For decades, the job of Speaker has been the cushiest gig at the legislature. Blessed with a generous salary, opulent office and a less-than-taxing schedule of largely ceremonial duties, the Speaker of the House has been largely unknown to ordinary British Columbians, though the position carries enormous power inside the tiny fishbowl of the legislative precinct.
Yet when Richmond East MLA Linda Reid took the job earlier this year, she inherited a far less comfortable position.
A damning financial audit in 2012 raised concerns about sloppy bookkeeping on the legislature’s $70-million annual budget, and a lack of proper documentation for MLA expenses.
That “public spanking” as one taxpayer group called it, shed a bright light on the archaic management of the legislature. An all-party committee of MLAs met casually in secret to set policy and spend taxpayer money, with almost no record of how decisions were made and only bare-bones minutes released several years later.
Chastened, then-Speaker Bill Barisoff promised to pull the secretive management into a new realm of public accountability.
Then he retired.
Executing the agenda of transparency has fallen largely on Reid, who took the job after the May provincial election.
She’s diplomatic about the mess she’s inherited.
“I think it’s a lovely evolution,” Reid said about the changing management of the building.
“Each Speaker brings their own practice to bear. There is no manual. Do people tell me I’m doing it differently than other people? Yes. Sometimes that’s a compliment. Perhaps not always. But I do think the public accountability piece is hugely important to me.”
It’s also meant a far more public profile for the Speaker.
Technically, the job involves acting as the non-partisan referee of the legislature, monitoring MLA decorum during debate and ensuring all politicians, no matter their party, get a fair chance to be heard in the public chamber.
But she’s also the politician in charge of millions in spending, including security, Hansard, the library and the public use of the legislature grounds.
Her management committee sets MLA salaries (currently $101,859 a year), as well as presides over millions more in constituency budgets, travel claims, housing costs and meal per diems.
“I see this as the people’s building,” said Reid. “It should be open and transparent about how we do business and what we do.”
Reid is currently the longest-serving MLA in B.C., with 22 years experience in public office. She also has a master’s degree in public administration.
“If you want to administer in the public domain you have to be accountable,” she said. “That’s something I hope characterizes my tenure.”
The challenges are not unique to B.C.
Other provincial legislatures, and the federal parliament in Ottawa, have recently overhauled politician expenses and parliamentary management with an eye to placing as much information as possible online for public consumption.
B.C. began posting quarterly reports on MLA expenses in 2012, and will expand disclosure to constituency offices in 2014.
Reid said she intends to phase out the long-standing “allowances” for MLAs in favour of receipts and reimbursements.
Currently, MLAs who don’t want to submit receipts can take $1,000 in cash each month for housing, with no proof it’s actually spent for that purpose. As well, MLAs are entitled to $61 a day for meals when working, with no receipts either.
“Under my tenure I’m hoping we can move it to a reimbursement model,” she said. “That makes sense to me.”
Reid has also inherited a 115-year-old heritage building with mounting maintenance costs. She’s installed an “accelerometer” on the legislature’s green dome to see how much it is twisting, before grappling with how to pay for millions in critical repairs needed to stabilize the site.
The maintenance bill balloons to more than $250 million to seismically upgrade the legislature’s old brick walls, turrets and domes, which engineers rate as a high risk of collapse in a moderate earthquake.
Those engineering reports, and cost estimates, have sat on the Speaker’s desk since 2006, with little action.
Reid pledged a “systematic approach” to building maintenance, and has added the “health of the parliamentary precinct” as a standing item at every public MLA management meeting.
The 53-year-old mother of two also has other clear focuses for the job.
A new ramp into the legislature library is a step toward improving accessibility for B.C.’s three MLAs in wheelchairs, said Reid.
And there’s a newfound focus on gender equality, stemming from the battles Reid has fought in 22 years to get more women’s washrooms and maternity provisions for female MLAs.
Reid has also started a new outreach program to visit schools far away from the capital. The visits from “Madame Speaker” are another indication of just how much the job has evolved, from the dusty backrooms of the capital and into the real world.
“I’d say to these little darlings: ‘Have you ever thought about being Speaker?’” said Reid.
“I just want kids to think of this place as somewhere they might want to serve one day.”