Last year, the Metro Vancouver Regional District Board received a governance review report from Deloitte. The report contains 49 recommendations. The Regional District is home to over half of BC’s population. One of the challenges flagged in the report is that all regional district boards in BC operate under the same legislation, though our region faces unique challenges related to size and scale that other regional districts in the province don’t. The current Metro Vancouver Regional District Board has 41 members and is expected to grow to 50 within the next decade, as board membership is determined by provincial legislation. This structure makes the Regional District Board more like a provincial legislature than a board responsible for delivering services and planning to member municipalities, which is why regional districts were set up in the first place. This creates challenges in setting policy and appropriately overseeing the financial and technical aspects of water and sewer utilities.

The Deloitte report provides several examples of ways to improve board operations. One option is to make the Metro Vancouver Regional District more like a crown corporation, such as BC Hydro, with a professional board selected by a nominating committee. Other options include capping the board’s size without making many additional changes. Another option is a hybrid approach in which the Regional District Board operates as it does today, while the water, sewer, and solid waste utilities split off into their own smaller boards, each with a mix of elected and professional members to improve oversight. The elected representatives would be selected from the Regional District Board.

The new Metro Vancouver Regional District’s Governance Committee is now working on selecting a preferred board governance model. This work will occur over the next half year, which could be endorsed by the Regional District Board and presented to the province for consideration before the fall municipal election.

Now, having a perfect governance model is not a silver bullet. Having an awesome governance model with people who act poorly, not with the region’s best interests in mind, can be worse than a crummy governance model where people roll up their sleeves and just make it work. Of course, what we want is good governance and people who act in the region’s best interests.

From my perspective, the biggest governance need at the regional level is for elected representatives to have independent advice (in the form of a hybrid board structure or another approach) on the complex operations of our regional water and sewer utilities.

I look forward to seeing how this governance review progresses and what option will be selected over the coming year.