The committee met at 12:03 p.m.

[The Speaker in the chair.]

Adoption of Agenda and Minutes

The Speaker: Calling the meeting to order. One thing I really want to request of all members — it's a full agenda today, so I ask all members and staff to keep their comments very brief because we have so many things to talk about, and we have not much time.

Let's go with the first item, approval of the draft agenda. Any changes to the agenda circulated? No? May I have a motion to approve? Moved and seconded.

Motion approved.

The Speaker: Okay. Then let's go to item 2, approval of the draft minutes of the March 4, 2024, meeting of the committee.

A Voice: So moved.

Motion approved.

The Speaker: Number 3 on the agenda is an update from the Clerk. Kate.

Clerk's Update

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of the Legislative Assembly): Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Good afternoon, Members. I will try to be brief, but there is a high level of activity underway in the administration at this point in time, and I would like to provide you with the following information.

Of course, the administration is focused very much on supporting the current session. Team members from the Office of the Clerk, the Parliamentary Committees Office, the Sergeant-at-Arms office and Hansard Services have been very busy supporting the work of three chambers and parliamentary committee meetings.

Since the opening of this fifth session, at the outset of this particular sitting week, there was a total of 414 hours of sittings and committee meetings broadcast by Hansard Services. My very sincere appreciation to all staff who are directly supporting proceedings during this very busy time.

[12:05 p.m.]

I also have a number of other items to update you on, with respect to work in other parts of our organization. With respect to our information technology team, work is nearing completion on the migration to a new external website for the Legislative Assembly. The migration is planned for late June, following

I also have a number of other items to update you with respect to work in other parts of our organization.

With respect to our information technology team, work is nearing completion on the migration to a new external website for the Legislative Assembly. The migration is planned for late June, following the conclusion of the sitting period, and it is expected to be a low-impact transition to a new website that strengthens the resiliency of our current web infrastructure.

In partnership with the Sergeant-at-Arms office, the information technology team also ensured the modernization of 21 constituency offices in the last fiscal year, with new modernized security systems. Additional constituency office sites are planned for implementation in this fiscal year as well.

With respect to our new client services department, members will know that we launched our client care service desk on April 15. This is the start of a shift to a new service-delivery philosophy and posture to position the assembly to move to a single-window approach for members and staff to access services and supports available through the administration.

It's been a steady launch over the past three weeks, and initial feedback from members and staff have been very positive. We are now focusing this team to be the central point of all onboarding and offboarding activities with respect to the dissolution of the current Parliament and welcoming members at the outset of the next Parliament to follow.

Also, with respect to election readiness, I'll mention that members may be aware that we held our first transition seminar with members not seeking re-election on May 1. Additional seminars are planned in June and September. As part of our election readiness work, there is also upcoming renovation work occurring in the chamber to add the additional six desks. Precinct services continues to work with engineering partners to assess the readiness of the substructure and renovations and upgrades in the chamber, including repositioning of desks, rewiring and the addition of desks that will take place between July and late September.

With respect to space planning, there is also a number of other related projects underway this summer including the addition of six new MLA offices in the east annex. So that work is expected to take place this summer.

Finally I'll mention, and I'm pleased to advise members, that we recently received results of our second biannual employee engagement survey. The results were very positive with 81 percent participating in that survey. The overall results are very positive, with improvements in many areas, including the overall level of engagement, measures related to positive workplace culture, employee empowerment, leadership and management relationships.

I wanted to thank all colleagues within the administration, including the clerk's leadership group, for contributing towards our healthy workplace culture at the Assembly. Following an all-staff meeting a few weeks ago to review the overall results, our next steps will be to focus within each department to review individual team results and identify action planning for the year ahead.

I will close by extending, as well, my sincere thanks to all members of this committee, the Legislative Assembly Management Committee, for their ongoing support of the Legislative Assembly administration, including resourcing to support our organization, including learning and development, which are key aspects of our healthy workplace culture. Happy to answer any questions that members may have, but that concludes my report.

The Speaker: Any questions or comment or clarification? None? Thank you, Kate.

Let's move on to item no. 4: Legislative Assembly Administration Strategic Plan 2024-25 refresh.

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of the Legislative Assembly): This first decision item involves the presentation of the refresh 2024-25 strategic plan for the Legislative Assembly administration. This is the final year of our three-year strategic planning cycle. Members will be familiar with the overall purpose and principles and goals which have not changed in this iteration of our plan. The plan is dynamic and is designed to be updated and refreshed every year to meet new challenges and opportunities for the administration.

Each goal is focused into action through an objective and key initiatives, and it's the key initiatives that have been updated and are outlined in the covering briefing note that capture the objectives and initiatives for the year ahead. The recommendation is to approve the strategic plan as presented, but of course, we're always very open and welcome any questions, feedbacks from committee members.

[12:10 p.m.]

The Speaker (Chair): Any questions? No clarifications?

So then we need a motion to, which would read that the 2024-25 refresh of the Legislative Assembly Administration Strategic Plan be approved as presented.

Any questions? No clarifications? So then we need a motion which would read that the 2024-25 refresh of the Legislative Assembly administration strategic plan be approved as presented.

Motion approved.

The Speaker (Chair): Okay, the next one is item No. 5, reconciliation action plan 2024-2028.

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of the Legislative Assembly): Thank you again, Mr. Speaker.

I'm pleased to present the reconciliation action plan to committee members this afternoon as recommended by the subcommittee on administration and operations. The multi-year plan covering the time span from 2024-2028 outlines commitments and actions that the Legislative Assembly will undertake to contribute towards reconciliation with Indigenous peoples.

The purpose of this plan is to enable our institution to strengthen relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples in British Columbia, and it details practical commitments that will demonstrate our collective support for reconciliation and lay the groundwork for future engagement and relationship building. The plan was guided by input from the Speaker's Indigenous Advisory Committee members and was also shaped by input, feedback and consultation with First Nations leaders and communities as well as with our Indigenous members of the Legislative Assembly, caucuses and House Leaders.

The action plan includes five key commitments with the following themes. First, building on a commitment with respect to understanding, we focus on the recognition of historic actions that have impacted our relationship with First Nations within the province of British Columbia. The second commitment focuses on education opportunities: the provision of educational opportunities and resources to support members and staff. Inclusion: a review of rules, practices of the House to incorporate a consistent and respectful approach to ceremony and to House proceedings. Representation: identifying opportunities to reflect Indigenous culture within the Parliament buildings and grounds. And commemoration: outlining our commitment to design and construct a memorial with respect to residential schools and the children who were lost to their families and communities.

The Speaker and I certainly welcome any questions or comments from committee members today following consideration. Should the committee so approve, it is intended that the action plan will be released at an event hosted by the Speaker in the Hall of Honour tomorrow. I'll be pleased to answer any questions that you may have.

L. Doerkson: Just a couple of comments that I wanted to share. I think we shared these at the last subcommittee meeting, but just my concerns around the consultation. I am grateful for the visits to Cariboo-Chilcotin, and certainly throughout the province, but as I noted, Dan and I…. I just wanted to note it again today there are varying degrees of opinion on much of the conversation that we are having here at the Legislature, of course.

I'm grateful that there's been conversation with Chief Sellars but certainly there are many others, of course, just in my riding alone that I think it's imperative that we have their thoughts and their opinions and certainly understand where they come from on this topic of reconciliation moving forward.

The Speaker (Chair): Thank you. Member. I just want to say this. First of all, I'm very thankful to the subcommittee members for their review of the report and recommendation to bring it over here. As I said that day, and also many times before, this report was done with consultation through my advisory committee, on which Chief Willie Sellars is one of the advisors.

But this document is not static document. It's evolving document. We would be reaching out to a lot more communities across the province as well as when we produced the initial report, we went to all the caucuses and to present it there and sought their guidance and also the input and feedback.

As a result of that, we took back their advice, and so we decided that we are going to need to continue to move across the province and talk to more people. I want to say thanks to all the caucuses for their feedback and guidance as well.

[12:15 p.m.]

Hon. R. Kahlon: I just want to say thank you for your work on this. We appreciated the ability to provide feedback and we do see it reflected in this and I just want to thank you for that.

and guidance as well. Thank you, Member.

Hon. R. Kahlon: I just wanted to say thank you for your work on this. We appreciated the ability to provide feedback, and we do see it reflected in this. I just want to thank you for that.

T. Stone: My colleague, Lorne, who sits on the subcommittee, I know that he went into a fair bit more detail about concerns relating to just how broad or not broad the engagement was to arrive at this point. But I don't sit on that committee, so I'm just going to take a minute here to express some perspective in terms of the official opposition caucus, many of whom have a lot of First Nations communities and different nations in their constituencies, including myself.

The fact that many of the chiefs in my own riding, for example, don't even know that this process is underway was and is concerning to me. That is certainly what has been reflected to a number of our colleagues. As a matter of principle, totally support ongoing efforts to enhance and foster reconciliation.

There's a lot that's contemplated in this draft action plan that would have pretty significant impact, and arguably a lot of which would be positive, on the Legislative Assembly and how it operates and what it looks like. I think we very much support taking additional steps to ensure that we're all working hard to make sure that Indigenous peoples and First Nations feel like this building, this precinct, the people's House, so to speak, belongs as much to them as it does to any other British Columbians. A big part of getting there is to ensure that Indigenous people see themselves more reflected in what happens in this place and the proceedings and history and culture and so forth.

We have supported that, and we will continue to support initiatives that advance that reconciliation. But our caucus believes that reconciliation is only successful if everybody's walking together at the same time and as broadly as possible. There are First Nations communities — the vast, vast majority, again, aren't even aware that this is happening — that haven't had the opportunity to provide input. I appreciate and take at face value the commitment that this is just a starting point and that there would be ongoing consultation or engagement moving forward.

It equally is true with respect to non-Indigenous British Columbians and ensuring that all the people of this province have an opportunity to weigh in and afford their perspectives on potential changes, in terms of how this place operates and what goes on in here and what it looks like and how to ultimately better incorporate Indigenous history and Indigenous peoples into this place.

I do want to acknowledge that our caucus was, indeed, very grateful that the Speaker and the Clerk came and participated in a fairly robust…. That is maybe a good word to describe the conversation. I think it was intended to be very productive. Based on the feedback from the Speaker and the Clerk, I think that was how it was taken.

Coming out of that that discussion, we were very appreciative that one of the items that's been contemplated, which is some form of an apology on behalf of the Legislative Assembly, that there would be more time taken to really broadly reach out and engage on that particular matter and with the goal of making sure that we get it right, not expediency being the most important concern but that we get it right, if that is to take place at some point in the future.

The decision to move that to outside of a sort of politically charged atmosphere of a pre-election period and into a fresh runway, a four-year runway of the next government, whoever that is, with the Speaker, whoever that is, the parliament being made up however that looks, is the appropriate thing to do.

[12:20 p.m.]

With that in mind, we also think that the broader action plan needs to be dealt with in the same way and that