CONTENTS
Monday 22 April 1991
Organization
Adjournment
STANDING COMMITTEE ON ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
Chair: White, Drummond (Durham Centre NDP)
Vice-Chair: Morrow, Mark (Wentworth East NDP)
Carr, Gary (Oakville South PC)
Chiarelli, Robert (Ottawa West L)
Fletcher, Derek (Guelph NDP)
Harnick, Charles (Willowdale PC)
Mathyssen, Irene (Middlesex NDP)
Mills, Gordon (Durham East NDP)
Poirier, Jean (Prescott and Russell L)
Sorbara, Gregory S. (York Centre L)
Wilson, Fred (Frontenac-Addington NDP)
Winninger, David (London South NDP)
Substitution: Cooper, Mike (Kitchener-Wilmot NDP) for Mr F. Wilson
Clerk: Freedman, Lisa
Staff: Swift, Susan, Research Officer, Legislative Research Service
The committee met at 1602 in room 228.
ORGANIZATION
The Chair: I call the meeting to order. All pieces of business today relate to the organization of the committee. The first piece of business is the report of the subcommittee.
Your subcommittee met on Wednesday 17 April 1991 to discuss the committee's scheduling and agreed to the following schedule:
Monday 22 April, organization; Tuesday 23 April, conflict-of-interest discussion; Monday 29 April, witnesses, conflict of interest; Tuesday 30 April, witnesses, conflict of interest; Monday 6 May, public hearings, Bills 7 and 8; Tuesday 7 May, public hearings, Bills 7 and 8.
It was further agreed that the committee will advertise throughout the province of Ontario once in each daily newspaper with respect to public hearings on Bills 7 and 8.
Mrs Mathyssen: In regard to the report of the subcommittee, I move that this committee agree to the following witnesses: Mr Perruzza, Mr Allen, Mr Philip, Ms Ziemba.
The list includes Ms Akande and we suggest that we substitute either Mr Pouliot or Mr Charlton, since there is an ongoing investigation regarding Ms Akande, and that further we have on our list Mr Mammoliti, Mr Kormos, Mr Wessenger, Judge Evans.
Now it says, "Someone from the Premier's office." Should it not be Premier Rae himself? All right?
And that on 23 April, we give instructions to the legislative research assistant to draft a report and that we consider that draft report on 29 April 1991 and that we finalize the report after hearings on 30 April 1991.
Mr Harnick: Just as clarification, why are we first of all writing a report on the 23rd when we are hearing the witnesses on the 29th and 30th? I have no idea why, unless I missed what you were saying. A report written on the 23rd makes no sense.
The Chair: Mr Morrow?
Mr Morrow: If you will allow me to, Mr Chair, I can basically clear that up. We are looking to have a rough draft report done before the witnesses come in, and what the witnesses will do is give us a final draft report. Now why we are doing this is obviously for time restraints only, so we can also move on with other government business.
Mr Harnick: That was in response to what I was saying. I was not finished and I will have something to say about the way the Chair tends to ride roughshod over people here who want to speak, and that will be part of my remarks. I cannot understand it and I am not going to sit here if we are going to meet for an hour today and two hours tomorrow and write a report before we have heard the witnesses. That is, without any doubt, the stupidest thing I have ever heard. What is the point --
Mr Morrow: Mr Chair --
Mr Harnick: May I finish?
Mr Morrow: I am sorry. I did not realize you were not done.
Mr Harnick: Quite frankly, the idea of writing a report before the witnesses are heard and after you have had maybe one hour to consider these guidelines is obscene. If that is the case, I think we may as well all pack our bags because this committee is quite simply a farce. So you will not get my support about that. If you want to make this a farce, we can write the report right now and let's not waste any more time or money. Mr Sorbara and I can leave and you people can write your report and that will be the end of it.
Mr Morrow: Mr Chair --
Mr Harnick: Just a second. That is the first thing. The second thing is that if we are going to hear witnesses, I personally would like to see as many witnesses as possible, but I do not want to bring witnesses here if the conditions are such that we do not get to examine them exhaustively. If we are going to be interrupted by the Chair in the middle of a line of examination that we are not permitted to complete and we are going to be able to ask one or two questions to each of the individuals who come here, who give long-winded answers and do not permit us to develop a proper examination of them, then let's not bother. The first time we had witnesses come to this committee, that is exactly what happened. It was, "You have 30 seconds," and ask your question and get your answer and then the Chair cut you off. That is a farce too.
Mr Winninger: It is nothing like a judge cutting you off in the courtroom.
Mr Harnick: A judge may well cut you off in the courtroom if the questions you are asking are irrelevant, but he is certainly going to let you carry on as long as you want to carry on. Mr Winninger knows that. You are not precluded from completing your examination.
This idea that we are going stack this place with witnesses, but not get enough time to examine them thoroughly and that we are going to be writing a report that ultimately will be tabled in the Legislature before we have even finished our second day of deliberations on this topic makes this whole exercise a farce. It is totally contrary to what we talked about at the subcommittee, where we did not talk about a report other than saying that at the conclusion of the hearings a report would be written.
I am not going to sit here and let this group come and change what we decided upon at the subcommittee level and expect us to vote on it, because that was not part of those deliberations. This idea of a report was completely absent from our discussions, other than the fact that the report would be written after the hearings. I am not in favour of that and I am not sticking around here if that is the way you are going to run this place, because it is farce if it is.
Furthermore, we were to be given the opportunity to review a list of the witnesses proposed, and I certainly want enough time to be able to examine those witnesses.
Mr Sorbara: I must begin by saying I am very sympathetic to Charles's view on the business of writing the report before we have heard all the witnesses. I am not sure if there are any lawyers sitting in the government caucus here.
Mr Harnick: Right here.
Mr Sorbara: You are a lawyer. I think you would know that --
Mr Winninger: It does not make any difference, Greg.
Mr Harnick: Come on, David. Not in our party. I mean the judge always writes the judgement before he hears the evidence.
Interjections.
Mr Sorbara: Right. Well, I guess the best thing I can say is I am not a member of that party.
Mr Morrow: That is the worst thing you can say.
Mr Winninger: That is the best thing you can say.
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Mr Sorbara: I am glad to hear that the government has agreed to almost all the witnesses who have been proposed. If I might, Mr Chairman, because I was not able to write down what the whip said, my understanding is then, if I can go down my list: Kormos, Judge Evans, Elaine Ziemba, George Mammoliti, Anthony Perruzza, Ed Philip, Richard Allen, Paul Wessenger and the person in the Premier's office responsible for the administration of the guidelines.
Mr Morrow: It will be the Premier himself, Mr Rae.
Mr Sorbara: Oh, so Mr Rae is to come back as well. Okay.
The Chair: Mr Sorbara, are you finished?
Mr Sorbara: No, I am not finished.
The reason I think it would be foolish in this instance to even consider writing the report or drafting a draft report like tomorrow and finalizing it the day after the witnesses have finished the hearing is that we are going to hear a lot of stuff that is going to help us in considering what the guidelines should say.
But more important than that, if you turn to this document that Susan Swift, our research assistant, has prepared, you will notice that towards the back, in fact on page 21, there is a list of issues and concerns that arose as a result of the witnesses that we heard so far. We have not even begun to discuss yet which of those we would want to deal with in our report.
Even more pertinent, I think, if you could follow along with me, is a list of matters that the Premier himself asked us to consider in dealing with the guidelines. That appears after the title page, after page 22 of this document. Just to refresh your memory, it is a document that the Premier handed out when he was here and on it he lists issues from A to K that need to be considered. Either I have missed something or my impression is that we have not even started to discuss as a committee where we stand on all these issues. I think they are important issues and I think they are worthy of discussion.
The final point is that when the Premier was here, he made it pretty clear that he wanted this committee to have the luxury of spending some time and mulling over these things. He was not going to press us for an early response on his guidelines. Indeed, he invited us to consider the advisability of recommending whether the guidelines should go into legislation. That is a pretty big assignment.
Now admittedly, we did take a very long time considering Bill 17, and I have to take responsibility for that. But I do not think it would hurt if we heard the witnesses that we want to hear coming up on the dates that are proposed in the motion, and then after that begin our discussions on these items that the Premier wants us to discuss as well as the ones that our research assistant has prepared for our consideration.
If we do anything else, it is as Charles said: It is going to be kind of ridiculous to hear the witnesses but already be in a position to sign a report. I think it is going to be difficult enough for this committee to submit a unanimous report on things as sensitive as conflict-of-interest guidelines. There is no possibility at all of doing that if the position that the government takes is that we will start writing the report before we have heard all of the witnesses.
So I plead with you, in a friendly motion, to strike that part of the motion and just proceed with the witnesses without putting a time constraint on how long we will have to submit the guidelines.
Now having said that, I would be interested in hearing your views as to when you want to submit a report. I think 29 or 30 April is certainly unacceptable. I for one have not even begun to consider the implication of the questions the Premier raised in his own submission and in the document he left with us. Nor have I had any time to think about and review and consider the issues that have been raised by our research assistant.
So again, I propose that we hear the witnesses and then spend a day or two having the necessary debates that go on in this committee and then get down to writing a report. l do not think the opposition is going to fall or, heaven help us, the government is going to fall if we do that.
Mr Morrow: I would like to speak to the government motion for a moment if I can. Mr Harnick, you raised some very good points actually. The reason we would like the draft report done this week is so we can move on to some of your private members' bills, such as Norm Sterling's 7 and 8. We would also like to move on to your party's 123 if we can, as soon as possible, because we do feel victims' rights are important.
You did not see the list of witnesses. Well, Mr Harnick, we just received that list this morning, I do believe. Right, Mr Sorbara?
Mr Sorbara: I will begin, Mr Chairman, with apologies.
Mr Morrow: Excuse me. l still have the floor.
Mr Sorbara: You do indeed.
Mr Morrow: We would like to move as quickly as we can on this draft report to get it moving so the function of this committee is not drawn down into what we went through with Bill 17. I will be supporting the government motion just for that aspect. We are hearing witnesses next week to help us, we hope, with a final draft so we can get that moving.
I see you shaking your head, Mr Harnick.
Mr Harnick: Because it is -- may I?
The Chair: Do not continually refer to Mr Harnick and Mr Sorbara while you still have the floor.
Mr Morrow: I still have the floor.
The Chair: It is only encouraging a free-for-all.
Mr Morrow: Excuse me, Mr Chair. I have the floor. Do you mind?
The Chair: You do, sir, as long as you maintain it without reference to the opposition members.
Mr Morrow: We basically are allowing you to have your grandstanding with the witnesses that we have coming up.
Mr Sorbara: No. Okay. I think I have the floor now.
The Chair: No, you don't. Charles does.
Mr Sorbara: Seniority. Go ahead.
Mr Harnick: No, it is okay.
Mr Morrow: I am now finished. Thank you very much.
Mr Sorbara: I am going to begin with an apology to the member for Willowdale that the list of witnesses, which I undertook to prepare and deliver, did not get to him sooner.
Mr Harnick: That is okay.
Mr Sorbara: I take full responsibility for that. I am glad the government is accepting this list of witnesses.
The second point to make is that we cannot do anything about the fact that the government may close ranks and require that a report be written and approved in final form by the 30th, although I want to tell you, Mark, and the other members, that you will pay for it if you do that. Ramming things through ultimately comes back to haunt you. We are going to have to submit probably a dissenting report, and that will be too bad. What is worse is that I think our research officer is going to say that she has not got any sense at all of what the committee wants to report and we are going to be left out of that exercise.
But the other thing I wanted to say to you in all sincerity is that you control the agenda and I certainly am willing to abide by the agenda that you set. If you want to deal with government legislation after we hear from witnesses, that is fine. If you want to deal with the natural death bills, that is fine. You can put in a time allocation procedure here and require that we do it within a certain amount of time. What I am telling you is, it is probably a better course to go to allow us some more time to deal with these guidelines. Nothing turns on it. The Premier has already said he is going to be living by these guidelines. He has made that point clear. So there is nothing urgent that requires us to get them out of committee by 30 April. Although you have the ability and the numbers to force it out of committee by 30 April, I am telling you that you are going to pay for that. I just think it is absolutely inappropriate.
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I am ready, willing and able to proceed with the public hearings and speedy consideration of Bills 7 and 8. I want to say as well that I do not care very much about the 123 motions. We have one on the table and I would be willing, if there is a time constraint, to withdraw it to provide time for government bills. I do not know what the Tories think about that, but they may be willing to do the same thing. In any event, government bills take precedence over motions under standing order 123. Remember that. Government bills take precedence over standing order 123 hearings.
Mark, I want to tell you that you cannot rely on the desire or the need to do 123 motions. We do not have any other bills right now that are referred to this committee other than one private member's bill represented by Bills 7 and 8, combined for these purposes with the permission of the House. So, I urge you once again not to ram through consideration of these conflict-of-interest guidelines. Your government is already under enough pressure with an investigation going on in respect of the conduct of the Minister of Community and Social Services. You have already lost one member: a minister had to resign on Thursday for what appeared to be an inadvertent mistake.
Under those circumstances and under that cloud, to be seen to be pushing through the conflict-of-interest guidelines and to get them out of this committee will not stand you in good stead. So I plead with you once again, and I am not going to talk any more, that we hear the witnesses and allow ourselves one or two or three days of discussion in this committee to discuss the issues raised by our research officer and the issues raised by the Premier himself.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Sorbara. The clerk points out something that is significant in regard to the timing, and that is very simply that, according to the schedule from the subcommittee, we are to be meeting on 29 April which, as we know, is not going to be occurring.
Mr Sorbara: We cannot do that. We have to move everything up by one day.
The Chair: The consideration of the budget basically means we will have at least one extra week to consider the clerk's report. Mr Harnick.
Mr Harnick: That being the case, l certainly have no objection to moving everything one week further back. But what I put to the government members on this committee is quite simply this: If you wish to go to the Premier, who has indicated that he takes this very seriously and wants this properly reviewed and wants a good report, I would be quite content to start writing the report tomorrow if the Premier were to come in here and tell us he would be quite content that we start to do so before we start to deliberate and before we hear the witnesses.
If the Premier came in here and said that he was prepared that we write the report before any deliberations took place and before we heard the witnesses, then I would be quite content if we went ahead and did it. I would be shocked. I would not believe that he would be prepared for anyone on this committee to proceed in that manner, but if that is the case, I think we should put it to him and we should see if that is the way he wants this important piece of potential legislation dealt with. I would be shocked if he were prepared to have the report issued before the work was done.
Mr Sorbara: No, he would not do that. Do not be silly.
Mr Harnick: Certainly. Mr Sorbara states that the Premier would never do that and I should not be silly. I merely convey that the government members on this committee should not be silly either. Certainly if they wish to proceed in this way, I would like them to go and tell the Premier how his guidelines are being dealt with at the level of this committee.
The other aspect to this that I find absolutely reprehensible is the fact that we had a subcommittee meeting and the subcommittee meeting was chaired by the Vice-Chairman. At that meeting, there was no mention of what the government motion would be. What is the purpose of having a subcommittee meeting where each party has a representative who discusses the way the various bills and guidelines are going to be dealt with if we have a meeting and then come to the next committee meeting and find out that we are dealing with matters in a different way than what the subcommittee considered?
If I am going to be involved in this process at the subcommittee, then the work we do here and the motions that are tabled here should reflect what happened in that subcommittee meeting. There was no mention of proceeding in the manner set out in Mrs Mathyssen's motion, and if that is the way this committee wants to do its work, then there is no purpose in my being here and participating, because it truly is a farce.
I am shocked that anybody on this committee would even dare suggest proceeding in the way this motion reads, for the simple reason that the Premier himself has indicated how important these guidelines are to him. To do this in a manner that makes a mockery of those guidelines and a mockery of this process is not reflective of what he told us here or what he told us in the House last week when your party and your ministers experienced some difficulties.
The other matter I wish to point out is that we have nine witnesses on the list. We have two days set aside to examine those nine witnesses. That would mean we would be doing about three witnesses an hour, and that certainly is not a very long time for 12 people to engage in a thorough examination of the witnesses who come before this committee. I would suggest that, if we are going to make this process meaningful, we consider adding a certain amount of time so we can do our work properly.
But I am opposed to the government motion for two reasons: First, it does not reflect what the subcommittee discussed, and I find that devious and I question the motives of the government members of this committee in drafting the motion that way. Second, it makes a mockery of what your own Premier is stating is very important to him. I will be voting against this motion, and if you are going to write the report before the hearings take place, I am not going to take any part in it.
Mrs Mathyssen: I would like to point out to the members opposite that we have shown a great deal of latitude and deference in this committee and that we have been patient, but we have come to a point in time when we have work to do and we would like to get on with it.
Last February we heard from a number of witnesses. We had extensive information from those witnesses. We have had two months to consider what we heard in those meetings and from those witnesses. If Mr Harnick is concerned about the amount of time to listen to further witnesses, I would say we can reduce the number of witnesses if he does not feel comfortable. We are talking to nine in two days. We can reduce that number.
I would also like to say that the draft report will not be in its completed form and we will be able to make changes and refinements to that report as we hear from the next group of witnesses. But our committee has a job to do and, as I said before, we have had two months to consider what we heard last February. It is time to get on with it.
Very simply, Mr Chairman, this is ample time. We, on the government side, feel that we have been very generous, very fair and we want to get this back to the House. The time has come when we need concrete conflict-of-interest guidelines and we need them right now.
Mr Fletcher: Well spoken.
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Mr Sorbara: Can I just ask out loud whether either the whip or the Vice-Chairman is prepared to answer a couple of questions before I propose some sort of amendment to get us out of this difficult bind?
First of all, in view of the fact that the budget is going to be read on Monday 29 April, how do you propose to deal with that? We are not going to hear witnesses on Monday; we are going to be in the House listening to the budget. Will those witnesses be heard following the hearings on 6 and 7 May?
Mr Morrow: I would assume, Greg, that everything is being put back one day. Instead of going to the 29th and 30th, we are now moving the 30th over to the 6th. So basically we are giving you one more week.
Mr Sorbara: Are you willing to make the compromise that we hear witnesses in respect of conflict of interest on the 30th and on the 6th and the 7th?
Interjection: You cannot do that.
Mr Morrow: I did not hear you, Greg. I am sorry. Go ahead.
Mr Sorbara: Are you prepared perhaps to make a compromise so that we will have three days of witnesses on conflict of interest, on the understanding that on the third day we may not have witnesses all day but have some sort of chance to discuss the report that will have been written by then? So we will have three days of hearings and consideration of conflicts and then move the hearings on Bill 7 and Bill 8 to the Monday and Tuesday following the 6th and 7th. That would be the 13th and 14th.
Mr Morrow: I would agree to have the witnesses on the two days and on the third day have no witnesses, but we can talk about the final draft of the report.
Mr Sorbara: Okay, so you want to free up the final day, the 7th, for a final discussion on --
Mr Morrow: On the final draft.
Mr Sorbara: That would be better than nothing. You folks have the majority. Let me just say that, for people who put the name "democratic" in the title of their party, I am honestly shocked.
Mrs Mathyssen: Democratic, but not foolhardy.
Mr Sorbara: Irene Mathyssen says, "Democratic, but not foolhardy," and the staff to the ministers are laughing, but the fact is that this is a closure motion. I just want you to understand. This is a time allocation motion on perhaps the most sensitive and difficult issues that we are going to consider.
That is your choice, but let me put it this way. Some of you might remember David Peterson. David Peterson had a good test as to whether or not what you are proposing to do looked like a good idea or not. The test was simple. He used to say: "Just ask yourself how it would look on the front page of the Globe and Mail. If you think you can pass that test, then go ahead and do it. There is probably not too much political risk."
I say to my friends in the New Democratic Party to ask themselves, Gord, how it is going to look on the front page of the Globe and Mail. Maybe it will not get there, but you have to use that as the test. How is it going to look to hear that the committee today voted to write its report on conflict of interest before it heard from key witnesses and that it used closure to end any further committee discussion of conflict of interest? I am going to tell you that is what the press release is going to look like, so you should go back. You have got these orders --
Mr Fletcher: Who reads the paper?
Mr Sorbara: Just shut up for a second, Derek, would you?
Mr Winninger: What matters, the public or the papers? Come on.
Mr Sorbara: I want to tell you, David, that there are times when you want to bring in closure. Order, Mr Chairman, I have the floor.
The Chair: You both have the floor and Mr Fletcher and you are engaging in a discussion.
Mr Sorbara: And I am talking about organization and that is the subject of today's discussion.
The Chair: Please.
Mr Sorbara: There are times when you have to bring in time allocation or closure, but do you realize that you have just done that on Bill 4, a bill that is retroactive, so it comes into force no matter when you pass it; you have just done it on conflict of interest by way of the motion before this committee? The difficulty that you are going to be confronting is that you are going to get in the habit, every time the government gets in a little bit of trouble, of bringing in closure, and the people are going to find out about that.
You cannot hide things around here. It is like Zanana not resigning her directorship; the people find out about it. And it is like the Premier sending out a memo amending the conflict-of-interest guidelines, not to the press but to ministers, parliamentary assistants and caucus; the people find out about it. When it comes open for public discussion, what happens? You put in a time allocation motion. It would not hurt if we had another week or two to discuss this issue. It would not hurt if we had an opportunity to reflect on the guidelines in this committee after having heard from Perruza, who still has not divested, and after we had heard from Mammoliti, who still has not divested. It would be appropriate that we have an opportunity to discuss the issue.
You are going to have to go back to your voters and justify what you do. Gord, you have to go back to your voters and justify what you do in respect of the oath to the Queen. You know that; I know that. You have to justify what you do. All of you are newly elected members and you cannot continue to operate as you did in your private lives. When things get tough you ram them through. You cannot continue to do that, and these are terrible precedents.
There is a closure motion being discussed in the House right now and here today there is another closure motion on the table. Charles is right. It is absolutely offensive that you did not give us notice of this, that you did not tell us at the subcommittee meeting that you would be bringing in a closure motion and that we find out about it here and now without any opportunity to take it to our caucuses, without any opportunity to discuss it with our staff members and without any sense of what the implications of that are for how we are going to conduct our business in this committee. You are setting a terrible precedent and you are poisoning the atmosphere of this committee. You really are, I think, doing a disservice to the good world that we could establish here. But you have got the numbers, and I have said it all.
I hope that you will give us another day with witnesses. I hope you will move the thing -- I am not even going to move the motion, though. I will leave that up to you. The fact that without notice you have brought closure to this committee on these matters without one day of discussion of the substance among the members of this committee means that you have absolutely no respect for what we might add to the deliberations on conflict-of-interest guidelines, and I am really disappointed.
Mr Morrow: First of all, I do not consider this a closure motion because we are giving you ample time. We have asked --
Mr Sorbara: I am sorry, It is a closure motion. Any motion that limits the time for debate is a closure motion.
The Chair: Mr Sorbara, Mr Morrow has the floor.
Mr Morrow: We are giving you two weeks, actually a bit longer than two weeks. We are giving you two days of hearings --
Mr Harnick: Two weeks, with the report written before the hearings. If that is not closure, I do not know what is.
The Chair: Mr Morrow has the floor.
Mr Morrow: We have asked for a rough draft beforehand, so we can give you ample time to go over a final draft -- I would gather as much time as is needed to make a good final draft. That is basically what we are saying. We are giving you a lot of time. We are giving you two days to grandstand with witnesses that you want to grandstand with.
Mr Sorbara: I reject that allegation of grandstanding when we are considering guidelines that the Premier asked us to consider. He did not ask just the New Democratic Party members to consider them. When they consider it grandstanding, we do not have any more time for the committee.
Mr Harnick: If the only reason we are here is to bring a motion --
Mr Sorbara: Pass whatever motion you want. Okay? Handle it however you want.
Mr Morrow: That is all I have to say, Mr Chair.
Mrs Mathyssen: You pulled this stunt another day. You have to find a new tack.
The Chair: I would suggest that we recess for a few moments and then go on to a discussion of the budget.
Mr Morrow: We have a quorum.
The Chair: I would suggest we recess for a few moments to calm down. Thank you.
The committee recessed at 1640.
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The Chair: We are resuming discussion of the subcommittee report. Mr Winninger was next.
Mr Winninger: We certainly heard the member for York Centre drone on at some length today about how this committee is invoking closure. Certainly a motion to schedule attendance of witnesses and deliberation and discussion cannot be tortured into a motion for closure. I think Mr Sorbara is completely misrepresenting the intent of this particular motion, which is simply to acknowledge that the conflict-of-interest guidelines have been before this committee for two months now, witnesses have been heard and, as my esteemed colleague Mrs Mathyssen pointed out, witnesses can be heard again. The draft report can be initiated. The draft report can always be amended to reflect issues arising out of the witnesses who appear in early May.
There is a lot of grandstanding going on here today. I think that ultimately the public of Ontario have a right to have these guidelines put in place so that their members of the Legislature can not only be free of such conflicts but also be seen to be free of such conflicts of interest, and this has to be done soon.
Certainly the members of the government perhaps have the most to lose by way of these conflict-of-interest guidelines, being called upon to divest themselves of a lot of significant assets. Yet it is the government members of this committee and members of the government who are prepared to do that so that when decisions are made, they are not made in the face of personal conflict. So this is an issue that has to be brought to a head.
I think it is very unfortunate that the members of the opposition on this committee should choose to walk out and ignore such an important decision before this committee. I think that ultimately they will be judged by the people of Ontario.
Certainly they may not be too pleased with the idea that they will be constrained by conflict-of-interest guidelines, that perhaps these conflict-of-interest guidelines will become entrenched in the law. Perhaps they have some fear that they have the remote expectation that they might once again form the government of Ontario and by that time they will be constrained by these guidelines as well. Certainly this is no reason to boycott the committee. The government members have been demonstrating a great deal of patience in the face of some rather inappropriate comments, that this government is farcical, that this government is silly. What could be more juvenile than to level these kinds of allegations against the government members, who are only doing their job very responsibly on this committee?
Mr Mills: I would just like to speak to these proceedings here. I feel very disappointed that the members of the opposition and the third party chose to walk out on this meeting. I think that by doing so they chose not to debate the issues rationally, fairly and in a congenial manner.
I think that to debate this bill and the conflict of interest one certainly has to be of a congenial nature and not get carried away as to how this bill may or may not affect you or your government down the road. That seems to be one of the big issues here. There seems to be some sort of general reluctance to talk and be reasonable on anything, based upon the rationale that this, once into law, would be very difficult for these people to handle down the road.
I would just like to make reference to the statement of Mr Sorbara when he said we are preventing key witnesses from appearing before this committee. I would like to read into the record the key witnesses we have listened to who are going to make part of the primary report before we get around to the final one.
We had Murray Elston, an MPP with a wealth of information about conflict of interest as a previous member of the cabinet in different portfolios, and the information he gave was of great help to this committee.
Perhaps the most important person of all, we had the Honourable Gregory Evans, who is the Conflict of Interest Commissioner, and his input certainly goes a long way to help us compile our preliminary report.
We had Doug Ewart, Professor Ian Greene, the Honourable Howard Hampton and Mary Hogan. We had Monte Kwinter, who was a previous cabinet minister in the Liberal government, who was able to give us a wealth of information about how we should make our decisions.
We had the Honourable Frances Lankin, who was grilled extensively about her role as a member of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union and a negotiator for the Ontario Public Service Employees Union and how that related to her present cabinet position.
We had the Treasurer of Ontario whom we spoke to, the Honourable Floyd Laughren, and his input was certainly most welcome.
We had the Premier of Ontario, the Honourable Bob Rae, who came in and implored our committee to really look and come up with some guidelines that were really meaningful, and I think we had the benefit of his comments to this committee.
We had John Sweeney, who is no longer an MPP but was a cabinet minister in the Liberal administration. He came and I can remember him giving some very interesting guidelines and comments as they related to parliamentary assistants. I can remember Mr Sweeney telling us he had gone through eight parliamentary assistants. I know that all of us who are parliamentary assistants really enjoyed listening to Mr Sweeney and taking note of his contribution.
Then finally, of the witnesses, we listened to the Honourable Bud Wildman, the Minister of Natural Resources.
So for Mr Sorbara to say that we are waiting now for the key witnesses and that this is closure, that we are not going to see key witnesses and are not going to be able to compile a meaningful report, is complete rubbish.
I regret this day that people walk out from a committee. It almost reminds me of some sort of childish behaviour -- "If you don't play the game my way, I'm going to take my football and I'm going to go somewhere else." It is regrettable, and I hope that this regrettable behaviour will become known to the public and the opposition members will in the future have to suffer for this.
Mr Morrow: First of all, I would just like to say how proud I am of the government members here for realizing how important this is and how important the conflict of interest is, that we are sitting here and we do not have any opposition here. It is very regrettable that no opposition members are here, but that is their choice.
Second, Mr Sorbara talks about our motion being a closure motion. I do not believe the question was ever called, so I do not believe it is a closure motion. It looks like an agenda as far as I am concerned.
Third, Mr Sorbara talked about not getting anything. We are giving Mr Sorbara everything he needs. We are giving Mr Sorbara his witnesses that he asked for. We are also giving Mr Sorbara his time that he wanted plus one day that he asked for here this afternoon. That is all I would have to say, Mr Chairman.
Mrs Mathyssen: I would like to conclude by concurring with the very salient remarks made by my colleagues Mr Winninger, Mr Mills and Mr Morrow. I too regret the opposition leaving. I do not think it serves any useful purpose other than perhaps that we have had a lot more useful discussion. I suppose we should be grateful that they did not throw themselves on the floor and kick their little heels.
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I think the bottom line is that we have an obligation to bring in very strict and demanding conflict-of-interest guidelines and I am proud that our government is prepared to do that. I can only say that those who would oppose that are driven by unprincipled self-interest.
Mr Morrow: I would like a friendly amendment to our motion. We will add the extra day to do the final draft of the report. At that final date, the report will be done.
The Chair: The clerk has some clarification.
Clerk of the Committee: I am not sure. At one point, there seemed to be agreement that there would be witnesses on 30 April and 6 May and report writing on 7 May. Is that what you are clarifying?
Mr Morrow: That is what I am trying to clarify with this point.
The Chair: That is a friendly amendment, so to speak. Mrs Mathyssen, are you then changing your amendment?
Mrs Mathyssen: Yes, I would change the dates on my amendment. We will not meet on 29 April; we will meet on 30 April, finish hearing witnesses on 6 May and come to the final report on 7 May.
The Chair: The amended report of the subcommittee would be the same as before until 30 April, witnesses, conflict of interest. Then Monday 6 May, witnesses, conflict of interest; Tuesday 7 May, final recommendations regarding the conflict of interest; 13 and 14 May, public hearings on Bills 7 and 8.
Is that substantially correct? Does that reflect your changed amendment, Mrs Mathyssen?
Mrs Mathyssen: Yes.
The Chair: Are we ready for the vote on that particular issue? All in favour the amended -- excuse me. First of all, I guess it would be the amendment to the report and then the report itself. All those in favour of the amendment as proposed by Mrs Mathyssen? Opposed? Carried. All those in favour of the report of the subcommittee as amended?
Mrs Mathyssen: We would like a clarification on the witnesses who will be coming before the committee. We would like to specifically identify the witnesses and clarify that issue.
The Chair: Could we vote on the acceptance of the report first? All those in favour of the report as amended? Carried.
Mrs Mathyssen: We would like to suggest Mr Pouliot instead of Ms Akande.
The Chair: Have the names of the witnesses been recorded?
Clerk of the Committee: Yes, they have.
The Chair: Any other changes?
Mrs Mathyssen: The Premier.
The Chair: The Premier rather than someone from the Premier's office?
Mrs Mathyssen: Yes.
The Chair: Are Mrs Mathyssen's suggestions acceptable? They seem to be.
Are these witnesses to be asked for a statement or will they be coming simply to answer questions?
Mrs Mathyssen: Both.
The Chair: Should the time given to these witnesses be an even amount, or should one or the other of those witnesses have a greater portion of time?
Mrs Mathyssen: I think an even amount would be best.
The Chair: So we are looking at an even time scheduling for the clerk's purposes?
Mrs Mathyssen: Yes.
Ms Swift: I just want to mention to the committee members, with respect to giving the instructions tomorrow, I will just refer you to the summary of issues and recommendations that have been passed out. On page 21 is the list of issues and concerns that might focus your discussions for giving me instructions for making recommendations. The committee might want to consider if they want to deal with all those issues that have been identified or if they want to deal with only some of them and perhaps some of them in greater length and some of them in lesser length.
The recommendations that have been set out in the report are those recommendations of witnesses. The committee might want to make different recommendations or combine some of them. Those are things you might want to consider. If the committee wants me to have a draft report by next Monday or Tuesday, I will have to have fairly clear instructions on the recommendations themselves because there are quite a few of them. There may be issues that are not reflected in this report that you may want to bring up. But whatever, this is just a starting point for discussions for tomorrow.
Mr Morrow: That is no problem.
The Chair: Before we leave, we have also the budget to discuss for the fiscal year 1991-92.
Mr Morrow: Mr Chair, I would ask that we move the budget over until when the opposition is here. Would that be fair to everybody?
The Chair: I am sure it would be. We are adjourned until 3:30 tomorrow.
The committee adjourned at 1708.