Every year, the B.C. office prepares a full budget submission for the government’s select standing committee on finance and government services to review. In recent years, a number of our recommendations have been adopted by government, most notably the core review that is presently under way.

Bob Mackin, a brilliant investigative journalist, notes in this week’s Business in Vancouver that one of our recommendations from this year’s report has seemingly been put in place:

Jordan Bateman, the B.C. representative for the Canadian Taxpayers' Federation, will be claiming a small victory.

His submission to the BC Legislature's finance committee recommended reducing the size of the 11-member PavCo board of directors.

The board is now comprised of four men and two women, chaired by Grouse Mountain owner Stuart McLaughlin. Directors include meetings planner Theresa Breining, Big White marketing director Michael Ballingall, DDB adman Frank Palmer, former Prince George politician and bureaucrat Don Zurowski and newcomer Stephanie Sharp.

Sharp's biography with the Board Resourcing and Development Office says she has been president of Farax Consulting Corp. since 1994 and has been a director of the BC Progress Board and BC Women's Hospital Foundation.

McLaughlin took over the chairmanship after Peter Fassbender won election as a BC Liberal and quit following the election. Director Suzanne Anton also became a Liberal MLA and is now the attorney general. Retired adman Bob Bryant, E-Comm CEO David Guscott and ex-Victoria mayor Alan Lowe are also ex-PavCo directors.

The October-released PavCo statement of financial information for the year ended March 31, 2013, shows it spent $68,470,318 on suppliers and $16,189,247 on payments to executives, managers and workers.

The biggest supplier was food and beverage contractor Centerplate ($20,583,729), followed close behind by Telus Communications ($17,036,202).

Smaller suppliers included Karacters Design Group ($156,154) and DDB Canada ($74,940), companies chaired by PavCo director Palmer.

The highest-paid executive was Ken Cretney, the Vancouver Convention Centre general manager who became BC Place's boss in late May when Howard Crosley was fired. Cretney received $338,458 in pay and benefits plus $41,260 in expenses.

Bob is kind to give us credit, but frankly, any positive reforms over at PavCo can be traced to his dogged work holding that crown corporation to account. Bob has tirelessly filed Freedom of Information requests, cultivated whistleblowers, and combed the public record to better inform the public of the secretive shenanigans of PavCo.