinking, agriculture and industry. About 35 percent of wells monitored during the period from 2000 to 2006 showed declining water levels as a result of human activities.

B.C. has an inventory system for classifying aquifers that they know about. Based on that information, we can say that 916 aquifers have been identified to date, 77 are rated as heavily used, and 243 are rated as highly vulnerable to contamination.

The purpose of our audit was to assess whether the provincial government is ensuring the sustainability of groundwater resources in the province. Our audit criteria were based upon the Council of Canadian Academies 2009 report, which was entitled The Sustainable Management of Groundwater in Canada, a review of the expert panel on groundwater. We discussed these criteria with the Ministry of Environment at the start of our work, and they accepted them as being appropriate for this audit.

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Our overall conclusion was that government is not effectively ensuring the sustainability of the province's groundwater resources. We did, however, find that government has made groundwater protection a priority, and this is reflected in the Ministry of Environment being charged with leading the Water Act modernization initiative.

Our first finding has to do with groundwater information. We found that government's information is insufficient to enable it to ensure the sustainability of the resource. More specifically, there's insufficient information about the available supply of and demand for groundwater. Also, data in ministry databases about the quantity and quality of groundwater and the frequency of testing is insufficient to support effective decision-making. Information gathered by different agencies is not shared — unavailable, essentially — and there was no overall strategy in place for improving groundwater information.

In the area of groundwater protection, we found that it is not being protected from depletion and contamination or to ensure the viability of the ecosystems that it supports.

With regard to protecting groundwater from depletion, we found that British Columbia is the only province in Canada without a general licensing or permitting system for groundwater withdrawals.

This chart shows that groundwater levels in Langley have decreased during the period from 1962 to 2001. About 80 percent of the township's water supply is provided for municipal and private wells, and ongoing monitoring indicates declining water levels in the more intensively used aquifers. The declining levels are attributed to overuse.

With regard to protecting groundwater from contamination, we found that while a number of regulations and acts in British Columbia contain elements aimed at protecting groundwater from contamination, there is no coordinated legislative framework to achieve this goal. We also found that there is no legislative requirement to protect groundwater for the viability of the ecosystems it supports.

In the last area of our audit, we found that control over access to groundwater was insufficient to sustain the resource, and there was a lack of authority for taking local
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responsibility. More specifically, we found that there is no licence or permit system to ensure fair and adequate access for all users. Key organizations, such as local governments, water utilities and regional water boards, lack sufficient authority to take local responsibility, and groundwater is not being managed at an integrated watershed level. We made a total of seven recommendations — four focusing on improving groundwater information, one on improving groundwater protection and two on groundwater access and authority to manage the resource.

That concludes my presentation.

B. Ralston (Chair): Thank you. That's commendably concise for a big report.

Then, on behalf of the ministry, Lynn, are you…?

L. Kriwoken: Yes.

B. Ralston (Chair): Great. Go ahead.

L. Kriwoken: Good afternoon, Chair and committee members.

To begin, I'd like to start off with acknowledging the hard work and thoughtfulness and respectfulness of the audit team in working with our ministry staff throughout the duration of this audit. We do believe that the audit report presents some valuable information around groundwater and the importance of groundwater management in the province and truly captures some of the challenges that we're facing and dealing with.

Government recognizes the need to protect the quality and quantity of our groundwater. We've just celebrated in this past year the groundwater program's 50th birthday, and we are working on a number of initiatives that will further advance groundwater management and protection in the province.

The audit recommendations do focus on the Ministry of Environment but are applicable to both the Ministry of Environment and the Ministry of Natural Resource Operations. Recent changes in the provincial government's organization have the groundwater responsibilities largely split between these two agencies. In the Ministry of Environment we're responsible for groundwater policy, legislation, science and knowledge management, and the Ministry of Natural Resource Operations is responsible for the groundwater quality and quantity monitoring and groundwater regulation and compliance.

Our counterparts within the Ministry of Natural Resource Operations aren't here today. They're involved in transboundary intergovernmental meetings in Vancouver.

Government is addressing the audit recommendations through a review of the groundwater program, the commitments in government's Living Water Smart plan that was released in 2008, and the Water Act modernization process and related groundwater protection regulation.

While there are a number of initiatives underway that will continue to protect groundwater quality and quantity, fully implementing the audit recommendations will have significant fiscal implications.

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Before I respond to the specific audit recommendations, this conceptual map illustrates some of the increasing provincewide pressures and local factors that are affecting our water resources, including groundwater.

Water in a number of areas in B.C. is under pressure from competing demands, increasing urban and resource developments and a changing climate. Our growing population and accompanying increase in economic activity is increasing the demand for water, and with the changing climate and increased demand, we need to better understand when and where water is available to make better decisions. We don't have complete information overall in the province.

If we overlay these pressures with the light green areas on the map, which indicate some of our naturally flow-sensitive areas and our population base, we get a good picture of the key areas of the province where there are pressures now and where we will continue to have concerns — east coast of Vancouver Island, lower Fraser Valley and the Okanagan, to name a few.

This conceptual map lays out the foundation of the work we're doing through Water Act modernization and a proposed water sustainability act. But it also helps inform our priority-setting today as we work within current budgets to deliver the groundwater program.

I'll now turn to the audit recommendations and response. The first recommendation is that the ministry complete aquifer classification and characterization for all priority areas and keep the wells database up to date.

We estimate that there are several thousands of aquifers in the province and about 2,000 are developed, or in other words, used. To date over 900 aquifers have been classified according to vulnerability and demand, and mapped, and the ministry continues to continually update and maintain that list of areas that need to be mapped on a priority basis.

Now, characterizing aquifers is a more detailed exercise. It's more three-dimensional. It requires considerably more effort than classifying aquifers. Therefore, this is work that's undertaken for the highest priority of aquifers, and we collaborate with partners such as Geoscience B.C. or Geological Survey of Canada, and local governments as well, in doing this work.

Phase 2 of the groundwater protection regulation, which is not yet enacted, includes mandatory submission of well records. These are the records that drillers submit voluntarily now, which give a good understanding
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of the substrate and geology. Our groundwater protection regulation, phase 2, when this is enacted, will help keep our wells database up to date because it will require mandatory submission of these well records. Currently these records are submitted voluntarily.

The second recommendation is that the ministry expand the provincial observation well network and review the provincial ambient groundwater quality–monitoring network to ensure that we've got sufficient monitoring of both groundwater levels — so the level in the aquifers — as well as the quality across the province.

An independent review of the observation well network was completed in 2009, and it confirms that about 74 percent of the current observation wells are ideally suited to monitor our highest aquifers in the province. The review also recommends that over the next ten to 15 years an additional 50 to 75 observation wells should be added to the network. This is consistent with the current ministry plans for this network. The ambient water quality network hasn't been reviewed since its inception in '86, so the ministry will be initiating a review of this in 2011.

The third recommendation is that the ministry lead the consolidation of all groundwater information to reduce duplication and effort and to ensure the best use of limited resources. Government and non-government organizations are many that collect groundwater information and include municipalities, First Nations communities, regional health authorities, Health Canada, Environment Canada, groundwater consultants, local governments, industry, the Oil and Gas Commission. There are many.

Consolidating this data would certainly prove a better understanding of the location of our groundwater wells and our groundwater quality and quantity. However, there are a number of challenges associated with the concept in terms of ownership of the data, data format, data standards and data accuracy.

The ministry will work with the Ministry of Natural Resource Operations to assess the feasibility of consolidation through the means of a pilot project. We'll initiate this work and complete the pilot by October 2011. Once the assessment is done, we'll determine the best path forward.

The fourth recommendation is that the ministry develop a groundwater information management strategy and ensure that information required to support this strategy is collected, analyzed and available through one location. Last year the ministry initiated a review of the groundwater program. Information management was a key part of this review.

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Our main findings thus far are that we know that we need to improve access to data and to interpret and report on it in a timely way. This includes data from our well-drilling reports, data on our groundwater levels and on our quality. We are working with the Ministry of Natural Resource Operations in assessing the feasibility of linking these databases as well as using them to better support activities such as drought forecasting and state-of-water reporting. We'll complete the review and prioritize actions by March 2011.

The fifth recommendation in the report is that the ministry develop and deploy systems to protect groundwater from depletion and contamination and to ensure the viability of the ecosystems that it supports. Living Water Smart, government's water plan, includes a number of commitments to safeguard B.C.'s groundwater resources. It commits to modernize B.C.'s water laws by 2012.

Toward this end, Water Act modernization has been a significant cross-government undertaking that the ministry has led over the past two years. We've consulted extensively in and outside of government via our Living Water Smart blog, a number of workshops — 12 — across B.C. last spring. We've received almost 900 submissions from First Nations stakeholders and the public and had over 500 people attend those workshops.

We heard strong support for regulating groundwater use. Last fall government announced further opportunities for engagement as we further develop the policy proposals. This is going right now with our policy paper and further conversation on the proposed water sustainability act. We believe we're building trust and greater transparency in new ways with our stakeholders and are confident that it will result in stronger and more robust policy.

Following this period of engagement, the legislative process will continue. Under the proposed water sustainability act, all large groundwater withdrawals will be regulated throughout the province as well as use in priority areas. The groundwater regulation regime would be fully integrated with the current surface-water allocation regime. The interaction between surface and groundwater will be considered in decisions to protect existing users, stream health and the contribution of groundwater to base flows.

The next slide, just to elaborate further on the water sustainability act framework because it has a bearing on the subsequent recommendations in the audit report, further illustrates the area-based framework and the three levels of management action that we envision under the new water sustainability act.

Here we're proposing an area-based framework to manage water with the introduction of provincial water objectives, groundwater regulation of large withdrawals provincewide, monitoring and reporting requirements and meeting in-stream flow needs. We're also building in the capacity to respond to areas where more additional management actions and measures are needed.

As we get into known problem areas and chronic problem areas, these are areas where issues can be mitigated
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in the blue areas and in gray areas, where there are more significant risks and we're seeing recurring, chronic problems.

When we get into the known problem areas and chronic problem areas, there will be requirements for water resource assessments to get a better understanding of the water supply and demand and watershed sustainability plans, which connect land use and water use in more of an integrated decision-making manner.

The sixth recommendation is that the ministry clarify roles and responsibilities for managing groundwater provincially and locally and ensuring that agencies are able to take responsibility for groundwater in their area. Through the Water Act modernization engagement process, we've heard loud and clear about the need for clear rules and standards for water management as we move forward and to clarify the roles and responsibilities. We're doing that as we develop the proposals and framework.

What we have not heard through the engagement is a call for local authority in decision-making over groundwater management, but rather a caution that if government is contemplating a shared or a collaborative governance model that enables delegation to local entities, then there must be accountability, legitimacy and, certainly, capacity that comes with it. We're very mindful of this as we proceed with the policy proposals around governance and decision-making.

The final recommendation is that the ministry ensure integrated watershed management plans are developed for all priority watersheds. This recommendation is consistent with Living Water Smart's commitment to support communities to do watershed planning in priority areas and a recognition that what happens on the land base affects what happens to water.

As I described on the framework map a slide ago, we're proposing planning and management tools to be applied in priority areas to address chronic water quality and quantity problems.

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Our experience with water management plans, including part 4 of the Water Act, which is in effect today, has taught us that while a lot of work must go into developing the plans, the work really only begins once a plan is developed. And for plan implementation to be successful or for a local entity to take on responsibilities, the entity must be able to fulfil its mandate.

So these are some of the lessons and challenges that are being considered in our Water Act modernization work as we build new tools and decision processes and governance arrangements that will serve British Columbians and the water resources of the province well into the 21st century.

B. Ralston (Chair): Thank you very much.

Questions?

S. Simpson: I have a number of questions. I'll ask a couple and then step back for other members, and I'll come back later.

I have a question about where the authorities lie. I think this is probably best placed to the ministry. With the restructuring of the new ministry dealing with natural resources — and we've seen some restructuring and changes around the Ministry of Environment in terms of where some responsibilities have moved and that — how has that restructuring impacted or affected the ability of the Ministry of Environment to deal with groundwater? Or are there separate jurisdictions now, and does that create complications?

L. Kriwoken: Thank you for your question. Under the new Ministry of Environment and Natural Resource Operations model, Natural Resource Operations is responsible for the delivery with respect to groundwater, the groundwater regulation implementation, compliance and monitoring reporting activities. So they're the operational arm, whereas in the Ministry of Environment we have the policy, the legislation, the regulation-setting and broader science and information management.

S. Simpson: Maybe to follow up. When I look at the overview and I look at your presentation — and thanks for that — you talk about the full implementation of audit recommendations having fiscal implications. Maybe you could talk a little about what that means.

L. Kriwoken: We've looked at quantifying, especially on the information management side. There are significant improvements in systems and monitoring that we estimate in the range of $4½ million to $5 million to do that work. Also, related implications financially for implementing the groundwater protection regulation, phase 2, and the water sustainability act.

S. Simpson: I'll just ask one last question, and then I'll back off here for a bit. This question is to the Auditor General. In the overview here — again, from the ministry's presentation — it suggests that Living Water Smart and some of the Water Act modernization, the things that are currently in place or are coming into place, will meet the audit recommendations or will take us to meeting those recommendations.

Has the Auditor General had any opportunity to look at that and make an assessment about whether he concurs that the objectives that are in his recommendations in fact are met by those areas laid in this report?

J. Doyle: It's still too early. This report was published in December. A lot of work has already been done by the ministry in regard to what needs to be done going forward. My proposal is that we would monitor that work.
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We've already offered feedback if and when required in regard to any particular area.

We're going to follow up this particular audit. If not in October 2011, then we will follow it up in April 2012, and by then, as far as we can tell, we will be able to assess quite closely whether or not all the work that's been done will in fact meet the recommendations that we've put forward.

I think this is one of those situations where the meeting of this committee so quickly after it was published….

B. Ralston (Chair): You're complaining now, after all the work we've done? [Laughter.]

J. Doyle: No, no, no. It's so remarkable that it's caught us all a little bit on the hop, so we still have the follow-up process to do. We are monitoring, and we are finding a great deal of cooperation through that process. So I'll be able to answer your question at some time in the future, but not yet.

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S. Simpson: One quick question, and this just came back to me, to the ministry officials again. In response to the first question, which talked about, the kind of separation of responsibilities between the two ministries now, so you have policy resting with Environment and operations resting with the new ministry, Natural Resource Operations.

How does that work in terms of oversight? Does Environment…? It sets the policy and determines what the objectives are, and the other ministry staff and officials go out and deliver that on the ground. Where's the oversight on that, if it's in different ministries, to make sure that you're actually getting what you hope you're getting to meet the policy?

L. Kriwoken: It's a good question. With the reorganization of government around the new natural resource sector, we now have a dedicated committee, the environment and land use committee secretariat. There's also a natural resources board, which includes deputy ministers from Natural Resource Operations and all the sector or portfolio ministries.

There's an oversight governance structure that trickles all the way down into the organizations, including the water program that pre-existed the reorganization and where we had staff split between Environment and Natural Resource Operations. The committee structures and the relationships and the work that we do together continue beyond the organizational lines, so those bridges that we had built in the previous organization still exist. We've got further oversight with the natural resources board and the environment land use committee of cabinet.

G. Gentner: Trickle-down approach to water management in the new ministry — interesting.

Just to begin, I find it interesting how we treat the natural summer low-flow sensitivity map. Can we stop making it green? Maybe we could go parched orange or something. I mean, it looks like this temperate rainforest on Vancouver Island is lush and green.

The reason I'm asking is it seems to be our attitude here. We have this view that everything is wonderful in British Columbia because we have lots of rainfall, but our aquifers…. We have dewatered aquifers. They can't be identified per se, but they're well on their way, and we know that there are aquifers that can collapse. So I wanted to walk through a few things.

First of all, the new approach we're taking — it's long overdue — on the new groundwater act. Originally, I thought it was supposed to be coming forward this spring. I hear it's been pushed over to another year.

Can you explain to me this whole idea of contaminated qualities? Let's say you have a well. I'm with the Auditor General, in recommendation 1, that we need classification and information-gathering on what exactly these aquifers are. I understand it that if my well is contaminated, I have the right to sue somebody. But I don't know exactly how that aquifer works, nor does the province. But I can't sue when it dries up — correct? Do I have that…?

There's a difference between…. The Auditor General mentioned the whole notion of a depleting aquifer. I really have no recourse if I lose my aquifer. Is that correct?

L. Kriwoken: On the quality side, I'm going to defer to Celine, but we presently don't license groundwater, so there's not a right attached to groundwater like there is with surface water. So if your bedrock aquifer is somehow depleted because of excavation in an adjacent property or subdivision, you're on your own.

G. Gentner: Right. And if I have it correct, therefore, you can't stop your neighbour from pumping out as much water as he or she wants, and you lose your aquifer — correct?

L. Kriwoken: That's exactly what we're getting at with a modernized water act.

G. Gentner: There is a licence, though, for you to pump out water?

L. Kriwoken: That will be a key part: licensing groundwater withdrawals. That then enters the water rights system, similar to the allocation of surface water.

G. Gentner: Okay. It'll be interesting how that all rolls out.

One other question. We talked about observation wells. I think you said 74 percent are effective. I don't
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know if that was in the Lower Mainland. Let's say in the last five years — maybe the Auditor General did some work on this — how many observation wells were actually shut down?

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C. Davis: If I can ask: do you mean shut down in terms of not continuing the monitoring or…? The observation wells, just to clarify, are what the ministry is administrating. There are a number of other wells that are out there that are private wells which we have records for but only, we estimate, for about half of the wells that are out there, because it is a voluntary submission.

But of the wells that we have in place, we evaluate, depending on the area, the priority of the ones that are still needed. The ones that are not, then, we will close and then new ones…. For example, for this year, for the observation well network for the Ministries of Environment and Natural Resource Operations, we are working on about eight new additional wells that will go in before the end of fiscal.

G. Gentner: And how many do you need?

C. Davis: It is estimated that we need about ten to 15 per year, re-evaluating in the next ten years, to see. So that increase should get us to a good number in various areas. And it depends on the area. In some areas, like the Okanagan, for example, the Lower Mainland, we have quite a large number of wells. In other areas — up north, for example — there are quite a few less.

G. Gentner: So until all that information is gathered and collated, I can continue to extract as much water as I want out of my well, knowing that you don't understand or…. There's no hydrological impact study on our groundwater network in British Columbia.

C. Davis: Depending on where we are. That would be true in certain areas. But definitely in areas where we have an aquifer that's been classified and characterized as a high-level use, we have a lot of information on those. For example, in the Lower Mainland we have a very good understanding of the aquifer and of the amount of water, etc., and the problems that that aquifer will have. But, correct, for certain areas of the province we do not have all that knowledge.

G. Gentner: Okay.

If I can, Mr. Chair. I have a good understanding of what's happening in the Lower Mainland. We saw the graph of what's happening in Langley. Why is it that the ministry has allowed the extraction of gravel that's essential for recharge or distribution of water into fish-bearing ravines, into the Fraser River? If you have a good example, understanding what's going on in the Fraser Valley, the lower basin, why would the ministry allow that to happen?

L. Kriwoken: I can't comment on the gravel removal operations.

Interjection.

G. Gentner: We're not talking about drinking water. We're talking about groundwater that supports flora and fauna and particularly that of fish.

Can I ask one more question?

B. Ralston (Chair): Sure, go ahead.

G. Gentner: I'd like to know the connection, of course, between the septic systems and the coliform — the E. coli incidents we're now seeing, the potential aquifers that are being affected. Now, the ministry is moving towards a certification of people who can, of course, monitor wells. They build wells. They also are certified construction workers who deal with septic systems. But where are the government inspectors in this now? I mean, what is your responsibility?

L. Kriwoken: The health authorities and the Ministry of Health Services are responsible for drinking water wells.

G. Gentner: Okay, so it's not your…? You don't inspect them at all, then?

L. Kriwoken: No. Those are the health authorities when it pertains to drinking water and establishing boil water advisories.

G. Gentner: So what is the oversight on these new certified people who work with septic systems and well…?

L. Kriwoken: If they're drinking water supplies, that's health authorities. If they're not drinking water supplies, the Ministry of Natural Resource Operations regional staff enforce the groundwater protection regulations. That's certified well drillers and pump installers, as well as the construction, operation and maintenance of wells.

G. Gentner: Let me just see if I've got this right. The field inspection of a well is not your purview unless there's a complaint driven to the Ministry of Health, if I'm correct. It's totally the responsibility of the well owner. Is that correct?

L. Kriwoken: The field inspection of wells that aren't drinking water wells lies with the Ministry of Environment. If they're drinking water wells, that's the health authorities.
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G. Gentner: Okay. I have no further questions at this time. Thanks.

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D. Horne (Deputy Chair): As I stated for the last presentation, obviously, we as legislators look to improve things all the time. I think this is an example of where we can do things better.

I'm interested in the fact that we're putting forward the Water Act modernization, and many of the issues that were raised in this report would be dealt with in that legislation. I was somewhat interested in the fact that the member opposite has a better visibility as to the government's legislative agenda than I, but I know that we are looking to move forward with that.

I'm just interested in which of the major recommendations and the issues that were raised in the report, if any, are not being addressed in the Water Act modernization and the programs that we're looking at moving forward legislatively with.

L. Kriwoken: Maybe I'll start off, and Celine could add in. The audit recommendations around information management are foundational, whether we're modernizing the Water Act or not. We need to improve our information and our access and reporting.

The recommendations on depletion certainly will be addressed through regulation and licensing of groundwater, as will the recommendations around governance and clarifying roles and responsibilities in watershed management plans. Those are all embodied in the proposed new act.

The information management piece is kind of over and above but certainly foundational to improving our water resource assessments and informing those watershed sustainability plans.

B. Ralston (Chair): Thanks. I had myself on the list next.

You mentioned in your map and you showed the northeast as an area with problems. Obviously, there's the industrial activity of shale gas and the unique procedure of fracking, which is very, very water-intensive. I don't see it specifically mentioned in the report. Maybe it was. I might not have seen that.

I'm also aware, I think, that there's some work going on with Geoscience B.C. to draw water for that industrial process from what are called saline aquifers, I believe the correct term is.

When you talk about sustainability plans, this kind of activity would call for a different plan. What do you foresee, addressing it to the ministry, in terms of plans for the northeast to deal with the very intense and…? Obviously, there's a lot of activity in the Horn River and the Montney shale areas. It's very active right now. What do you see in the way of plans to regulate and to look at water use there?

I'd be interested if there's any response from the Auditor General or any concerns that were expressed specific to the use of water in the fracking process.

L. Kriwoken: We're certainly seeing increasing use of water in the northeast around hydro-fracking. The Oil and Gas Commission regulates the industry through short-term-use approvals, so for trucks used to draw water for the fracking process.

If you look at the basin as a whole, over the last year we saw suspension by the commission of a number of short-term approvals on streams, with the drought, and the conflicts around water with Dawson Creek's water supply and other uses.

We also see this area of the province as a known problem area, not chronic. It certainly will be a priority area to complete that full water resource assessment, not just with industry but with all the users in the watershed — to look at what the different use sectors can be doing in their own operations to make more efficient use of water, to ensure that the land use isn't affecting drinking water supplies in the case of Dawson Creek. There's been some work done in that regard already.

There's definitely work that we will build on in the context of a new water sustainability act to ensure that that area doesn't come into more of the chronic, ongoing situations like we see in some of the other parts of the province.

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C. Davis: If I can add, on the data management side, in terms of helping to build and have access to information to have those plans in place. The Ministries of Environment and of Natural Resource Operations are working very closely with Geoscience B.C. right now, up in the north, to do some studies on the various aquifers. At the moment a lot of the industry, depending on the region, is using surface water, but they are doing studies to look at groundwater and deep saline groundwater, as you were saying.

We're having conversations as well with industry in terms of the link between the OGAA, the Oil and Gas Activities Act, and how that statute would work with the water sustainability act.

B. Ralston (Chair): Can you just tell me: if you're withdrawing volumes of water, either surface water or groundwater, for industrial activity, is there a fee attached to withdrawing it? If there isn't, is there a fee contemplated?

Sometimes in some economic theories it helps to make use more economical in the sense that people, if they have to pay for it, tend to use it a little more carefully. It might provide an incentive for maybe even some innovation in the fracking process that would be less water-intensive.
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Is there any thought, either yourselves or yourselves in conjunction with the Oil and Gas Commission, to looking at that?

L. Kriwoken: Presently, under the Water Act there are fees and rentals for surface water licensees, and as we move into regulating groundwater, those licence fees and rentals will apply to groundwater use as well.

Currently, the Oil and Gas Commission…. Short-term use approvals that they issue to the industry are exempt from rentals.

B. Ralston (Chair): Is there any plan, then, in your respective management regime to institute these?

L. Kriwoken: Yes. For groundwater, yes. It would mirror what we use for surface water.

B. Ralston (Chair): Thank you.

Did the Auditor General want to add anything on that?

J. Doyle: Part of your question was for me to comment on whether or not fracking was in the report and if I had any observations about it.

Fracking, as a word, is not used in the report anywhere. We make reference to oil and gas operations on a number of pages within the report. On page 12 we refer to the fact that these operations have the potential to affect groundwater quality. On page 16 we also say that under the Oil and Gas Activities Act, operations that could have a material adverse affect on quantity, quality or flow of water in an aquifer also can be addressed.

When it comes to fracking itself — and I assume everyone has at least a broad idea of what that actually means — there's a lot of work being done in the U.S. at the moment looking at how that impacts water quality and the environment and so on. That work isn't expected to publish for a few months yet. Possibly it will be into 2012 before we get information, and then there's a time to digest that information before it can be played out on the ground.

What I will observe is that the provincial government at the moment allows companies to drill and frack natural gas wells within 100 metres of people's homes. The recently enacted Oil and Gas Activities Act provides the Oil and Gas Commission with the tools needed to protect groundwater, but as this is a new piece of legislation, our audit has not yet examined how this is being played out on the ground.

S. Chandra Herbert: A question for the Ministry of Environment. I know there had been the earlier question about the cost of the full implementation of the audit recommendations, the fiscal implications. I think the figure raised was four to five million, something like that, and there may be more over time.

I wonder what the cost will be if we don't follow through on these implications and end up having aquifers which are contaminated. I was surprised to see the suggestion that 27 percent of our aquifers are highly vulnerable to contamination. I could just think that if we lose just one, and if it was in an important area, the cost to that community or the cost to the region could be way more than $4 million to $5 million.

Has there been any thinking in terms of the opportunity costs, so to speak, if we don't do anything?

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L. Kriwoken: We haven't quantified those numbers, but certainly, as you pointed out, water underpins the economy. It's needed for virtually every industrial process that we know, and the costs of remediation of a contaminated well are…. I don't know what those costs are, but point taken.

S. Chandra Herbert: Just to follow it up, I think it's important — not just for the Public Accounts but, really, for every member — to get that idea of what happens if we don't act on this as we're coming up to a budget, as we're coming up to more work on this with the newly modernized Water Act. Are there any plans for further work looking at the cost implications of not moving forward on this?

L. Kriwoken: Yes.

S. Chandra Herbert: Okay. So there will be further work.

L. Kriwoken: Yes.

J. Les: I guess I had maybe one question and then an observation.

First question. You talk about the observation wells, and I think you mentioned there are eight of those that you're proposing to put in place in the coming year. A question that arises in my mind is: are we making enough use of the potential of private wells and having access to those possibly for monitoring purposes, at least in terms of quality?

I'm not sure about water levels — if they're as easily monitored through private wells. But there have got to be literally thousands of wells around, some of them which I suspect would be fairly well located for monitoring purposes. So can you give me some insight? Perhaps you're doing that already. Where you're putting the additional wells — you just don't have access to proper monitoring. It seems to me that the ministry itself installing monitoring wells must be a fairly costly adventure, so I'm interested in a little bit more insight into that.
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C. Davis: Of the wells that we were talking about for the installation this year, yes, we partner actually with, for example, a regional district, a municipality, the Geological Survey of Canada. Yes, the costs are quite high, so partnering is very important.

There are situations, for example in the Okanagan, where the Okanagan Basin Water Board and district will actually want to have a well that is included in the observation well network, so we do that.

One of the issues with a private well is access and being able to have the standards for that well in terms of: does it meet all the standards for the monitoring, is it in the right location, etc.? So as part of the review of the network for the quantity…. That was the one that was done, which is observation network. That's the one where we go in and monitor for the quantity, to tell us what the water level in the aquifer is. That has a number of different wells, and we're strategically looking where we need to have those.

If there are some in a specific municipality that are really something that we should bring in, we will talk with that municipality, and we will have that discussion. We will look at the standards, and we'll look at how feasible it is in terms of having that equipment to tell us the levels on a regular basis so we can collect that information.

On the quality side, it's a bit more difficult. For private wells, for example, a lot of people, although they would like to have the information on their well, will not want to have that information collected on a regular basis, potentially. There are also issues on where those wells are situated, etc.

On the quality side, we are looking at the network that we have to really assess this year where we need to have those wells; what we need to monitor for; if we need to increase, where; and how we can partner potentially with municipalities, etc., with Health Canada and other partners to see how we can augment potentially the network and share the information.

J. Les: Thank you. The other comment I had. Groundwater protection and management is important, but it seems to me that quite often very direct beneficiaries of groundwater management and protection are the local communities, particularly if they depend on that groundwater source for drinking water.

I come from a community that, as I think back over the years, has spent literally millions of dollars in groundwater protection in terms of limiting certain types of land use, converting areas of septic fields onto a city sewer system, and many other things all geared to protecting that groundwater source — including, where a landfill contaminated the groundwater, buying a significant portion of land.

[1335]

Quite often the action or the inaction of local government is key in protecting groundwater. So as we work towards developing new legislation, I think that that line of responsibility and benefit needs to be kept firmly in place.

I don't think we should allow the assumption to take hold that the province is the only player here. The decisions that local governments make and continue to make on an ongoing basis have a real and profound, in some cases, impact on the quality of groundwater.

B. Ralston (Chair): The report does refer directly to your community, Chilliwack, and makes some comments which I had some questions about. I'll follow up later.

J. Les: If you want to add a little splash of water to your Scotch, there is no place better than Chilliwack to come and get that water.

B. Ralston (Chair): Former mayor still at work.

Go ahead.

L. Kriwoken: I just wanted to add that that land-water connection is a key part of the new proposed water sustainability act, so we've been having discussions with local government around strengthening the tools available to them and their authority to ensure proper land use.

S. Simpson: The recommendations speak about the need to have a priority list of aquifers. Is that priority list in place now?

C. Davis: We need to update the list. We have a list that has a number of different aquifers. As we classify more and augment the list, then we review and go back to that classification.

We do have classification, yes. It's just that this year we want to do an update and then prioritize in terms of which one, when we get available resources, depending on the resources that we have in terms of partnership and internal to government. Then we can address the characterization of some of those aquifers.

S. Simpson: What kinds of criteria do you use to set the priorities?

C. Davis: We look at the vulnerability of the aquifer. Is it close to a source of contamination? We look at the geology of that aquifer. Is it more contained, less contained? Where could it be protected from contamination? What are the sources around? Are there large farms or a large industry that are taking the water out? Then also, it's a combination of that vulnerability and, again, the geology, etc. It's looking at all of the factors and combining those to assess.

We have a classification system that will look and say: "This is a priority 1(a); this is a 2(a)." So there is a classification system based on those factors.
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S. Simpson: I know, for example — I'm recalling here and might not get this totally accurate — there was quite a debate in the Langley township back a while ago. I believe the Minister of Transportation was looking at accessing gravel for purposes of the Port Mann construction from above an aquifer there, where it was the sole drinking water source for a number of communities. I know there was quite a bit of back-and-forth. I believe that work has halted now.

Would that be the kind of circumstance, just to understand how things work? You have that kind of situation, where you have a ministry or contractors for a ministry like Transportation doing work on behalf of the government, like the Port Mann, who are looking to access materials in order to pursue the construction and that kind of a back-and-forth.

I presume that if you have an aquifer that's a sole drinking source for a community — the only one it has — it has a pretty high-priority rating. Does the ministry then intervene in that kind of situation and say, "No, this doesn't work, because the risk is too high," simply because of the sensitivity of that aquifer? Is that how this works?

C. Davis: The ministry will comment on an application, for example, that comes in for which we might not be the authorizing body. The authorizing ministry will actually require or ask for a referral in terms of the groundwater and the potential effects on groundwater, and then we make the recommendation based on…. Yes, we will use the classification of that aquifer to make a recommendation of potential effects.

S. Simpson: One last question. This may be talking about legislation that's not there yet, and it may not be something that you can answer, but what is the expectation or the thinking or the suggestions of the ministry, or maybe of the Auditor General, about how you get to an authority that has the ability in these kind of instances, where you have a very sensitive water source, a sole source for drinking water for a community, to be able to, essentially, intervene and say: "That won't occur because the risk is simply too high"? Is that where we're looking to go here?

[1340]

L. Kriwoken: Because there are many interests in the resource and impacts from various land and resource activities, you ultimately come into these trade-offs.

Typically, those decisions can be dealt with and any impacts mitigated at the operational level. If you're looking at the more significant trade-offs, as we move up on the oversight ladder, it moves into cabinet and environment and land use committees. It depends on the scale of the issue and the types of trade-offs we're talking about. There are a multiple number of scales.

Look in the Nicola a couple of years ago in the drought, where the Minister of Environment intervened with a section 9 order to protect fish that was placing a stop-use-of-water on a rancher. There was a fish population at risk, and a measure was taken to avert that. There are different levels of intervention, depending upon the complexity and the trade-offs involved.

R. Lee: To protect the groundwater in case of industry contaminations, would the new Water Act be more restrictive than before?

L. Kriwoken: Do you want to speak to water quality objectives?

R. Lee: Will there be penalties, for example, imposed, using more stringent criteria?

C. Davis: In terms of a well contaminated through an industrial activity? That's being dealt with.

I'll let Lynn add after, but looking at the link between the contaminated sites regulation, which is under the Ministry of Environment…. There are requirements under that, where they actually are looking at increasing not the liability but the protection of groundwater in terms of when it is contaminated by an industrial source. That's not something that's specifically in the Water Act, but within the Water Act we are looking to make sure that we are incorporating and making sure that we are aligned with the existing regulation and statute.

R. Lee: If the contamination doesn't lead to a well but to a general area outside of the industrial site, the groundwater probably will eventually get into the other system. In that case this Water Act…. I haven't got the details on that act, but I just want to have a general feeling that in those cases, actually, the act will cover some of those consequences.

L. Kriwoken: Some of those issues are covered now, with the Environmental Management Act, on contaminated sites. As we build the new act, we'll be looking at any consequential amendments we need to make to other statutes to fill any gaps and to ensure that appropriate penalties are put in place as well.

B. Ralston (Chair): I had a question myself. On page 20 there's a section that deals with the township of Langley. The report talks about a ministerial order setting out the terms of reference for developing a water management plan — obviously, I think, responding to the graph that we saw about the declining levels in the Langley aquifer. There's a cost, and the estimate is close to a million annually. There was a recommendation, I guess, or an agreement that it be cost-shared.

The plan was submitted to the minister in December 2009, and as of October 2010 the plan had not been approved. Bearing in mind that this is very, very soon after
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this report was tabled, is there an update available, in terms of approval or not, of that plan? I appreciate that you may not be able to speculate on the reason why, but if there is any reason given, if you could provide it, that would be helpful.

L. Kriwoken: The update on the plan we received a year ago. At the same time, we're building some of the provisions into the Water Act modernization. Some of the requirements and recommendations, at least in the plan, were for groundwater regulation and authorizations. Attached to those requirements were resource FTEs and resource requirements to fulfil that.

[1345]

Some of those same requirements we're envisioning with the overall water sustainability act, and so we're looking to address a number of those through updating the legislation and some of the more specific ones that are specific to the township of Langley. We've got to be in more discussion with Langley, as well as the Ministry of Agriculture, on how we fund the implementation of this plan.

As I mentioned earlier, in the presentation, there's a lot of effort that goes into developing these plans. If I reflect on more work that needs to be done during that development, it's to put attention to what the sustainable funding model will be to implement.

There are a number of other examples in the province. The Cowichan Valley is another. It's not a part 4 Water Act plan, but it's a plan whereby a significant number of partners loaded money into a central pot and developed a very good watershed plan. When it comes to implementation, what are the sustainable funding mechanisms to implement? We're looking at that in the context of Water Act modernization.

With respect to Langley, though, because the plan is with us in the ministry, we're looking at phasing implementation of the plan to deal with what we can within existing budgets.

Some municipalities or regional districts…. For example, the regional district of Nanaimo has done a watershed plan, and they've done it with a referendum for a parcel tax to fund implementation of a plan over a ten-year period. So we're exploring funding mechanism for plans in the context of Water Act modernization.

B. Ralston (Chair): Are you able to say if there's a provincial component to the funding? Has it gone to Treasury Board or not? I appreciate that you may not be able to say, but if you are, I'd appreciate knowing.

L. Kriwoken: Do you mean for the Langley plan?

B. Ralston (Chair): Yes.

L. Kriwoken: There hasn't been a submission to Treasury Board, no.

V. Huntington: A number of my questions have been asked, so I'll be short. I just want to say it's been terribly disappointing to realize that with all of this work going into the modernization of this act, you will not have the tools to prevent the contamination and depletion of the aquifers. That policy issue — so important to everybody — is in the other ministry that can issue the licences, and you say your authority only will be to comment on the application.

L. Kriwoken: No, please let me clarify. In the Ministry of Natural Resource Operations, the minister has the Water Act. The Ministry of Environment is modernizing the Water Act. We're working together. Implementation of the new water sustainability act will be Ministry of Natural Resource Operations.

V. Huntington: It's even worse.

L. Kriwoken: The Water Act sits with Natural Resource Operations, and any implementation…. There may be elements of the new act that, in terms of setting provincial water objectives, may reside with the Ministry of Environment. But the updated Water Act — we're not taking it entirely apart. We're building on what exists to address the broader goals of Water Act modernization. It will be the new statute in the province.

It's not just Ministry of Environment and Ministry of Natural Resource Operations. As has been mentioned, this statute will touch on other statutes — Oil and Gas Activities, Forest and Range Practices, Local Government Act — because all of these statutes touch on water.

V. Huntington: But you as the ministry will not be able to control the cubic metres that can be taken out of any aquifer. You cannot control the amount. There isn't one authority that will say: "Only this amount can be licensed."

L. Kriwoken: At present the Environmental Assessment Act regulates withdrawals over 75 litres per second. However, in a new water sustainability act that regulates groundwater, there will be information requirements and thresholds that have to be met to ensure the sustainability of the resource. That's absolutely being built into the statute that we're working on.

V. Huntington: Will there be a cumulative assessment capacity under your ministry or Natural Resources?

L. Kriwoken: That's where the watershed sustainability plans come in. The water resources assessment will be working across the sector.

[1350]

Ministry of Environment staff, Celine's staff, have the scientific expertise and knowledge and are working with
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the operational folks on the ground, who are also hydrogeologists, to make those assessments, to build those plans, to inform the decisions, whether it's for an allocation licence or whether it's a project that's going through the environmental assessment review process.

V. Huntington: Oh dear. It sounds so good. It's very concerning. I was hoping that the act would really resolve the issue of the use of water, especially the aquifers, if we're talking about this particular act, but I don't think it's going to.

L. Kriwoken: The act will address the gap of not regulating groundwater. That is a significant gap, and one of the four key goals of Water Act modernization is to be regulating groundwater to prevent the depletion.

V. Huntington: Okay. Let me see. Could I just go back to recommendation 3, in your comments that you will work with other agencies that collect groundwater-monitoring data to explore the feasibility of consolidating the data and that the challenges include data ownership and resources?

Could you go into that more fully, please? It sounds as if it's not automatically understood that all of the information with regard to groundwater will reposit in your department — is that correct? — and that you have no authority to require it. Is that right?

C. Davis: I'll speak to that.

Correct. At the moment, for groundwater quantity and quality, the information will be collected by various agencies. For example, there's a large amount of data that is collected by the individual health authorities on drinking water systems. They hold that data in the individual regions. There's not a centralized system.

The Ministry of Health Services has been trying…. We have been trying to work with them, we being Ministry of Environment, to assess, over the last few years, how to deal with that issue. There have been some proposed systems that could address some of those issues. There's a cost associated, obviously, and this only takes care of part of that information.

There's also additional information on groundwater quality — for example, by Health Canada for First Nations. There's also information that MOE has, which we can manage. That works well.

Our major issue, really, is the large amount of data — and this is substantial — that the health authorities and Ministry of Health Services hold. It is in a different format. It's in different places. Basically, the Ministry of Environment right now is looking at what data we could actually, in addition to the data that we manage….

For example, we manage the data that is quality data from the observation wells that we have, the ambient network. We also manage the quantity information that we collect through our observation wells. The feasibility is looking at what type of data we could actually bring into our systems and how feasible it is, depending on where the data is residing now.

We'll have some additional conversations with the Ministry of Health Services in the coming months to try to see how we could parcel out and try to move forward on some of those recommendations.

V. Huntington: Are there private firms that hold data? What are the agencies that collect data, other than Health Services and MOE?

C. Davis: Individuals will have information on their own wells, and then there are municipalities that have information on the systems that they will have as well. So depending on the size of the system, community watersheds will have a small system. They will have some information. Some of that is provided to the health authorities.

There are a lot of agencies, basically, that collect that type of information.

V. Huntington: Finally, who sits on the natural resources board? Do we know?

L. Kriwoken: The natural resources board is…. The membership is the deputy ministers of the six agencies in the natural resource sector: Natural Resource Operations; Environment; Energy; Agriculture; Forests, Mines and Lands; and Aboriginal Relations and Reconciliation.

J. McIntyre: Point of order. We're talking about prospective legislation. We're asking about structure of government, policy. This is way beyond the scope of the report and beyond the scope of what this committee deals with, I think — respectfully, Chair.

B. Ralston (Chair): In Committee of Supply, in estimates, you're not permitted to talk about future legislation. This report is a bit different in the sense that an analysis was presented, and the response of the ministry has been to talk about their response being a series of pieces of legislation.

[1355]

I think it's a bit different, and in that sense, discussing the legislation as a response to the report, given that's what the ministry has brought forward, I think is in order. So with respect, I disagree with your comments. In any event, I think the questioner is finished.

I don't see any further questions on this report, so thank you very much for the presentation.

Thanks to Wayne and to John.

I think that concludes the reports.

We have one further item on the agenda, which I will turn to: item 4, which is the consideration of records retention and
[ Page 443 ]
disposal resolutions by the Public Documents Committee. We have Gary Mitchell, who is the chair of the Public Documents Committee and who is here.

I know that members have had a chance to examine the written documentation in advance. I haven't heard any questions, but it would be in order, if you do have questions, to pose them.

The Clerk has some further information for members, just before we hear from Mr. Mitchell.

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk Assistant and Acting Clerk of Committees): Yes, thank you. Just before we begin the next agenda item, I wanted to advise members who may be interested in reviewing the extensive binders that have been delivered to our office in support of each of the proposed resolutions of the Public Documents Committee that if you wish to examine them in detail, there's quite a lot of information next door. I'm happy to retrieve it, should it be required by the committee.

B. Ralston (Chair): Mr. Mitchell.

Records Retention and Disposal

G. Mitchell: Thank you, Chair. As you indicated, the Public Documents Committee has reviewed submissions from various agencies of the government, and we're very happy to submit, for your committee's review and consideration, 16 retention and disposal schedules. They cover 20 functional areas within the government. Fourteen are operational or mandated services, and two schedules cover administrative or housekeeping records.

I would like to highlight several, one being the administrative records classification review. So 21 years ago Public Accounts and parliament approved an administrative records system for the government of British Columbia. In the last few years government offices have been reviewing the schedules as they were initially created, and they have submitted — and we're submitting on their behalf with our approval — four areas that they have revised.

One is covering administrative records, buildings and properties, equipment and supplies, and information technology. They have kindly provided a table of concordance to support the review. You will find in it that they have done a thorough review. They have removed probably close to 125 areas of definition and classification and replaced them with approximately 40. So this will include updating the reviews to handle web technology, modern security and government processing on the financial and cash management side.

I would also like to highlight that the Emergency and Health Services Commission has submitted a schedule for their administrative records. This is due to the passage of the Public Service Act, which has created a situation where that commission needs separate human resources abilities to keep their records for longer periods than the executive government.

The other one is…. In the review of the financial section, which this committee and parliament approved at its last sitting, the Ministry of Finance has proposed a separate banking and cash management schedule to handle those functions.

[1400]

As has been our practice, we submit these for your review. If there are detailed questions, I will take them and ask the ministry and central agency for their responses and get back to you. General questions I can answer.

D. Horne (Deputy Chair): Thank you, Mr. Mitchell. Obviously, it's great to have you before the committee again, and we thank you for your expertise and experience in this area.

I guess the last time you were here, there were many questions from committee members, and unfortunately, we didn't take you up on your kind offer to come and visit the archives. I think some of us would have enjoyed that very much, but unfortunately, the committee, with all of the other work that we did, didn't find the time to do that.

One of the things that was, I think, gone over in detail the last time you were before this committee was the fact that, in the way that the act operates and the way that you operate, the required records, in order to properly document the work of government, are maintained and that basically these documents that are looking to be destroyed are superfluous to that.

Have you gone through and reviewed the requests, and in your opinion does this constitute what is appropriate in a situation?

G. Mitchell: The committee comprises a barrister and solicitor from the Ministry of Attorney General, and at our last meeting the comptroller sent one of his senior directors. As a committee we go through and review all of the proposed changes, and we weighed it against the fiduciary responsibility of the agency, the operational value that they may have to them over time.

We look at the legal values as well as the historical value — i.e., the value that these records would bring to allow a citizen to hold his or her government and those programs accountable — and also the value that they have to support the operations of a program to provide the accountability at a future date — that they have met their mandate.

Each agency brings a senior member of its executive to speak to the functions that are being described and also a fairly candid discussion on how the records-keeping programs are going. Through all of that, our committee has approved these schedules for the review of our parliament, and we are confident that the due diligence on
[ Page 444 ]
behalf of the program and the executive of the ministry as well as the central agencies has been met.

V. Huntington: I thought that we were supposed to be sort of looking at the detail, but obviously not. But I want you to know that it reminded me what an incredible profession you have. I don't think I could do it. This is too organized.

I do have a couple of questions, though, related to the executive summary — pages 1 and 2 of the executive summary of the material you gave us. It's sections 1 to 5. I realize that if others haven't read this…. Perhaps you could just describe it, just so I can better understand.

There's section 1, "Policies and Procedures": "These records document specific ministry — e.g., internal administrative policies, procedures, guidelines and instructions...." There's a full retention and a destruction description here: "Similarly, cabinet committee submissions and directives, executive correspondence issues and briefing material, committee files." Then: "...agreement files, records which document the negotiation and management of agreements, including memoranda of understanding, protocol agreements and service-level agreements."

Are you able, if I handed you this, to just describe what these definitions of retention or destruction mean in terms of the type of material that you're looking at?

G. Mitchell: Well, yes, we could do that. We'll take the agreement.

V. Huntington: Okay.

[1405]

G. Mitchell: Each ministerial office or ministry executive that is involved in the creation of an agreement would have records relating to it, both their commentary and those of the other ministries. That would be, in this case, a housekeeping record for them.

Cabinet office would keep the master file on all of the negotiations, the toing and froming between ministerial offices and even between ourselves and other agencies outside of British Columbia. For the administrative records, we are fundamentally speaking about records that are held in ministries as part of their housekeeping or regular routines. Master copies, operational copies, would be held by the central agency or the office responsible.

V. Huntington: They would not be destroyed.

G. Mitchell: No. Well, they would be handled under operational schedules, though it should be separately submitted to us and then to you. In this case, for that, I think approximately ten years ago cabinet operations had schedules approved by Public Accounts and parliament, and those are in effect now.

For the most part, records relating, if memory serves, to our relationships to other Crowns in Canada and to other governments are kept for full retention because, of course, they document the dealings and programs of the executive government.

V. Huntington: In relation to the agreements, then, is there nowhere that over a period of historic time an historian could track back through these? There is no copy that's kept anywhere?

G. Mitchell: The copy for agreements would be kept by the office, the Premier's office or cabinet secretariat — where the main copy would be kept for government — and those would be open for historical research.

What we're really trying to do in many ways is rather than have — well, today — 18 or 15 offices all having their own files, we're trying to be very clear as to what operational area must keep the copies on behalf of all of us and to give assurances that in those other areas, after a time has passed, they can feel confident that they can be destroyed and not worry about keeping them somewhere. As you can imagine, duplications create liability problems for all of us, and they also create doubt.

V. Huntington: I think it's the sort of professional language in here that makes it difficult for me to understand that what we're looking at is getting rid of duplication but not the historic record completely. All right. Thank you so much.

R. Lee: I read some of the record, say two years ago — this recommendation to destroy some of the records dating back to 1871. I imagine some of the records have been well researched and archived, but just in case there are documents that are being destroyed, having these….

Actually, some collectors would like to have a copy of these, even if it is a duplication — right? If those records are not secret or whatever, can those records be offered to collectors? Maybe that would generate some revenue for the government. Are there any thoughts on that? I don't know.

B. Ralston (Chair): Say yes, and it can all go to your office, Mr. Mitchell.

G. Mitchell: Yeah. Mr. Chair, as you know, I have to be careful how I reply.

[1410]

As chair of the committee, I probably would have no response, to be honest. As provincial archivist, that is a possibility that can be considered. The key would have to be, of course, not so much reassuring my colleagues within the Ministry of Finance or asset recovery, but reassuring the public so that the perception is not that we are selling their heritage for short-term gain. They can be quite sensitive to that.
[ Page 445 ]

An example is that the Archives does deaccession — i.e., take away from our holdings — records that we believe would be better situated in the home area of an archive. For instance, we have deaccessioned records relating to the first council of the city of Burnaby. The council of Burnaby was very happy, but there were other areas within the province that were quite worried that we would begin offloading our provincial heritage to institutions.

As an archivist, I would say that I would most certainly consider that, but as chair of the committee, I can't answer.

R. Lee: Sorry. May I clarify? I'm not saying, "Sell off the archive," but I'm saying that if you have duplicates you don't need, you have to dump it somehow or shift it somehow — right? You have to destroy the record.

A Voice: Yup.

R. Lee: Before you destroy it, maybe those items are of value to some collectors. They would like to have a copy of them. With that, it's not selling off the archive. This is not what I mean. But if you have duplicates, which may be of interest to some British Columbians, and they want to keep a copy of that — a duplicate…. Right? As you said, there are duplicates around. That's my thinking. Just some thoughts around that.

B. Ralston (Chair): Spencer, on revenue generation.

S. Chandra Herbert: Yes, on revenue generation. It's funny that Richard Lee brings this up today. I was just on a website yesterday. I came across it. I was researching something on the computer. It was a website that sold old bills and receipts from British Columbia institutions from the 1900s.

You could pick up a receipt from a dry cleaner in 1905, and they would charge you $25. I don't know why somebody would pay $25 for an old receipt, but some people have interesting hobbies, so it is something that might attract some interest. I don't know how you would do it, because I think the concerns that you've laid out are definitely ones we'd have to pay attention to. But it might be worthy of some further study.

B. Ralston (Chair): We'll leave that with you, Mr. Mitchell, to think about.

The vice-Chair has a resolution, I think, seeing there are no further speakers.

D. Horne (Deputy Chair): We thank you for your work, and as you've said, these documents, in your professional opinion and the position of the committee, are those that you consider should be disposed of.

Therefore, I move that this Public Accounts Committee recommend the following resolutions to retain and disposal authorities: that resolutions 1 to 16, as submitted by the Public Documents Committee, February 2011, be approved.

B. Ralston (Chair): Moved and seconded. Any further discussion?

Motion approved.

B. Ralston (Chair): Thank you very much, Mr. Mitchell. I do apologize for not taking up your invitation to come to the archives. I'm going to have another go at that, perhaps personally, and maybe invite other members to join in.

G. Mitchell: Chair, it's a standing invitation.

B. Ralston (Chair): I have no doubt. Thank you very much.

Just before we adjourn, I want to thank the vice-Chair and members for your forbearance over the session. I think we can proudly say we've accomplished a lot of work, and I think we've provided good service. We can go back to our own respective caucuses with our heads held high and tell them about the good work that we've done — assuming that they'll listen. Thank you very much.

G. Gentner: We are still on other business before we…. I'd like to propose a…. Is there such a thing as a notice of motion, knowing that we won't be able to vote on it, but at least it'll be on the order paper? For the next….

J. McIntyre: It expires Monday.

B. Ralston (Chair): Sure. Go ahead.

[1415]

Notice of Motion

G. Gentner: Okay. I move that the Auditor General, the Clerk's office and the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee report back regarding the rationale behind the public release of the AG's reports before they're released to the Public Accounts Committee and what the appropriate time frame is between the Auditor General's release and discussion of that report by this committee.

B. Ralston (Chair): Thank you. We'll take that as notice. When the House prorogues, the committee will be resolved, and perhaps the new committee will want to take that up.

A motion to adjourn is in order.

Motion approved.

The committee adjourned at 2:16 p.m.

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