2017 Legislative Session: Sixth Session, 40th Parliament

HANSARD

The following electronic version is for informational purposes only.

The printed version remains the official version.

official report of

Debates of the Legislative Assembly

(hansard)

Tuesday, March 14, 2017

Afternoon Sitting

Volume 43, Number

ISSN 0709-1281 (Print)

ISSN 1499-2175 (Online)

CONTENTS

Page

Routine Business

Introductions by Members

Orders of the Day

Second Reading of Bills

Bill 6 — Information Management (Documenting Government Decisions) Amendment Act, 2017

Hon. M. de Jong

D. Routley

Hon. S. Anton

K. Corrigan

Hon. A. Wilkinson

S. Robinson

R. Sultan

Hon. R. Coleman

Bill 4 — Election Amendment Act, 2017

Hon. S. Anton

G. Holman

Hon. D. Barnett

R. Austin

L. Throness

N. Macdonald

J. Thornthwaite

C. Trevena

Hon. B. Bennett

L. Krog

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TUESDAY, MARCH 14, 2017

The House met at 1:32 p.m.

[Madame Speaker in the chair.]

Routine Business

Introductions by Members

D. Routley: I’d like the House to help me make welcome a group of people who I don’t think are in the gallery now but have been here all morning. They are from the Cowichan Valley intercultural association. They’re a group comprised of mainly immigrants and refugees, and many of those people are from Syria.

They have visited the House, and I’ve attempted to make them familiar with my version of the tour. They’ve had the official tour. It’s all in the effort that they might feel a connection to what will be their government and a sense that we might, in fact, be working in their interest in this place.

Orders of the Day

Hon. M. de Jong: Second reading on Bill 6, the Information Management (Documenting Government Decisions) Amendment Act, 2017.

Second Reading of Bills

BILL 6 — INFORMATION MANAGEMENT

(DOCUMENTING GOVERNMENT DECISIONS)

AMENDMENT ACT, 2017

Hon. M. de Jong: I move that Bill 6 be read a second time now.

These amendments to the Information Management Act are, I believe, an important step in ensuring B.C. remains a leader when it comes to information management, transparency and accountability.

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

The amendments will enable strong oversight and consistent information management practices right across government. The Information and Privacy Commissioner has, I think, appropriately made the analogy that government information assets are like the financial assets that are entrusted to us and should be treated with the same rigour and discipline. I think that is an entirely appropriate and helpful analogy.

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Good information management practices are ultimately the foundation of good governance, access rights and even the protection of privacy.

These amendments build on our progress, to date, in addressing the recommendations made by David Loukidelis, a former commissioner. As you all know, Mr. Loukidelis was engaged in 2015 to advise on actions that could be taken to strengthen and enhance information management practices across government. To date, happily, I can tell and remind the House that we have addressed or partially addressed 18 of the 27 recommendations made by Mr. Loukidelis.

These amendments to the Information Management Act will address two more of his recommendations and provide the enabling authority to address another three of those recommendations.

Briefly, the bill, I believe, will accomplish two things. It will create a legislated duty to document, and secondly, it will enhance the oversight powers of the chief records officer.

Maybe I can deal, firstly, with the first point, around the duty to document. I take the view, and the government does, that the information that government employees create and receive belongs to the citizens of the province. As public servants — and I include myself and members of the executive branch in this — we have a duty to make information available to citizens on matters that interest them. In order to support this kind of transparency, accountability and engagement, public servants need to ensure they are creating adequate records in the first place.

Perhaps even more importantly, creating the right records supports employees in doing their jobs effectively and providing high-quality services to the public. When there is a legal or a policy requirement on public servants to create adequate records documenting the key decisions of a government body, this is what is generally referred to as a duty to document. The amendments contained in the bill before the House will make British Columbia the first Canadian province to enshrine that duty to document in our information management legislation.

Though we will, hopefully, have an opportunity to canvass the sections of the bill, I cannot help to have heard some of the public commentary from others and some members of the House, in advance of this debate and discussion, questioning that fact and questioning some of the mandatory nature of the provisions.

We’ll have an opportunity, I hope, to canvass in detail

section 5, where “the head of a government body is responsible for ensuring that an appropriate system is in place within the government body for creating and maintaining, in accordance with applicable directives or guidelines issued under

section 6…government information that is an adequate record of that government body’s decisions.”

I suppose the public commentary I want to address briefly is that which would suggest there is some option around that. That is mandatory. That is a requirement.

If the provision is adopted by the House, there will be nothing optional about the requirement of the head

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of the government body to ensure that those systems are in place and that there is an adequate record of that government body’s decision. In anticipation of some of what may be offered during the course of this debate, I would make the point that that is a mandatory requirement, should this pass.

Similarly, subsection (2) states as follows: “The head of a government body must take reasonable steps to ensure that the government body (

a) complies with directives….” Again, nothing optional, nothing that would suggest that duty can be avoided. It is a mandatory requirement under the terms of the provisions that are before the House.

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These provisions require heads of government bodies — that is, the deputy minister or equivalent — to ensure that there is an appropriate system in place within their organizations to ensure information is created that constitutes a record of the government body’s decisions.

The proposed provision has been designed with the flexibility to allow ministries and government bodies to identify their key lines of business and ensure that employees are supported in creating the right records at the right time to document important decisions. This approach aligns with Mr. Loukidelis’s recommendation that we should consider a duty to document that is sufficiently flexible for government bodies to implement the requirement in a manner most suitable to their operations, organizational structure and record holdings.

Importantly — and I think it is important to reflect on this part of what Mr. Loukidelis had to say — a duty to document is not a requirement to keep every note or scrap of paper, or even every single electronic message. In fact, that is something he cautioned against, insofar as maintaining low- or no-value records would actually make it, in his view, more difficult to find and use the records that it is not just appropriate but, in our collective view and the government view, necessary to maintain.

I believe that public service employees are diligent about their responsibility in maintaining the right records. Ministries and government bodies were consulted on the proposed amendment, and I have to tell the House that they overwhelmingly agreed that this is something they do as a matter of course in their normal business practice. And, I would say, they welcomed what this amendment does, which is to formalize or codify this good practice in legislation. A related amendment gives the chief records officer clear authority to issue directives to government bodies on what records constitute an adequate record.

There are provisions here for increased oversight and compliance. The other focus of the bill, in fact, is on increased oversight and improved policy and direction-setting in information management. The amendments expand and clarify the powers of the chief records officer to support consistent, good information management practices across government. The chief records officer already has the ability to issue directives to government bodies. These amendments will expand her authority to clarify that she can issue non-binding guidelines, in addition to directives.

A related amendment expands the breadth of topics on which the chief records officer is empowered to issue directives or guidance. Mr. Loukidelis recommended that the chief records officer should establish guidance to assist government bodies in meeting their obligations under the act. These amendments are required in order to implement that recommendation effectively. Having clear guidance from the chief records officer will help to increase consistency and improve information management practices across government.

The chief records officer also currently has the authority to access the information she needs to carry out her mandate by making a request to a government body for that information. This bill clarifies that the chief records officer has the authority to require information from government bodies rather than simply request it — again, a very specific and mandatory provision. This provision is necessary to support enhanced oversight and address recommendations made by both Mr. Loukidelis and the Information and Privacy Commissioner to increase oversight over information management practices.

The bill also provides the chief records officer with new authority to assess a government body’s compliance with the requirements of the act, including the new duty to document. The chief records officer will conduct structured reviews and make recommendations to assist government bodies in improving their practices, where advisable. Finally, the bill adds a requirement to prepare an annual report. This report will, again, increase transparency and accountability and will inform and educate the public about the act and how information is being managed within government.

In closing, I would commend the bill to the House. It reinforces the government’s commitment to leading in its role as a trusted steward of the public’s information. Good information management practices are, in many ways, the foundation of good governance, access rights and, ultimately, even the protection of privacy.

[1345]

These amendments will provide that foundation for improvement to the way we manage the valuable information that we create and hold on behalf of the citizens of the province. I’ll look forward with interest to the contributions to the discussion around this bill from other members of the House.

D. Routley: I’m pleased to be able to rise to respond to the minister on the subject of Bill 6, the Information Management (Documenting Government Decisions) Amendment Act, 2017.

If what the minister had offered were accurate and supportable, I think I’d vote for this bill. But I won’t, be-

[ Page 14329 ]

cause what the minister offered in no way represents, with respect, the actual content of this bill or adequately describes the problem that we’re trying to solve. I think we have to go back to the beginning and consider why we’re here.

Before we do that, let’s become familiar with the role of freedom of information and privacy protection in a modern democracy. Every person should be free from intrusion by the state. Every citizen should be able to protect their personal information, and that information should belong to them. Every person must have the confidence, in a democracy, that the information they’re receiving from government is both accurate and fulsome in order for us to have confidence in democratically decided positions.

There was a British political philosopher, John Plamenatz, who said: “If there is to be responsible government, information should be so distributed amongst professionals and ordinary citizens that competitors for power, influence and popular support are exposed to relevant and searching criticism.”

Isn’t that the basis of how we run our affairs in a democracy? We elect people to represent us. The party with the most seats forms the government of the province, and they begin to respond to the needs of citizens. In order to judge the performance of the government, we need to have accurate and fulsome information. That is the problem.

James Madison was the fourth president of the United States. He was considered one of the founding fathers and the father of the constitution. He said: “A popular government without popular information or the means of acquiring it is but a prologue to farce or tragedy, or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance, and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.”

So a long time ago we were being instructed, as representatives of people in a responsible democracy, that we had not a choice but an obligation to provide information to people that allows them to properly pass judgment on the people who represent them. That is not happening in British Columbia.

One of the initial architects of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act in British Columbia in 1994 was a lawyer by the name of Rob Botterell. He’s presented several times to the committee that reviews the act. In referring to what the government could reasonably refuse to disclose, what grounds they could refuse to disclose information upon, he pointed out that embarrassment is not an exception under the act.

In fact, it’s not the government’s handling of innocuous, unimportant information, or even important information that is not politically embarrassing. The Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, the notions of open government, were put in place in order to prevent government from hiding things that it does not wish the people to see. Those are exactly the documents that the people need to see, more than any. This is a problem in British Columbia.

[1350]

Barack Obama said: “The government should not keep information confidential merely because public officials might be embarrassed by disclosure, because errors and failures might be revealed, or because of speculative or abstract fears…. All agencies should adopt a presumption in favour of disclosure in order to renew their commitment to the principles embodied in FOI and to usher in a new era of open government.”

This is the backdrop. Those are the principles — the ownership of information by the people and their right to the protection of their privacy. The government is responsible for both of those things. They have failed in both of those duties, and that’s why we’re here.

We’re not here because the government suddenly decided that it felt: “Well, you know what would really improve access in British Columbia? It would be if we had a duty to document.” No. We’re here after a succession of disasters and wilful evasions of the law by the government attempting to hide information from the people of British Columbia.

Now, that’s pretty serious stuff. The minister stood up, and he said: “Hey, in our quest to be so much better than we already are, we’re actually going to introduce this. It will keep everybody accountable, and everything will be great.” Well, it won’t be, because the act doesn’t do that. But primarily, it won’t be, because the government, rather than default towards a presumption of disclosure, defaults to a practice of concealment.

The head of the Freedom of Information and Privacy Association of British Columbia said at a committee hearing reviewing the Freedom of Information Act that FOI laws were meant to backstop a culture of openness, that the culture that would develop in government would be one where information would be routinely shared and regularly created. The information would be documented. He said that what was meant to be a culture of openness has become a culture of concealment. That’s what we see in the B.C. Liberal government. That’s what’s brought us here today. That’s what’s got us here.

You look back over the last little while and watch what’s happened to the people of B.C. and their rights to access to information. We can go all the way back to Premier Gordon Campbell’s deputy, Ken Dobell, who proudly answered a question about access to information by saying: “I just don’t write anything down. I like it better that way.” He was foreshadowing the ultimate behavior of this government that has become routine in itself, that the government is constantly found to be hiding information from the people.

You know, if the government released information that weren’t embarrassing to it, we would have long since understood what happened with B.C. Rail, what hap-

[ Page 14330 ]

pened in the scandalous sale of B.C. Rail. We didn’t find out, because the government paid off a settlement in court. But we didn’t find out subsequently because they refused to share information. Look at the firing of the health researchers several years ago in this province, a totally unfair act that ruined lives and, in fact, drove one of the health researchers, Roderick MacIsaac, to kill himself.

So this is indeed what’s brought us here, not the minister’s overwhelming concern for open government and the health of our democracy. It’s a response. It’s a weak-kneed response to continual criticism from officers of the Legislature about their poor and shoddy treatment of information access issues.

Look at the issue of the firing of the Premier’s former chief of staff, Ken Boessenkool. He was fired because of impropriety with a staff member, and there were no records. The head of the public service looked into that issue and found no records. That’s why we’re here, not because the minister is overwhelmingly concerned with democracy and the foundation of democracy, as he put it. He’s here, and this bill is here, because of embarrassment, because this government has finally been embarrassed into pretending that it’s taking action on this issue.

[1355]

There was the triple-delete scandal that led to the Information and Privacy Commissioner’s damming report entitled Access Denied . In the triple-delete scandal, it was found that government ministers and high-ranking bureaucrats were deleting, double-deleting and triple-deleting off the servers important records of the business of the B.C. government. In fact, with that scandal, it was only the good conscience of a bureaucrat named Tim Duncan….

He actually confirmed that he had been instructed to delete information, critical information, related to meetings that discussed the missing and murdered women along the Highway of Tears. What could be a more atrocious act than to suppress information about that issue?

That’s why we’re here: because the Information Commissioner found that the government had been wilfully destroying important documents — wilfully — and against the provisions of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. In fact, Mr. Duncan’s senior in his office took his computer from him and deleted the information when Mr. Duncan refused, and he said to him: “This is what we do. We do what it takes to win.”

That’s why we’re here. We have a government that does what it takes to win above all else, above any consideration of the public interest. This is the perfect example of that. That’s why we’re here. That’s why the government has been embarrassed at the 11th hour into bringing forward Bill 6, which is a wholly inadequate response to these issues.

We had the ethnic outreach scandal in the Premier’s office. Brian Bonney, one of the Premier’s staff at the time, was criminally charged. In that case, the government was wilfully avoiding freedom-of-information statutes by using private emails to avoid scrutiny. Calculated, purposeful behavior. The Premier of British Columbia, her office, wilfully evading what the minister says is the foundational piece of democracy. The minister said it himself. The minister created the context.

In fact, if we do respect the notion of open government, then I would have to agree with what the minister said — that it is, indeed, a foundation of democracy. But that doubly condemns the behavior of the B.C. Liberals when it comes to this issue.

Then we found out that the person in the Premier’s office responsible for FOI requests to the Premier’s office never records anything. He uses sticky-notes. Can you imagine? Can you imagine that the person responsible for freedom of information in the Premier’s office used only sticky-notes to record things and then quickly destroyed them? It seems impossible, but it’s true.

That’s why we’re here. We’re here not because this minister had such a concern for that foundation piece of democracy, but because these repeated misbehaviors by this government and condemnations by successive officers of the Legislature have driven the government, finally, in embarrassment, to pretend that they’re taking steps to create a duty to document.

We’ve got a government that has recently been in the news for putting a price on policy, for collecting donations from big donors and then writing policy in their interest. Do you think there’ll be a clear paper trail that FOI can discover to follow that bit of behavior? I doubt it. I doubt those documents were created, and I doubt they would be available if they were.

So we have a government that doesn’t want you to know what they’re doing, and they’ll go to great lengths to prevent you from knowing what’s going on. They won’t create records, so you can’t know what’s going on. If they do mistakenly create a record, they’ll do whatever they can to destroy that record. That is the record of the B.C. Liberal government when it comes to open government, access to information and recordkeeping.

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Since the act was passed in 1994, and up to 2015, there have been 50 amendments to the act. Of those 50 amendments to the act, zero were expanding openness. Zero expanded access for British Columbians.

Probably the worst of those, in terms of performance under FOI requirements, was that government rather cynically changed the time limitations on fulfilling a request from 30 calendar days to 30 working days, thereby giving themselves about 40 percent more time to answer a request, which immediately put us, in B.C., in last place in this country when it came to information access requests, according to the Canadian journalists association at the time. This is the record of the B.C. Liberals.

When you look at it, access to information is all about the people. Access to information and open government are about putting the people first. The government’s be-

[ Page 14331 ]

haviour is about putting the B.C. Liberals and the B.C. Liberal government ahead — putting them first, ahead of the people. We see a government that has received repeated recommendations to establish a duty to document, to move towards proactive disclosure and many other provisions that would increase access but has refused to do so over a very long period of time.

I co-chaired the committee which reviewed the Freedom of Information and Privacy Protection Act in 2010 and 2016. In both those cases, there were recommendations made to the committee that a duty to document must be established.

The reason for that is that so many requests for information from this government were coming back with the answer “no records exist.” That’s what first brought the attention of the Information and Privacy Commissioner — the growing frequency of requests answered by there being no responsive records. It seemed impossible. It was impossible, in fact, because what we found was that different requesters making the same request were getting information. Some were getting no information.

It was clear that either the government wasn’t being honest about what records existed, they didn’t know they existed, which is an archiving problem, or they had destroyed the documents, which is a problem of integrity in government. This is a government that has had so many challenges when it comes to integrity and honesty in its business and its conduct. People feel as though they do not know what’s happening in their government.

I’d like to talk a little bit about the definition of a “duty to document.” The duty to document is, essentially, according to the Information and Privacy Commissioner, a duty to create records that document key actions and decisions. It is not overly onerous. It is adaptable to a public body’s purpose and lines of business.

It must be expressly written into the Freedom of Information and Privacy Protection Act. That was the recommendation of the Information and Privacy Commissioner. Instead, the government is bringing a stand-alone bill that really does nothing to force government to create documents and, in any case, does not apply throughout the public service because it is being managed by the chief records officer. It is being brought as an amendment to the Information Management Act.

The Information Management Act only refers to core government, to ministries. If this government had followed the recommendations of the Information and Privacy Commissioner, they would have brought a duty to document as stand-alone legislation or, as we have recommended, accepted the recommendation from the Information and Privacy Commissioner that the duty to document be a part of the Freedom of Information and Privacy Protection Act so that the independent commissioner would have oversight over the issues of the creation of documents.

[1405]

Instead, the chief records officer, under the Information Management Act, is responsible to government, is not independent, does not report to this Legislature, reports only to government and serves at the whim of government. I’m sure most thinking, reasonable British Columbians would agree that it would be better for an independent officer of the Legislature to make decisions around what information British Columbians should have access to, not someone whose employment future depends on the whim of the minister that they are reporting to.

The recommendation around the duty to document included a recommendation on the oversight of the destruction of records, and there was a recommendation to create an offence and give the commissioner jurisdiction over these matters. That was ignored by a government that knows that if it did adopt that, it would be standing in its own trap because its behaviour is so abysmal when it comes to managing information.

When you think of some of the largest scandals in this government’s history…. There is a long list of them, and some of the biggest ones have a very interesting component that accompanies them, and that is a complete absence of record. This has been a problem since before I and you, Mr. Speaker, served in this House. It’s been a problem since the B.C. Liberals came to power.

We have a situation where the government has refused to acknowledge what it does and has done anything it can to cover that up and to prevent British Columbians from knowing it. Then contrast their record of managing information that’s embarrassing to them. I mean, try to get it. It’s impossible. It either wasn’t created, it’s been destroyed, or they won’t give it out.

Contrast that against their record on the protection of privacy of British Columbians. There was the education privacy breach which involved over three million student records, where their records were stored on a shelf in a warehouse, on a hard drive that wasn’t encrypted, that wasn’t even passworded. An unsecure location to store personal information, including financial information of parents, information about special needs, information about behavioural issues, information about the financial standing of families and other very, very personal issues.

That was just cavalierly lost in a warehouse. Stick it on the shelf. You know why? Because they didn’t want to pay $15,000 for that period of time to store that amount of information. Instead, they spent multiple millions having to track down 3½ million students and tell them that they, the B.C. Liberals, had breached their privacy.

That’s their standard of protecting information when it’s embarrassing to you. When it’s embarrassing to them, the record vaporizes. You’ll never see it.

We had the B.C. Lotteries website privacy breach, where the website went up and, the same day, was brought down. The minister responsible at the time, now the Housing Minister, said that the site crashed because it

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was so terribly popular. What happened? The individual players were able to access other players’ money, and the government had to bring down the system because of a privacy breach. Would they tell the truth about that? No.

There were the dumpster docs, where thousands of documents of people on assistance were found in a dumpster, an employee having taken them home and then thrown them away in a dumpster.

We had a fraud artist hired by this government who, on a false name, attained employment with the government and then took home and breached the records of thousands more British Columbians. This is the way they handle documents when they are in your interest, in the interests of the people of British Columbia.

When the documents are something that might embarrass the government, well, there’s a shredder for that, there’s a delete button for that or there’s a sticky-note for that. But the government will not acknowledge its responsibility and will not move to improve the situation of open governance in this province.

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We heard a submission to the committee reviewing the Freedom of Information and Privacy Protection Act from a woman named Laura Millar — not the famous Laura Miller of the B.C. Liberal Party but a person who is a very accomplished archivist. She said that there’s a need for a robust and cohesive set of requirements that apply to the whole of government throughout the entire life cycle of government records, from a duty to document through to archiving.

This points to the fact that if we don’t archive, if we don’t create the document, you can’t find it. If you don’t create it, FOI can’t find it. So we have to have a way to create documents. We have to have a duty to create documents — documenting not every piece of information of government, as the minister suggested, but the critical pieces, particularly those pieces that could be most embarrassing to government.

How will the judicial system make sense of issues that come before it, when it turns to government and asks them what was meant or what was done and the government says: “Well, we don’t know because there is no record”? Just think of the Ken Boessenkool affair and how that might have turned out had that wound up in the courts with no records, with no record of what happened.

These are the reasons we’re here. We’re not here because the minister had an epiphany and suddenly thought: “You know what? We need a duty to document in order to have integrity as a government.” No, we are here because they were embarrassed.

The ultimate insult in all of this is that this does not create any such thing as a duty to document. This is the Seinfeld bill. It’s about nothing. There is nothing in this bill that creates a legislated duty to document. It’s quite the opposite. In fact, there is less direct control over the creation of documents than there might have been had the government followed the recommendations of the 2010 committee or the 2016 committee or the recommendations of Mr. Loukidelis, when he reviewed the situation.

The minister indicates that we’re the first Canadian province to adopt a duty to document. Well, that’s just not true, because we haven’t done that. And we are not going to do that if we pass this bill. This is not a duty to document. This bill encourages government to document its business.

In the words of Vince Gogolek, the executive director of B.C.’s Freedom of Information and Privacy Association, this creates no duty on anybody. He goes on to say: “It’s not even half measures. A legal duty uses the words ‘must’ or ‘shall,’ not the word ‘may.’”

That’s what the government has done. It’s basically created a duty to document that says a head of a public body may require the creation of documents. This is in no way adequate. This has been condemned roundly by the Freedom of Information and Privacy Association, by the opposition, by journalists.

Mr. Speaker, I am the designated speaker on this bill.

I think of what British Columbians must think as they look at this government’s behaviour. They see their own government wilfully evading its own laws and wilfully and purposefully avoiding scrutiny of citizens and preventing citizens from what the government itself acknowledges is their own information that belongs to the people.

The minister indicated that the ministry is playing a leading role as trusted management of privacy and access. Well, we must remember this is coming from a government who has placed in responsibility a minister whose claim to fame on this issue was using personal emails to evade disclosing the salary bonus of a university executive he was responsible for as a board member of that university.

[1415]

That seems a little bit cheeky to me. You put somebody in charge of freedom of information whose claim to fame on the file is using personal emails to avoid scrutiny? Perhaps that’s congruent with the rest of the government’s behaviour. We’ve seen the minister himself proudly announce that he doesn’t use emails. So what kinds of records are being kept of the minister’s business?

We have the former deputy to Premier Campbell, as I said earlier, Mr. Dobell, confirming that he doesn’t write anything down. We have the person responsible for FOI in the Premier’s office saying: “I don’t write anything down. I use sticky-notes.”

That’s why we’re here. We’re not here because the minister acknowledges that freedom of information and access is a foundational piece of any democracy. We’re here because they’ve just been embarrassed one too many times, so they’re trying to pretend that they’re answering the calls of the stakeholders, of the Information and Privacy Commissioner and of the opposition. But they are falling far short.

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In fact, all the

definitions of duty to document have been offered to the government, and they’ve refused to act.

We have received recommendations that adopt this duty to demonstrate their commitment to public accountability in order to preserve the historical legacy of government decisions and as a key records management component of proactive disclosure programs. It’s been recommended by a number of participants in the process of review, when the special committees met to review the act. It’s been defined by Mr. Loukidelis. It’s been defined by Mr. Fraser. It’s been defined by Ms. Denham. It’s been defined by the current commissioner. And it’s been ignored every time by this government — ignored every time.

That’s the bottom line. That’s why we’re here. We’re here because the government has chosen to deny the recommendations of the committees and has chosen its own definition of a legislated duty to document, which falls far short.

So I have to ask myself: is the government serious? I have to ask myself: do they adopt this as a distraction? Do they adopt this as an excuse? Or do they adopt it in order to indicate to the people of B.C. that they do not endorse oral government, that they do not endorse sticky-note government, that they do not endorse the triple deletion of important government documents, that they do not endorse the evasions of the Premier of British Columbia in her office when it comes to freedom-of-information and access issues?

I hope that that’s what they mean: that they do not endorse the behaviour of their own government when it comes to protecting information. But I, sadly, fear that that is absolutely not what this bill will do.

With that, I will end my comments and express my disappointment that an issue that is so important to British Columbians, an issue that the minister has just pandered to in his remarks — that issue has not been worthy of an adequate response from this government.

They have failed to recognize the damage that they’ve done to the whole notion of open government in British Columbia. They fail to recognize, as Mr. Loukidelis said when he was commissioner, that failing to create records of government business puts the historical record of British Columbia at risk. Those were the words of a previous commissioner. The failure to document government business puts the historical record of British Columbia at risk.

How will people who sit in this House after we are all gone look back and decide why government did what it did, why decisions were made the way they were, when no documents were created? This bill does not create a duty to create documents. That is the problem with the bill.

This government has shown its absolute disrespect for the issue, and that remains unchanged. So unless the minister wants to accept some of the amendments that I’ll be bringing forward to improve this bill, then we will remain one of those provinces without a duty to document.

[1420]

Maybe he could dial up Newfoundland and look at the recommendation their commission put forward. It mirrors all the recommendations this government has received. It looks like they’ll be the first ones to actually institute a duty to document. British Columbia is not creating a duty to document; they’re recycling an excuse.

Hon. S. Anton: I have had the honour and pleasure of being the MLA for Vancouver-Fraserview and the Minister of Justice and Attorney General for the last four years, and I live in a different world than the member for Nanaimo–North Cowichan. His world is a world that is not occupied by any of the civil servants in our most impressive and illustrious bureaucracy. His world is a world where you want to beat up the people who do good work.

In fact, the professionalism of our staff — I’ll speak about the Ministry of Justice staff, because those are the ones that I have the most direct relationship with, of course — is remarkable. They bring in….

Interjections.

Hon. S. Anton: When the House is ready, Mr. Speaker.

Deputy Speaker: The minister has the floor.

Hon. S. Anton: The documentation of decisions is remarkably well done. It’s done in very detailed briefing notes which are signed off, if an important change, by the minister. Those….

Interjections.

Hon. S. Anton: There’s a real echo chamber over here, Mr. Speaker. It’s a little hard to hear.

Deputy Speaker: Continue, Minister.

Hon. S. Anton: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I guess they realize there’s no merit in their own position. And the other….

Interjections.

Deputy Speaker: Members, please come to order.

Hon. S. Anton: The other thing — a couple of other things — that I’m constantly impressed by is the ability to retrieve information. If I say, “What about X?” — something that happened in the past, or a matter that we dealt with in the past — the information is before me almost immediately. It’s a fantastic record of information and decision-making and a fantastic ability to bring up

[ Page 14334 ]

that information again, should it be needed. All of that is about recording information.

As I said, our bureaucracy, our civil service, really does a remarkable job in managing this information and keeping the important information. Let me say again that this is about important information. It’s not about trivial information. It’s not about lunch dates and minor things along the way. It’s about the duty to document a government body’s decision, and the goal is for key government decisions to be properly documented.

Is it enough, what we’re doing? Certainly, there were a number of recommendations made by Mr. Loukidelis in 2015. As the Minister of Finance mentioned a few minutes ago, 18 of those 27 have been addressed or partially addressed. This does two more things.

Interjections.

Hon. S. Anton: This is obviously bothering the members opposite quite a lot — that government is acting on the recommendations that we got from Mr. Loukidelis — but we are, as a matter of fact, in this bill, acting on two other things recommended by Mr. Loukidelis. The bill creates a legislated duty to document, and it enhances the oversight powers of the chief records officer.

This is, as I said, a different world than the one occupied by the member who spoke a moment ago. This is a government of robust decision-making, of well-documented decision-making and decision-making that is available to the public through a robust, highly functional freedom-of-information regime. I reject pretty much everything said in the member’s speech and, in particular — as is the habit of himself and his colleagues — the criticism, implied in his speech, of the professional civil service.

[1425]

In other words, our decision-making in government is made, in my case, through my deputy, through my ministry….

Interjections.

Deputy Speaker: Order, please.

Continue.

Hon. S. Anton: They clearly don’t like this very much. They clearly don’t like that government, the civil service, actually does a very good job of recording decisions and keeping decisions.

When he says things like, “Government doesn’t want you to know what they’re doing,” that is ridiculous. That’s a ridiculous assertion. We are so public in what we are doing, and there is such a good record kept of it. But how do we make sure that that recordkeeping has some oversight? That’s the purpose of the changes proposed in the Information Management Amendment Act, which adds the ability for the officer “to examine, evaluate and report on the management of government information by government bodies and to make recommendations considered advisable.”

The chief records officer obviously has a job to do here, which is to ensure that decision-making is properly recorded.

“The chief records officer may issue directives and guidelines to a government body in relation to a matter under this Act, including…(

a) the digitizing and archiving of government information; (

b) the effective management of information by the government body; (

c) the creation of records respecting the government information referred to in

section 19 (1.1)…including, without limitation, directives and guidelines respecting the types of records that constitute an adequate record of a government body’s decisions.”

In other words, every little trivial matter that is dealt with, one way or the other…. It’s not necessary to keep all that information. In fact, that can clutter things up when, in the future, you are — as the member referred to — trying to figure out why a decision was made. You want to have the important documentation in front of you which records not only why the decision was made but the decision itself. I agree with him. You need to have a good record of that. That, of course, is the purpose of this legislation proposed here today.

Public servants, in fact, are already required by government policy to ensure that adequate records are created of key decisions. They do this. Speaking, again, for my ministry — and I’m sure that I am safe to say this across all ministries — that’s what public servants do.

I know the member laughs. He thinks it’s funny. It’s part of the constant laughing and demeaning of our professional public service. I’m sorry that they like to do that on the other side of the House, but they should not. They should get out of that habit. It’s a very bad habit.

Interjections.

Deputy Speaker: Order, members.

Hon. S. Anton: A little echo chamber over there.

Creating a legislative requirement strengthens this requirement and extends the requirement to other government bodies listed in the Information Management Act regulation. This is not an expectation that there’s a record created on every small thing as a decision is made, but this requirement pertains to key business decisions.

The chief records officer will be mandated by this legislation to provide guidance to government bodies as they prepare to meet this new legislative requirement.

Of course this is in the Information Management Act. This is not part of freedom of information. We have a very robust freedom-of-information regime in government, and that is a related — I grant you — but separate matter. This is about the information which is created, not about how it is given out to the public on request or how it is put on the government website.

[ Page 14335 ]

The Information Management Act is the ideal statute to do this duty to document, because it sets out requirements for the life cycle of government records, which begins — in this case, in what we’re dealing with today — with the creation of those records.

The legislation already requires government to retain records related to key business decisions, and adding this duty to document to the Information Management Act will ensure that all legislative obligations respecting the life cycle of records will be contained in a single piece of legislation and fall under the oversight of the chief records officer. Why the members opposite have a problem with that proposition is entirely beyond me.

This approach is consistent with all of the jurisdictions outside of Canada that have legislated a duty to document. Of course, once again, in British Columbia, we are ahead of the pack, and we are the first province in Canada to legislate this particular duty to document.

[1430]

This will enhance the oversight powers of the chief records officer, who will be better equipped to enhance compliance and support government’s role as the trusted steward of the public’s information. As recommended by Mr. Loukidelis and the commissioner, this flexible approach enables government bodies to implement the requirement in a manner most suitable to their operations, organizational structure and record holdings.

This is part of our commitment to open governance. It enhances compliance with best practices and information management. It helps improve the way the province manages valuable information on behalf of its citizens. As I said, it is a first in Canada — duty to document, duty to record decisions.

The one thing I do agree with the member opposite on is that history is important. It is important for all of us to be able, now, to go back and see how decisions were made so that the historical record is there and so that…. From time to time, the legal record is needed as well. All of those records are properly created, properly stored and properly kept so that we can go back whenever necessary and see the record of not only the decision but how it was made. That record is consistently and properly kept in government for the benefit of us right now, for the benefit of the province of British Columbia both now and into the future.

So needless to say, I am totally in support of the Information Management (Documenting Government Decisions) Amendment Act, 2017.

K. Corrigan: I was so glad to be enlightened and corrected by the Minister of Justice, who says that we’re not living in the same world, that we’re living in a different universe and talks about us criticizing staff. It is the minister who is not living in this world.

I’ll quote from the Information and Privacy Commissioner, an independent office of this province. The commissioner, Elizabeth Denham, is so well esteemed in her field that we lost her, unfortunately, and she went to the U.K.

Interjection.

K. Corrigan: I wasn’t blaming anybody. She went to U.K. because she was so highly esteemed.

Interjections.

K. Corrigan: Well, she may have had twice the salary, but don’t look for criticism when it’s not there. There’s plenty of criticism to go around.

[R. Lee in the chair.]

The Information and Privacy Commissioner went to the U.K. She was so highly respected that we lost her here because she took another job — just to be clear.

Here’s what the Information and Privacy Commissioner said about this government. We are not throwing staff under the bus. Listen to what the commissioner said. She said, with regard to destruction of documents or not creating documents:

“I am deeply disappointed by the practices our investigation uncovered. I would have expected that staff in ministers’ offices and in the Office of the Premier” — the head of this government —”would have a better understanding of records management and their obligation to file, retain and provide relevant records when an access request is received….This investigation uncovered major issues that require immediate action. In order to address the very serious issues uncovered in this report, I have recommended that government make a technical fix to stop employees from permanently deleting emails. I have also called for mandatory training and records management.”

That is about as much of an emergency as somebody like an independent officer of this Legislature can call. That is about as emergent as anything and as serious a criticism as I have ever heard from an independent officer of this Legislature — an officer who’s highly respected.

[1435]

I’ll put it in a slightly less careful way. Here’s what Rob Shaw said about it:

“A long line of critics, most notably B.C.’s freedom-of-information commissioner, says the real problem” — and he was talking about the B.C. government — “is a pervasive culture of avoiding transparency within the government’s political arm, a lack of ethical leadership by the Premier, and a small army of mostly young political loyalists whose futures are tied to the success of the party and, despite working in taxpayer-paid positions, consider it their top job to protect their ministers.”

He was paraphrasing and rephrasing what the Information and Privacy Commissioner and others said about this government.

So for the Minister of Justice to suggest that we are somehow off the wall, out of this universe, when we criticize the behaviour and express concern about this pathetic attempt to get rid of criticism about their record…. To try, at the last minute, yet again, before an election, to

[ Page 14336 ]

bring in the bare minimum of what they could do…. To criticize us is actually pretty entertaining, I think.

Actually, this move to bring in what is called a “duty to document….” I was pretty excited when I heard that there was going to be a duty to document, because I sat with the member for Nanaimo–North Cowichan on the Committee to Review the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. It was a non-partisan committee.

We made dozens of recommendations, one of the centrepieces of which was the duty to document. We worked for months. It was recommendation No.2 and certainly one of the paramount recommendations. We worked very hard on both sides. Members from both sides. With the help of fabulous staff, we thought that we came up with a pretty good report. But it certainly was after and in recognition of this culture that I’ve just described — the fact that this government does not document properly, does not provide information, has blocked information and has had past practices that are inconsistent with the spirit to be open and transparent.

So that’s what the Privacy Commissioner said.

As I said, I was pretty excited when I saw that there was going to be legislation that said: “Duty to document.” I was talking to people about it, and they said: “No, there is no duty to document.” This is typical of this government. This is, yet again, an attempt to try to do something just before an election. To be able to say one thing when in fact they’re doing the opposite — doing absolutely nothing.

The press release from the Minister of Finance was: “B.C. will become the first Canadian province to legislate a duty to document.” That was the announcement. “A legislated duty to document means public services will have to create records that document the key business decisions of government. Inclusion in the Information Management Act also will extend this legal requirement to the government bodies listed in the legislation.”

Without reading the act, I thought that that sounded pretty good, because one of our recommendations…. It almost always gets ignored every time we have one of those committees, every five years or so…. I thought it was great that we were going to have this duty to document. But really happened?

If you take a look at what is actually in the act…. I couldn’t even find exactly what

section it was. I kept looking for the

section that says “duty to document” — that there would be a mandatory duty to document decisions and information of government. Well, the first

section — the old

section 3 — was changed to add that the chief records officer’s mandate was to include examining, evaluating and reporting on the management of government information and “to make recommendations considered advisable.” No duty to document there.

[1440]

“The chief records officer may issue” — may; not must — “directives and guidelines to a government body in relation to a matter under this Act, including…the creation….” One of the items listed is the creation of records respecting the government information. That is not a duty to document. That is a discretionary power to require that there be information created, or creating guidelines and directives.

When you say “may,” that is discretionary. That does not require anything. When you say “must,” that means you have to do it. This is permissive; it is not mandatory. So there is no mandatory duty to document.

I have another concern as well. The power has been given to the chief records officer. The chief records officer is not an independent officer of the Legislature of British Columbia. The chief records officer reports to a minister, to the Minister of Technology, Innovation and Citizens’ Services. The chief records officer, or the chief information officer, is an employee of the government. The chief records officer or information officer can be hired and fired.

I’m not suggesting that the officer would be hired or fired as a result of doing or not doing what the minister of the day wanted. But when we have, through this report, a demonstrated history of a government which flaunts access to information, which intentionally did not follow the rules — intentionally denied access to information, intentionally destroyed records….

When you have that history, you want to do everything that you can, in a piece of legislation, to (1) ensure that the duty is mandatory, and that is not the case in this legislation; and (2) give the power to oversee that duty to document and to create records and to preserve records. You want to make sure that that power is with somebody that has independence from this Legislature and this government, which does not have a good history in this regard. I am concerned that this power has been given to the chief information officer. It was called the records officer. I think it’s the chief information officer. The name has been changed.

The Information and Privacy Commissioner agreed. I sat on the committee, as I mentioned earlier. I sat on the special committee of this Legislature to review the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. We took a really close look at this issue of duty to document.

We produced a report, just a little less than a year ago, May of 2016, Report of the Special Committee to Review the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act . The duty to document was raised by many, many of those who made submissions, including government. Certainly, it was raised by the Information and Privacy Commissioner in her submission.

It was also a recommendation that had been made by the same Information and Privacy Commissioner in her October 2015 investigation report, Access Denied: Record Retention and Disposal Practices of the Government of British Columbia . I read a few quotes from that at the beginning, the Privacy Commissioner expressing her deep

[ Page 14337 ]

disappointment by the practices that their investigation uncovered.

I think it’s interesting that the name is called Access Denied . That’s pretty flamboyant, I guess — or strong; flamboyant wouldn’t be the right word. That’s a very strong name — Access Denied . The Privacy Commissioner was saying her findings were that access was denied to citizens of British Columbia who made access requests.

[1445]

The recommendation of the Privacy Commissioner is that “government should create a legislative duty to document within FIPPA” — the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act — “as a clear indication that it does not endorse ‘oral government’ and that it is committed to be accountable to citizens by creating an accurate record of its key decisions and actions.”

Contrary to what the minister said, who laughed when it was suggested from this side that the duty to document should be within FIPPA and who said, “Of course, it has to be in the records management act,” that very respected Privacy Commissioner disagreed and thought it was not only appropriate but also the right thing to do to put it in the Freedom of Information Act.

We on both sides of the House agreed with that and put it in as a very short recommendation but, as my colleague pointed out, in recommendation 2, “add a duty to document” to the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. It did not say “add a duty to create directives and have a permissive power put in the records management act to be overseen by an employee of this government.” That is not what we suggested. It’s not what the freedom-of-information commissioner recommended, and it’s certainly not what, with the exception of government, several other bodies recommended.

I’m going to explain, give a reason…. It’s a bit of a technical thing, but I think it’s important. The commissioner, in her submission, indicated why she thought it would be preferable to have the duty to document being added to FIPPA rather than the Information Management Act. She said:

“While I have previously stated that a duty to document could be placed in information management legislation, there are compelling reasons why FIPPA should contain this requirement. The Information Management Act only applies to ministries and designated government agencies,

whereas the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act applies to all public bodies. Further, there is an integral connection between the duty to document and access rights. Last, the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act contains the oversight framework that is needed to ensure that the duty to create and retain records has the appropriate oversight.”

So not a laughing matter, not something from another universe, not something from people who have no idea what’s going on in the world. It is the recommendation that the all-party committee made and that the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act made.

You can certainly understand why we on this side are disappointed to hear that we have this watered-down version of what we thought the duty to document was going to be, what the legislation was going to be. As I said before, I believe that this is simply so that the B.C. Liberals can get one more thing off — another tick box they can have before the election and claim…. Most people, they know, don’t necessarily look too closely. They can simply claim that they care about access to information, that everything has changed — that they don’t have a culture of delete, delete, delete anymore, because look, they have a duty to document.

Here’s what the Freedom of Information and Privacy Association said in a media release. This association is concerned about access to information and protection of privacy, and that is their sole mandate. That is what they are concerned about, and they take it very seriously. Vince Gogolek is their executive director. He’s a very dedicated citizen of British Columbia.

[1450]

Here’s what they said a few days ago: “The bill introduced this afternoon by the Finance Minister is a sad excuse for action on creating a duty to document government decisions. Despite demands from the B.C. Freedom of Information and Privacy Association, the Information Commissioner’s office and the recommendations of a special legislative committee, the B.C. government has introduced a law that is entirely discretionary and does not create any duty whatsoever.”

And a quote from Vince Gogolek: “What the minister is proposing is a pathetic excuse for a response to massive pressure for action on this issue…. A legal duty uses the words ‘must’ or ‘shall,’ not the word ‘may.’”

He goes on to say that in the wake of the triple-delete scandal and recommendations from the B.C. Information and Privacy Commissioner, the Freedom of Information and Privacy Association and many others, including a special legislative committee, recommended the creation of a legislative duty to document to ensure that government records are created and maintained. “The bill introduced today does no such thing, merely giving the chief information officer the discretion to bring in ‘directives and guidelines’ on the creation of adequate records.

Further, the Information Commissioner will not be able to review any of these decisions, contrary to the recommendations of the special legislative committee.” From my perspective, this is entirely inadequate.

I want to remind people where this came from. The main impetus for this, for Commissioner Denham to do an investigation, was the fact that there had been several complaints about the treatment of applicants and what had happened with information that had been applied for under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.

I want to do a really quick timeline of the main issue in this. It involved a gentleman, Tim Duncan, who actually came to our caucus deeply troubled by what he had witnessed as a faithful staffer. We talk about whether or

[ Page 14338 ]

not we respect the staff. Here is a man who was highly ethical, and what happened to him tore him apart and ended up with him leaving government, largely because he was so disturbed by the behaviour that he saw of this government in a particular instance.

In 2014, Ministry of Transportation staff held meetings with 80 communities and First Nations leaders along the Highway of Tears to discuss transportation options. In late 2014, we filed an FOI request for records related to those meetings. The request was extended twice.

Frankly, my experience, from my many years before I came to this Legislature, was that one way to deny requests is to delay requests. You can deny, you can add…. I think my colleague talked about the fact that one of the things this government did was to change the requirement to respond to a request from 30 calendar days to 30 working days. Then if you add on the top that you get another 30 days in order to contact third parties, and if you add on top of that another 30 working days — always working days — because you say that it’s too difficult to get things together, you can go months before you get a response to a request.

An Hon. Member: Years.

K. Corrigan: Years and years, if there are appeals and denials — if there’s a denial of the information or if they say there are no records, which is what happened in some of the investigations of the Privacy Commissioner. That was my experience when I worked making requests before I became an MLA — repeated systemic denials that we believed were simply so that we wouldn’t get hold of the information.

So the request was extended twice. In February, we received a “no records” response to our request. Then finally, we criticized government for this, and we received heavily severed records.

[1455]

Then Tim Duncan wrote us in May of 2015, outlining the serious concerns he had with the government’s handling of FOI requests. And he said to us that when he was an EA in the Minister of Transportation’s office, when that 2014 Highway of Tears request was received, he was instructed to delete emails related to this FOI by ministerial assistant George Gretes. He also said that deleting records is a widespread practice in this Liberal government. That’s why this investigation started in May of 2015.

There were several other complaints, several other requests, including a request for information from the Premier’s office. I recall reading a report that the Premier’s office had a record number — and increasing since the present Premier came to the office — of responses to applications that no records existed. When further requests were made, the Privacy Commissioner decided that she would look at that, as well as the Advanced Education Ministry’s handling of requests.

The report was scathing, as I’ve said earlier. The report verified Tim Duncan’s story, despite members — who are sitting in this Legislature now — laughing at us and telling us once again that we were being outlandish and unfounded and so on. The report verified Tim Duncan’s story. In fact, George Gretes was charged and has pleaded guilty.

There is a large and a long background of behaviour described as systemic behaviour, a culture that was the reason for her report and, certainly, for our concern. For the reasons for my concern about that culture, which….

Every time the B.C. Liberals get caught for doing something egregious, get caught for a culture of denial, for a culture of avoiding transparency within government, they do something minor, often, like this and create a pathetic little duty to document, which really isn’t a duty to document. Usually right before an election, they’ll take some kind of action and then go on until we hit the next scandal. I’m sure we’ll have…. Well, maybe not. We’re pretty close to an election. Maybe we’re done with the scandals.

Anyways, for that reason, I’ve got to say that I’m terribly disappointed in this legislation. Particularly after the good work done on both sides of the House on the review of the act, I had hoped that out of that would come some real action. To me, actually, the most important recommendation was the duty to document. This is not a duty to document. For that reason, I’m certainly very disappointed.

I’m looking forward to the amendments that my colleague from Nanaimo–North Cowichan is going to be bringing forward. I think that with that, I will take my seat.

Hon. A. Wilkinson: Before I embark on a review of the Information Management Act and its merits, I just want to make a quick remark about my former critic, the member for Burnaby–Deer Lake, who just spoke and who did an admirable job, although I hope to think not terribly effective as my critic in Advanced Education. She carried herself with dignity and aplomb and always proved to be a person that one could do business with. I thank her for her contributions to the House over these many years that she has served.

[1500]

Now this act, of course, is amending existing legislation which was first considered when I was the Minister of Technology, Innovation and Citizens’ Services. The issue that came to mind was how to manage electronic information into the future, because this government had not fully addressed the legislative basis for managing large data files, which accumulate with remarkable speed in government. A government maintains very large data files in off-site data storage facilities and data centres. Of course, the issue becomes how they can be properly maintained so that they don’t simply become a garbage dump.

[ Page 14339 ]

This piece of legislation, the Information Management (Documenting Government Decisions) Amendment Act, provides for a mechanism for cataloguing that information in a way to determine which of those documents are important to document particular decisions having been made. This, of course, requires the chief records officer to address the issue with directives and guidelines so that those electronic records can be maintained over time.

Of course, this takes us back into the history of the public service — which, when this building was put together in about 1898, was in the early days of the typewriter. There was still a lot of handwritten documentation at that time. It accumulated in files that some of us have had the pleasure of seeing, which are essentially almost inaccessible. They’re in the nature of archives which are generally uncatalogued. Those became rapidly unmanageable, and government developed file management systems to deal with all the paper documents.

That continued until about 1985, when computers came into widespread use. Of course at the time, they weren’t networked. Each computer had its own memory, whether they were floppy disks or hard drives, and those discrete documents were created in abundance in the 1980s until network systems became available in the 1990s — which allowed centralized storage of documents, although there was still documentation on individual computers. This created its own management problem, in that the proliferation of information on these machines made it very difficult to archive them in any meaningful way.

Coming into this century, we have been fortunate to have cloud computing and centralized data storage, because we can now search those drives and search the information for meaningful documents. Nonetheless, if one is looking retrospectively, it can be looking for a needle in a haystack.

The important feature of this act is that it will create the opportunity to have clear directives and guidelines provided by the chief records officer, who will then determine the importance of digitizing and archiving of government information and the effective management of that information by a government body. That has been pointed out to be an essential service — by the Attorney General, in her presentation about the need to archive our records.

In some cases, this is done more or less automatically with major decisions such as Treasury Board or cabinet, but that is, in so many ways, a legacy of the old paper world, because documents are produced as if they were to be on paper. The more modern electronic world requires a much more subtle approach, in that decisions may be documented in an electronic format. That is, indeed, the role of the civil service.

In my time as a deputy minister about 15 years ago — I served in that role for almost five years — it was one of our core functions to make sure that the documentation of government, in terms of government expenditure and government decisions, was properly documented.

That goes back now 17 years. We still find ourselves in the situation where the civil service takes a remarkably responsible and coherent approach to documenting decision-making. It may not be obviously apparent to the general public or to a freedom-of-information requester. Nonetheless, the work is done. It’s really a matter of making it readily accessible, which is exactly what this act anticipates in providing for these directives and guidelines to be put together by the chief records officer so that we will have the ability to essentially tag and label the decision-making process in government, to establish that the documentation does exist.

My own experience is that there is abundant documentation of decisions. This is not a matter of the issue never having been addressed — it’s been addressed for 130 years — but the issue is finding those documents. This new amendment will do exactly that by providing, in

section 5, to amend

section 19, that “the head of a government body is responsible for ensuring that an appropriate system is in place within the government body for creating and maintaining, in accordance with applicable directives or guidelines” issued under

section 6(1), and that there is “an adequate record of that government body’s decisions.”

I am fully confident that this happens already, but as I say, it’s merely a matter of being able to find these records in a timely fashion and to have them designated or flagged as records of decision.

[1505]

Now clearly, some discretion is required here on the part of the chief records officer, because the nature of decision-making and the nature of documentation changes over time. It has changed dramatically over the last 30 years. Once we’ve got this in legislation, it needs to be flexible to provide for changing environments and new recordkeeping techniques. That is anticipated here in that the chief records officer can make those decisions, anticipate change in developments, and be in a position to provide a flexible and effective system of recordkeeping and archiving.

That is where we come to the issue of the discretion of the chief records officer to determine what is truly transitory. If a meeting changes from the Oak Room to the Cedar Room, there is no need to flag or record that, because it is simply a transitory record somewhere in someone’s Outlook about having changed the meeting. That could be deemed to be a decision if a rigid set of rules were put into place, and it would be a complete and utter waste of time and money to document that move.

At the other end of the spectrum, we of course have already the budgetary and Treasury Board decision-making processes that are extensively documented, as I said earlier, as if they were still conducted on paper.

In the middle, there is a vast spectrum of decision-

[ Page 14340 ]

making by statutory decision-makers, by ministers, by suitable members of the senior civil service and also right down to the functional level, at the client interface that this government operates extensively. Increasingly, that interface is on the Internet rather than in person, so flexible directives that anticipate those changes must be brought into play. That is the role of the chief records officer.

There has been the suggestion that this should be built into the freedom-of-information legislation. In my encounters with Elizabeth Denham, when she was our freedom-of-information guru, that was a school of thought that she thought might be productive because it was legislation that she was responsible for. But I’m comfortable that if she were here today, she would view this legislation as being entirely appropriate and certainly in keeping with her requests of me at the time as minister. Here we are, less than a couple of years later, and we have it going to legislation.

I have to speak thoroughly in support of this piece of legislation. This amendment is a highly functional and desirable piece of legislation. It brings us into the modern age to keep up with the avalanche of electronic information that we now face. It’s my pleasure to speak in support of it.

S. Robinson: I rise today to speak to Bill 6, Information Management (Documenting Government Decisions) Amendment Act, 2017.

I have some very serious concerns about this piece of legislation that’s here before us in the House. It’s also known as the duty to document piece of legislation.

I have to say how disappointed I was, when I got elected, about the fact that this didn’t exist already. I mean, I come from a professional background. I’m a family therapist. I have a professional duty to document. I’ve had to keep case notes. I have to keep reports. I have to keep them for seven years, and I have to be able to retrieve them, because that’s what you do when you’re a professional. You document.

I also worked in the social service industry for many, many years. It’s an industry — certainly in the non-profit sector — that receives government funding. In fact, this government funds a whole bunch of social service agencies that I worked at over the years. The amount of documentation that we were required to do to demonstrate to this government that we were accountable, that we were transparent and that we were using these public resources to meet a requirement and the goals that were set out for us…. The volume of paper that we had to complete was quite substantial. We were given a duty to document.

If we made decisions as an organization, we would have the details of who was there and how the decisions came to be made. Then we had to store it, and we had to keep it for a number of years. That’s what a duty to document is.

Well, here we have a situation where a government got caught. They got caught because they were triple-deleting. They were getting rid of evidence. They were getting rid of information about what they were doing or what they weren’t doing.

[1510]

It was based on the fact that people wanted to know what was going on around Highway 16. There was this culture of: “Well, let’s just get rid of the evidence. Let’s just get rid of the documentation about what we’ve been doing so that we don’t have to report it.”

When you have a culture of triple-deleting…. I don’t even know how to triple-delete. I can double-delete, but I can’t triple-delete. I don’t know how to do that.

Then it became this really big scandal about how this government’s culture of not being transparent became a problem and resulted in having to develop some legislation that says that they have a duty to document. Then we get a hold of this piece of legislation, and it falls short. It falls short because there’s all this discretionary “they may do this” and “you may do that.” That kind of discretion…. The minister who spoke earlier talked about needing to make sure that there’s flexibility. Well, you can have all kinds of flexibility around that when you may do this or you may do that. It means that you don’t have to. You don’t have to.

When you have the B.C. Information and Privacy Commissioner and others who recommend legislation to document and ensure that the government records are created and maintained and then a bill that doesn’t quite hit the mark, that’s a problem. When you have the B.C. Freedom of Information and Privacy Association say, “What the minister is proposing is a pathetic excuse for a response to massive pressure for action on this issue” and “A legal duty uses the words ‘must’ or ‘shall,’ not the word ‘may,’” I think you have a problem.

I think you have a very weak piece of legislation that doesn’t quite hit the mark. I would expect, given the triple-delete scandal, that this government would put together some very strong language to make sure that it holds itself accountable, because right now I don’t believe that British Columbians trust what this government is doing, especially when you put in weak language like “may.” When you do that, it means that you have lots of wiggle room. It means that you don’t have to do anything. And it calls into question: why bother with this at all?

As a professional counsellor, I wasn’t given the option of “you may write notes” or “you may keep a report.” It was really clear. I’m required to keep notes. I’m required to document. I’m required to keep track of dates. I’m required to keep reports. I’m required to report out on them. I’m required to keep them for seven years. You follow the rules. But when you have a may, a wishy-washy may, you don’t have a rule. You have a suggestion. You have a guideline.

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Given this government’s history with triple delete, I would suggest that they very seriously consider some of the amendments that are going to be proposed, because I think that will strengthen this piece of legislation. I look forward to hearing the rest of the debate.

R. Sultan: As I see it, Bill 6 is a short bill with big consequences. It will impose upon our government the duty to document. If government makes important decisions, it must document how it reached those decisions. It cannot simply say: “Here it is. Like it or lump it.” They are now legally obligated to document, as I see the

interpretation of the bill, how they got there.

Two sections of Bill 6, taken together, impose the duty to document. The first of these sections,

section 5, spells out the duty to document itself: “…the head of a government body is responsible for ensuring that an appropriate system is in place within the government body for creating and maintaining” — and I underline that phrase “and maintaining” — “…government information that is an adequate record of that government body’s decisions.”

I take the words “creating and maintaining” as being a firm directive to the head of a government body to neither destroy, erase, expunge nor otherwise obliterate government information.

[1515]

The second of these sections,

section 2, gives the chief records officer of the government the authority to guide, which I take as a gentle word actually meaning to instruct, direct or order government bodies on implementing this provision effectively. In other words, in my

interpretation, the chief records officer is expected by this legislation to be the cop who exercises oversight and ensures compliance.

What does all of this add up to? The government asserts that passage of this amendment will make British Columbia the first jurisdiction in Canada to legislate a duty to document. I think this is a significant shift in the definition of responsibilities, duties and accountabilities within government.

Governments ignore such public concerns at their peril, but addressing them can also imperil good public policy, in my view, because flooding the data marketplace without limit has its problems. Let me tell you about my first disillusionment with government data without limit.

I wanted to get to the root source of key pricing information on the electrical industry in the United States for academic research, which occupied more years of my life than it should have. I travelled to Washington, D.C., to find the details and the source. I was directed to a large warehouse on the outskirts of town, about the size of an unused airplane hangar, where behind chicken wire, was the source of the data I sought. Stacks and stacks of paper, 15 or 20 feet high, were spilling over the floor, resembling a trash transfer station.

That’s what it was — trash. I have never had quite the same confidence in American economic data ever since. Every month more paper kept arriving, but nobody did anything about it.

Fast-forward to the computer age and, as the member for Vancouver-Quilchena pointed out, one of the motivations for this bill, the fact that the data world has indeed changed. Not necessarily for the better, I might interject.

We learned recently that Microsoft has transferred one of its data storage clouds to Canada — Quebec, actually. Microsoft now has 22 cloud regions, we read, supporting 90 countries. Microsoft probably has well over 300 petabytes of data storage around the world right now.

A petabyte is a multiple of the unit byte used for digital information measurement. The prefix “peta” indicates the fifth power of 1,000 and implies ten to the 15th power. So what is one petabyte? Well, it’s one quadrillion bytes. Got that? Good.

The point is that whether we are talking about health records or legal precedents or government rule-making, information creation and storage are exploding. How, then, can ordinary citizens exercise their right of access to information so they can, in turn, exercise their obligations in democracy to be informed of what government is up to and pass judgment on it?

Clearly, the information is growing at a faster rate than our citizens’ capacity to either access it or understand it. What’s the solution, therefore? The answer must lie in selection and triage of information. It is in the determination of just what is the factual and analytical basis of key decisions which is very important. The rest may be dismissed as the chaff of civilization.

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Accordingly, if we are to make available to citizens the information basis of the decisions which are important, somebody who understands the big picture must decide what those big decisions were and the information basis which was critical, including key arguments invoked in reaching them. Somebody must exercise judgment.

That’s what Bill 6 is about. Mr. Loukidelis, in his report on information and privacy management, said the government should consider introducing a general — and I underline the word “general” — legislative duty to document, with the details to be worked out in policy at the ministry or program level.

This is not quite the absence of discretion or rules that the member who spoke just prior to myself referred to. We’re talking about a very general approach, and working things out on the fly, as you might say. We are talk-

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ing about general rules and intentions. We are not talking about specific directives or details. We are talking, as well, about creating a culture of disclosure of the key things but, disappointing to some, not the specifics.

Will this satisfy those who want specific rules for this and that in fine detail, backed up by microdata? No. Will it lead to a solid, never-shifting benchmark against which information disclosure and confidentiality rules can be measured? Unfortunately, the answer, again, must be no.

The realities of big data in our ever more complex world, in our ever more complex $50 billion enterprise called the B.C. government, in our abilities to grasp the big picture and sort out what is highly relevant and what is merely static, means the environment is constantly changing. What is important changes over time, and we are forced to entrust a significant portion of information categorization and triage to those who know what it all means. And what it means evolves over time.

This can be disquieting to those who demand to see it all, raw and in the flesh, unedited, right now. One leader in this House asserts that the public needs to know why decisions are made, including who is influenced and who is consulted on decisions. That is true. But in judging who exactly those persons and those arguments were, we have become reliant, in our complex world, upon the judgments of those actually engaged, whom we trust to be forthcoming. That is the spirit of Bill 6. That’s the underlying premise of the reality of the world we live in. I support Bill 6.

Deputy Speaker: Seeing no more speakers, the minister closes the debate.

Hon. R. Coleman: Seeing no more speakers, we would call the second reading debate vote.

Motion approved.

Hon. R. Coleman: I move that the bill be referred to a Committee of the Whole House for the next sitting of the House after today.

Bill 6, Information Management (Documenting Government Decisions) Amendment Act, 2017, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.

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Hon. R. Coleman: I call second reading debate on Bill 4, intituled Election Amendment Act, 2017.

BILL 4 — ELECTION

AMENDMENT ACT, 2017

Hon. S. Anton: I move that Bill 4 now be read a second time.

This bill would add an extra layer of transparency and timeliness to British Columbia’s election financing system by requiring major political parties, candidates and constituency associations to report political contributions on a biweekly basis. The bill would also create new reporting requirements for contributions received through ticketed admissions and sponsorships of fundraising functions.

Currently the act requires political parties and constituency associations to file annual disclosure reports, and parties and candidates also must file financing reports following an election. Those reporting requirements will not change. What will change for all political parties, candidates and constituency associations is a new, lower threshold for reporting political contributions from an individual donor. Currently that threshold is one or more contributions that, in total, are greater than $250. The bill would lower the reporting threshold to over $100.

The most significant aspect of the new bill is the requirement for major political entities to report such contributions from a contributor within 14 days of receiving them. This change would greatly shorten the time between a contribution being made and the contribution being reported. At present, under the act, the public is able to see who has made contributions only when annual reports and election financing reports are filed, which, in most cases, is many months after the contribution has been received.

Added transparency also comes with the requirement for the Chief Electoral Officer to publish these new disclosure reports as soon as practicable, and explicit authorization to publish them on the Internet.

These new 14-day reporting provisions will apply to major political actors as follows. Firstly, political parties. Political parties must report if they have membership on the Election Advisory Committee or if they raise more than $50,000 in a calendar year. The Election Advisory Committee is made up of representatives from political parties that have elected Members of the Legislative Assembly or that had registered candidates in more than half of the electoral districts in the most recent general election.

Candidates must report if they represent a political party that is on the Election Advisory Committee or if they raise more than $10,000 in relation to their candidacy. Constituency associations must report if they represented a political party that is on the Election Advisory Committee, if they raise more than $10,000 in a calendar year or if they are a constituency association for an independent Member of the Legislative Assembly.

In short, we are exempting those parties, candidates and constituency associations that do not raise significant funds. In our view, it would be unnecessarily onerous for them to track and report contributions in the same manner as major political actors, who are presumed to have the necessary staff and infrastructure to comply

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with these new, time-sensitive requirements. We believe the public interest in real-time reporting is far higher for political entities that are represented in the Legislative Assembly and who are receiving significant contributions.

The amendments include significant penalties for late filing. First, there is a late filing fee proposed of $100 if a contribution is not reported within 28 days of the filing deadline. Then, if the contribution is not reported by the end of the late filing, the penalty is half the amount of the contribution if it is reported before the date the next annual or election financing report is due. After that, the penalty is the entire amount of the contribution.

I should note that these fees and penalties apply to each contribution, so a lack of timeliness and diligence by a political party, candidate or constituency association will quickly add up. The Chief Electoral Officer will be publishing notice of any reporting entity that has contravened the filing deadlines.

With these changes, British Columbia would join Ontario as the only two jurisdictions in Canada who require reporting of political contributions in such a short time frame. I note that Ontario’s rules apply only to political parties and leadership contestants.

[1530]

The amendments in this bill would also require more information to be reported about political contributions received at fundraising functions. Specifically, contributions greater than $100 would need to identify whether they were because of a sponsorship or a ticket price to enter a function and the time, date and place of that function. For major political parties, candidates and constituency associations, this information would need to be reported within 14 days of depositing the contribution.

Further, major political parties would be required to post information on their websites about past fundraisers. This permits the public to see, in short order, who donated, how much and at which fundraising event.

Political parties, candidates and constituency associations who do not fit the definition of “major” would still need to report this new information but only in the annual financing reports and election financing reports that they are currently required to file.

This is a significant change. No other province requires this level of timeliness and transparency over contributions received at fundraising functions.

These amendments also provide explicit authority for the Chief Electoral Officer to post the information contained in the 14-day disclosure reports, as well as other financing reports, on the Internet. The act already provides for the public availability of this information, but in keeping with language in other provincial statutes respecting public information on the Internet, these amendments clarify that authority for the Chief Electoral Officer.

Finally, the amendments will be brought into force by regulation and will provide for a transition period. The purpose of this approach is to ensure that Elections B.C. has the necessary time to complete systems upgrades and to educate potential reporting entities about their new responsibilities under the act.

G. Holman: As the spokesperson for democratic reform and the MLA for Saanich North and the Islands, I’m very pleased to speak to this legislation.

Unless there are major changes to this bill, we on this side of the House don’t really view it as a serious attempt to get at the root of the problem here that has been identified in British Columbia, which is the undue influence of political donations from corporations, unions and wealthy individuals.

As one of our caucus members put it, this bill does many things; it doesn’t really ban big money from politics, and that’s the primary problem that we’ve got to deal with in this province.

As the minister indicated, the bill defines, for major political parties, the new rules that would apply to them. And political parties are those receiving over $50,000 in contributions annually or having a representative on the Election Advisory Committee.

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

It lowers the threshold for reporting political contributions from a single contributor from $250 to $100, and it requires reporting contributions to major political parties, candidates and constituency associations within 14 days of their deposit, including the nature of the contribution — whether it’s a donation, a ticketed event or a sponsorship.

The bill requires fundraising functions to be posted on a political party’s website within five days of the event, and there are penalties, as the minister just described — pretty severe penalties — for failing to publish that information.

Finally, though, the bill doesn’t really take effect…. Formal disclosure of contributions is not required during a transition period, which is defined from January 1 of this year to the day the bill comes into force. But to bring it into force requires regulatory change, and the date for that change is unknown. So there’s a bit of a problem here, too, in the sense that this so-called transition period doesn’t really have an end date.

[1535]

It’s not at all clear whether we’re going to get through this legislation even before the election. It’s not clear whether it will even be passed before the election.

But the fundamental problem with it is that it doesn’t get to the root of the issue in British Columbia. It doesn’t include any ban on union or corporate political donations. It doesn’t have any restrictions on foreign or outside-B.C. donations. It has no limits on the size of the donations. It does not include any ban on a second salary for the Premier, cabinet ministers, elected officials.

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Mr. Speaker, on this side of the House we presented legislation a number of times to try and get at the root cause — since 2008 and prior to elections in 2009, 2013 and prior to this election. The latest private member’s legislation presented by the Leader of the Official Opposition included all of those four fundamental problems with our current election financing rules: around political donations; around restrictions on outside donations; on limits to donations, limits to personal donations; and a ban on the so-called top-up to the Premier’s salary.

None of that is included in this legislation. Unless those things are addressed, it’s very difficult for this side of the House to take this legislation very seriously.

We should perhaps go back and look at the genesis of these rules. They certainly appear to be a conversion on the road to Damascus, on the road to the election, where government has been mired in controversy and scandal regarding concerns about undue influence of large corporations who are getting government contracts, undue influence over the Premier, who is getting a direct salary top-up from the Liberal party. Those are the kinds of things that have spurred this legislation. In our view, this is really just a smokescreen, because it doesn’t really address the fundamental problems that we have with our election finance system in British Columbia.

And it’s not just our view. It’s certainly the view of a number of political commentators, of organizations, independent organizations, that scrutinize governance in Canada, in British Columbia. For example, Democracy Watch characterizes this bill: “The B.C. Liberals’ donation disclosure bill is too little, too late, and even if it is enacted before the election” — which is as I say, Mr. Speaker, questionable — “voters shouldn’t believe the Premier’s likely false claim that future changes are possible. If the B.C.

Liberals were serious about changing the province’s unethical, undemocratic political donation system, they wouldn’t have spent the past year dishonestly claiming that the current system is fine and rejecting changes proposed by opposition parties and many others.”

That’s a comment by an independent organization — no political axes to grind, non-partisan in nature.

It’s not just the opposition that has concerns about this. The member from Delta who we lauded this morning for her fine career in this House and the contributions she made to her community and made to the debate in this Legislature…. Comments from her are also quite telling: “All it is, is lip service before an election to an issue that’s causing them a great deal of embarrassment. A panel will be appointed, and all of it is a complete deflection of the issue. There is legislation sitting on the table right now that could correct all of these problems.”

I should acknowledge at this point that not only has the official opposition presented private member’s legislation to fix the root problem of big money in politics; so has the member from Delta, several times, and she should be commended for that.

To continue on with her comments: “Isn’t it a masterful piece of deflection?” And she states the proposed bill would cap individual donations…. No, I’m sorry. The opposition bill would deal with all these fundamental problems.

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Mike Smyth, the columnist for the Province , is quoted as saying: “Talk about shutting the barn door after the cash cows have bolted. Premier Christy Clark’s promise of an independent panel to review…”

Deputy Speaker: Member, Member.

G. Holman: “…British Columbia’s out-of-control political fundraising is way too little and way too late.”

Deputy Speaker: Member.

G. Holman: Yes? Sorry, Mr. Speaker.

Deputy Speaker: Member, no names, please, in the House.

G. Holman: I’m sorry, Mr. Speaker?

Deputy Speaker: You’re not supposed to name any members’ names.

G. Holman: I’m sorry. My apologies.

In any case, to continue with Mr. Smyth’s quotes:

“This review of British Columbia’s out-of-control political fundraising is way too little and way too late. The Liberal Party has refused for years to modernize B.C.’s obsolete and unlimited fundraising porkapalooza. It’s easy to understand why: the Liberals have raked in vast sums of cash from corporations, lobbyists and even foreign organizations, giving themselves a massive money advantage over their opponents. But with the next election looming, the Premier is clearly feeling the heat of public pressure.”

That’s Mr. Smyth from the Province .

Gary Mason, another columnist for the Globe and Mail , I believe — and again, no raving socialist — has made the comment: “For a government that’s all about politics, all of the time, the mounting criticism the B.C. Liberals were facing over the absence of any substantive rules around campaign financing became a threat to the one thing they value above all else: power. There is no other explanation for the Premier’s sudden reversal on the matter.”

Mr. Mason goes on to say that in terms of the suggestion made by government — but again, I neglected to say, not included in this legislation — the proposal for a panel that would review election finance rules…. Again, a promise made before the election. We’ve heard these promises before from this party. Mr. Mason states: “There is nothing binding about this panel the government is setting up. It could well produce a report that the Liberals, if re-elected, could end up ignoring. After all, the Premier set up a showy, high-profile expert panel on

[ Page 14345 ]

climate change and then chose to ignore its recommendations. So there is precedent.”

There is precedent for establishing a panel as an indication that something important is going to happen and then completely ignoring it.

Mr. Mason goes on to say: “The fact is, we’d be far more impressed if the Premier had announced on Monday that she’d finally seen the light and was committing her government to ending union and corporate donations and placing firm limits on individual donations.”

Again, we’ll be interested, during committee stage, to be looking at the devil in the details in this bill, but it’s fundamentally important to understand that it doesn’t address the real problem with election financing in British Columbia. It does not ban big money. It does not limit big money in any way, including from non-residents.

Some comments from the members opposite, from the Premier, from other ministers. The Premier is acknowledging now that the public wants more to be done on this issue. She’s quoted as saying: “We can’t say that just transparency will solve all of the problems, because we know that’s not enough.” That was a quote just recently in the Globe and Mail . So if there is an understanding by the government and the Premier that it’s not enough, it’s puzzling to us why we’re just coming forward with these fairly cosmetic changes.

The Premier has insisted for months that the public would be satisfied if all political parties provided more transparency on donations. “The system works well,” she says, “and it’s the way it’s always been.”

[1545]

Of course, we all know here, and much of the public knows and understands, that we already have to declare these donations. People already know where the Liberal party, where the NDP, where the Greens…. The public already knows, because it’s already a legal requirement to disclose donations. All this bill does, really, is to make those disclosures more frequent, a little more up to date. But in terms of the fundamental problem of the donations themselves, it does nothing at all to address that.

Another minister of the Crown stated this week: “We’re not heading down the path of banning any kind of donations, because we think the public needs to know who is donating, and that is the primary issue.” That’s the red herring that’s being presented to us today. That’s the smokescreen that’s being presented to us today, that the disclosure is essentially a non-issue when you compare it to the big issue of big money in politics.

Another minister, the Minister for Housing, was quoted as saying…. He made it clear that the government is quite happy with the current system. “As far as I’m concerned” — this is the Minister for Housing — “we haven’t changed anything. We’re not about to change anything.” The minister says: “The government has no plan to ban such donations, and organizations that want to support a political party have the right to do it. We’re totally transparent about that, and we’ll continue to be so.”

The real issue here is the public’s concern. Opinion polls have told us that a large majority of British Columbians feel that our election financing rules are not strong enough and they’re not stringent enough. There is real concern — not just by politicians, not just by the opposition, but by the public — that important decisions around spending of taxpayer dollars, around legislation, are being unduly influenced. There is a huge perception out there that political decision-making in British Columbia is unduly influenced by big money. This legislation does nothing at all to address that.

The claim that this is somehow groundbreaking in Canada also, I think, is a bit misguided, a bit misleading. In fact, there are a number of jurisdictions which have this kind of legislation — maybe not the precise number of days before you have to disclose donations. But this legislation isn’t rocket science. It’s also in place in a number of other provinces. The claim that this is somehow groundbreaking and leading the way in Canada — nothing could be further from the truth.

What is really true, and what many provinces, including at the federal level, have in place are regulations that actually have an effect on undue influence of big money in politics. There are a number of provinces that have those rules. This government refuses to even consider them.

I’m winding down, I think, with the….

M. Farnworth: We need to hear more.

G. Holman: We need to hear more? Okay. So you shall.

Let’s get back to this panel that’s being proposed. Again, no mention of that at all in the legislation, even though there are public comments being made about the possibility of setting up a panel that’s going to review….

We’ve seen what has happened with other panels that government has set up. The climate action panel I mentioned before. This government seems to have a bit of a problem with independent watchdogs in British Columbia. The B.C. Utilities Commission, for example, completely precluded from reviewing huge public infrastructure investments in British Columbia — another public independent watchdog that has been sidelined from this government.

[1550]

I don’t think the public should be too comforted by the notion that, somehow, after the election, this government is going to set up a panel, review election finance rules and then actually adhere to, or even pay attention to, the recommendations.

I want to quote another minister. The Minister of Finance, again, recently stated: “Full disclosure is the only real requirement imposed on donations in B.C., and it will stay that way for a while.” The minister goes on to say that changes or limits are “not in the cards right now.”

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This was a statement made in the Prince George Citizen . The minister is quoted as saying: “The issue that seems to be at the forefront today is whether or not we’re proposing or thinking about eliminating corporate and union donations, and we’re not.”

It’s abundantly clear that this government will not address the election finance rules in British Columbia — perhaps, in part, because they benefit greatly, politically, from those rules being in place. To quote Mr. Smyth again…. Mr. Smyth is quoted in a recent quote on CKNW, in March: “I mean, this is a government that has said for over a year that the current system is fine. They’ve said for more than six years that they’re going to change it. They’ve rejected every attempt to reform the system. They said the public doesn’t care about it.

Now, with an election two months away and the RCMP investigating, all of a sudden now you’re committed to changing this somehow, later. ‘But of course, re-elect us first, and then we’ll change it.’”

There again, in a nutshell, is a

summary of the concerns about this legislation. It’s a red herring. It’s a smoke screen to try and change the topic, to try and divert the public’s attention and divert the public’s real concerns about election finance reform in British Columbia. It’s putting something forward that really…. Essentially, all it does is mean that you’re disclosing donations maybe a little bit more quickly than you were before. So really, nothing is fundamentally changing here.

You know, we could just quickly look at the provinces, the political finance rules across Canada. Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Alberta and Nova Scotia — all of the major provinces — and, of course, also the federal government. All of them have a ban on corporate and union donations in place. All of those jurisdictions that I’ve mentioned, in addition to New Brunswick, also have a cap on individual donations. Other jurisdictions, other politicians in this country and in other provinces, have recognized the real problem here, and they’ve dealt with it.

The first piece of legislation that the Alberta government brought in, on its stunning election in 2015, was to ban political donations from unions and corporations and establish personal limits. If you look at the distribution of the donations, the Liberal Party donations, of course, are skewed quite markedly to large corporations and wealthy individuals.

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I believe the number is something in the order of…. There are several million dollars in donations to the Liberal Party that are accounted for by less than 300 individuals, something like that. The average size of the donation to the Liberal Party is quite a bit larger than for any other party in British Columbia. There certainly is a skewing of their support, a huge amount of support from wealthy individuals.

Of course, what that does is give them — we think, on this side of the House — an unfair advantage in elections, and that’s precisely why they want to keep those rules in place.

It’s not at all clear here what we’re doing with Bill 4. As I said before, it’s not at all clear we’re even going to get to the committee stage on this. It’s not at all clear that the legislation will be passed. It’s not at all clear that the panel being promised by government to review political donations, election financing rules, will ever get established in this province.

It really is not at all clear what this legislation is about, except for one thing. It’s to try and divert public attention — and, I think, with some success, unfortunately — from the real problem in this province around election finance rules, which is the undue influence, or the public’s concern about undue influence, of corporations, large organizations like unions, and wealthy individuals. There is no other purpose, really, that one could attribute to a bill of this nature.

All it really does, fundamentally, is require that donations are disclosed a little bit more quickly than they’re already required to be disclosed. We know where donations are coming from. We know who is supporting political parties in this province. We know, for the most part, for the Liberals, that it’s large corporations and wealthy individuals.

For the NDP’s part, we’re going to play by the rules in this election, and if we form government after May 9, we’re going to change the rules, as we’ve been proposing since 2008. This is going to level the playing field. It’s going to enable smaller parties in this province — including the Greens, including the Conservatives, including independents, like the member from Delta…. Changing the rules and restricting big money from politics is going to make it fairer for everybody. It’s going to alleviate voters’ concerns about undue influence of big money in the political system.

That’s a promise from us. That’s a commitment from us that we’ve made since 2008. Six times we’ve presented legislation in this place to try and ban big money — both from corporations and from groups that are viewed as being our friends, the union sector. We are going to do that if we’re elected in 2017.

I will be interested to see if we get to the committee stage. We’ll get to the devil in the details. We’re very interested about this transition period. It’s a bit mysterious about when it actually ends, because that transition period has to be changed by regulation, and that’s not going to happen until after the election.

It’s not at all clear if and when this transition period is ever going to end. That’s important, because the legislation, essentially, is not in effect until that transition period is over. So I’ll be very interested to hear, in committee stage, some of the details on that.

I do want to make clear: we are prepared to debate this legislation. We believe that the changes proposed in this bill are not fundamentally getting at the problem in

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British Columbia with election finance rules. We will be looking for amendments to strengthen the legislation.

[1600]

In the end, I think we could be convinced to support it, even though it’s really not getting at the root of the problem. But it is a very, very, very modest step forward in transparency. We want to be absolutely clear, on this side of the House, that this is a red herring. This doesn’t get at the root problem of politics in British Columbia, which is, unfortunately, now driven by big money.

On this side of the House, we’re going to play by the rules. We’ll play by the rules until we get through this election. If we form government, we’re going change those rules to make it a level playing field for all parties in British Columbia, to make it a level playing field for independent candidates like the member from Delta. We’re going to seriously address the public’s concerns about the undue influence of big money in British Columbia.

I think that, for now, those will be my comments. I look forward to committee stage. I hope we get to committee stage. It’s not at all clear that we will. It’s not at all clear that we’re actually going to pass this legislation. Even though it is a red herring, it’s not at all clear that we’re even going to pass this bill.

With that, thanks very much. I’ll take my seat and look for others to speak on this issue.

Hon. D. Barnett: Why do we get into politics? There are many reasons.

Being young once and naive, I had a new business with my husband. We were young parents, community owners, volunteers and, of course, voters. My husband and I became aware of the world of B.C. politics in 1972 when an NDP government was elected. What made us stand up and become involved? Being small business owners in a small community, a new government came, we had new taxes, and we had new policies, all that were not business-friendly. We quickly realized the difference between free-enterprise government and a social government.

We proceeded to join the Social Credit Party and became involved. I remember my first involvement in a fundraiser. Two of us cooked a prime rib dinner with Yorkshires and all the trimmings. We sold 100 tickets. We had an auction sale, and we made $10,000 back in the early ’70s. That was big money. Our MLA was Alex Fraser. The people who came were developers, millworkers, loggers, small business owners, mineworkers, ranchers, tourism operators and just normal everyday hard-working citizens.

Since then, I have been involved in my constituency in many ways. My constituency has always raised funds, has always had fundraisers for both the Social Credit Party and now the Liberal Party. No one has to donate. There are no pressures to donate, and there are no promises if you donate. Whether you donate or whether you even live in my riding, myself, my staff and our government are here to do what we can to make life better for all in British Columbia.

The accusations of the opposition party, to me, are insults. I believed we lived in a free society. My mother brought us up with trust and honesty, and she said those two will always win. This side of the House has been a pillar of my mother’s teachings. Why are the opposition parties so anxious and excited to make false accusations in this House? Sad that they trust no one. We, over here, believe in what is good for British Columbians.

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Is this the opposition’s platform that they’ve stood up and talked about for the past two weeks? Is this their platform for the upcoming election? The speaker before me talked about a smokescreen. He should know all about a smokescreen. He should know what their platform is.

Our platform is about getting to yes, getting to jobs and balanced budgets so that we can afford health care and education and look after our seniors and our young people, with a promising future in this province.

I support this legislation. Even though my mother’s philosophy of honesty and trust…. Those that give to my election are honest people, and I challenge anyone to stand up and say they’re not. This legislation is a step forward to more transparency and timeliness. It builds on reforms like our lobbyists registry, the first in Canada, that allows the public to see who is lobbying on what issues.

To say that banning corporate and union donations will solve the problem is not enough. You know, union workers are a hard-working people — honest, hard-working people that look to us for good jobs. Our corporations are honest, hard-working people who create jobs.

Some provinces use tax dollars to directly fund political parties. This is not something we will pursue in British Columbia. This Bill 4, Election Act, 2017, will hopefully bring some closure to accusations from across the hall here, from other political parties that have no substance and no truths. This bill, hopefully, as I’ve said, will put to rest those in the public who are unsure of what and who to believe. But I know. I, too, look at polls. I, too, talk to many, many people, and I know that this side of the House has honesty and integrity. I look forward to moving on with this bill.

R. Austin: Seeing as this is the last piece of legislation at the end of this parliament, and this will probably be my last opportunity to speak in this House, with your indulgence, Mr. Speaker, I’m going to take the opportunity to say a few words that aren’t necessarily pertaining to this piece of legislation.

Of course, like many people who are retiring from public life, I’d like to make some acknowledgments and thanks to the people who got me here.

First of all, like everybody else who is very fortunate and successful to be elected by the people in their community,

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I’d like to thank the voters of Skeena. I think it was a big shock to many, in 2005, when I was able to win this seat.

I had not been involved in politics prior to deciding to run. I think most people who come into this House have a background either in municipal politics or in school board politics. But I did not have that. I just put my name forward and was fortunate enough to win the nomination.

Then, I think, as a surprise to many, I was fortunate enough to remove a member of the B.C. Liberals who had actually won with a very large majority, albeit it was 2001, a special election. He did have a very large majority, and there was a big mountain to climb. With many other folks helping me, we were able to climb that mountain and be successful