CONTENTS
Monday 25 February 1991
Child and Family Support Statute Law Amendment Act, 1990, Bill 17 / Loi de 1990 modifiant les lois relatives aux obligations alimentaires, projet de loi 17
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)
Substitutions:
Coppen, Shirley (Niagara South NDP) for Mr F. Wilson
Huget, Bob (Sarnia NDP) for Mr F. Wilson
Johnson, Paul R. (Prince Edward-Lennox-South Hastings NDP) for Mr Winninger
Scott. Ian G. (St George-St. David L) for Mr Chiarelli
Clerk: Freedman, Lisa
Staff: Swift, Susan, Research Officer, Legislative Research Service
The committee met at 1320 in committee room 2.
CHILD AND FAMILY SUPPORT STATUTE LAW AMENDMENT ACT, 1990 / LOI DE 1990 MODIFIANT LES LOIS RELATIVES AUX OBLIGATIONS ALIMENTAIRES
Resuming consideration of Bill 17, An Act to amend the Law related to the Enforcement of Support and Custody Orders.
Reprise de l'étude du projet de loi 17, Loi portant modification des lois relatives à l'exécution d'ordonnances alimentaires et de garde d'enfants.
The Chair: Today we are considering Bill 17, An Act to amend the Law related to the Enforcement of Support and Custody Orders. Are there any comments, questions or amendments, and if so, to which sections of the bill?
Mr Wessenger: The government will be introducing a series of amendments to the bill, which I understand have already been circulated to all members of the committee.
Mr Sorbara: Our party also has a number of amendments to put before the committee. They have been presented to the clerk of the committee and have been incorporated into the package of amendments, and with any luck at all some of them will get passed, I hope.
Mr Elston: While we are awaiting the official response from the third party to the opening request --
The Chair: We are awaiting the third party response.
Mr Elston: -- could I just ask one question? One of our amendments will deal precisely with the issue of child poverty, and I believe it is the position of the Attorney General, his assistant being in the chair now, that this in fact is a child poverty bill, an issue which is designed to take steps to fight child poverty. Is that still the position of the ministry?
The Chair: Are you wishing to make a statement about the bill or --
Mr Elston: No, just asking if they would confirm the position of the government that this is a fight against child poverty.
Mr Wessenger: I think, Mr Elston, that this act has many purposes and that is one of them.
Mr Elston: Would you describe it as chief among the purposes?
Mr Wessenger: The main purpose of the act is obviously to provide more support for children and families and that is the main purpose of --
Mr Elston: That seems like a reasonable response, exactly the one I wished.
Mrs Cunningham: The comments that we would have follow what has already been stated: If in fact the purpose of the act is to put more support and resources into the hands of the parents who rightfully need them for their children, I would think at the same time that we do it keeping in mind that we do not want to increase the bureaucracy of having to do it. We want it more efficient for the families, but there will be some amendments that we will put forth to make certain that there is as little intervention as possible and that we are not wasting our time going after people who are rightfully supporting their families now the way they should be. So that will be the essence of where we are coming from. We want to help the government in this province in its endeavours, but we are not here to create more big bureaucracy and divert dollars away from families.
The Chair: Shall section 1 carry or are there amendments?
Mr Wessenger: I have an amendment which requires the unanimous consent of all --
Mr Sorbara: On a point of order, Mr Chairman, before my good friend Mr Wessenger introduces an amendment that needs unanimous consent, it has generally been the case, as I understand it, when a committee of the Legislature is considering a bill of this magnitude with as many amendments as we are going to be seeing on this bill, that we begin consideration of clause-by-clause review of a bill like Bill 17 with a statement or a speech or some remarks from the government, summing up the purpose of the bill, the government's view of what was heard during our public hearings and a summary, at least, of what is going to be in the amendments. I know that you are just a few months in the chair here and you are doing a very commendable job, an excellent job I might say, but I would point out to you that, generally after a speech of that sort, it is customary and appropriate to give the two opposition parties, if there are two opposition parties participating in the discussions, an opportunity to respond to the remarks of either the Attorney General or his representative the parliamentary assistant, who in this case is my good friend Mr Wessenger.
My point of order is really a question, and that is: Are we going to hear from the parliamentary assistant of the Attorney General in regard to the government's view of what was heard during the public hearings, a review of the bill and certainly an analysis of the amendments coming forward, or are we just going to move into clause-by-clause?
The Chair: I would welcome comments from the parliamentary assistant if he wishes to put them forth.
Mr Wessenger: I think that what I would suggest in the circumstances, in view of the fact that I think that we have already discussed many of the proposed amendments in general terms and we have heard from the representatives, and in fact some of the proposed amendments will deal with some of the matters raised by the groups, I would propose really, from the government's point of view, to dispense with opening remarks in the interests of giving us more time to deal with the clause-by-clause sections of the bill.
The Chair: Mr Sorbara, would you like to make any comments?
Mr Sorbara: I do have a few comments to make, but might I ask that the part of our opening comments be presented by my colleague Mr Elston, who will only be with us for a few more minutes and then needs to participate in other deliberations of the Legislature? Then I will carry on from where he leaves off.
The Chair: I believe his meeting is not for another 20 minutes. Are you anticipating the comments requiring that much time for his opening part of them?
Mrs Cunningham: Do we have a choice of who makes them?
Mr Sorbara: Mr Poirier is not ready to make them.
The Chair: It would be helpful to have a sense of the length of time involved here.
Mr Sorbara: Do you want minutes, hours or days?
Mr Elston: While I appreciate your invitation to do a 20-minute presentation, I am not prepared to do that. I just wanted to highlight a few of the things that I found as we went through the public hearings with respect to the bill. I note for the record that of course we had some interesting presentations made, and while each of the parties had supported the general intent of the legislation, it became clear during the public presentations that there were a number of individuals who had some concerns, in fact real reservations, about the merit of proceeding with the legislation in its current form. In fact during questioning of some of the witnesses and even during questioning of some of the representatives of both the ministry and of the New Democratic government we found some places where there were some difficulties inherent in the way that the bill was structured. In that light, we have put together a series of amendments around which we think there is some opportunity for making the bill a little bit more reasonable, probably even a little bit more workable, and which in some ways will define and delineate a little bit better where the responsibilities and onuses are going to rest.
I found during the deliberations that a good number of advocacy groups came in and actually echoed the call of the government that this was an attack on child poverty. When you got down to the result of the submissions they inherently supported an extra series of amendments, if we could have put them in this bill, that would have gone much further to encourage advance payment systems by the government to deal with poverty and to assist people in extremis in terms of financial matters.
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What we have done in the amendments we have brought forward is to set up a couple of things that I thought were unclear, and my colleagues have agreed with me, that in fact there is a duty of responsibility owed by the support and custody order enforcement branch and its officials not only just to the payee but also to the payor. I guess if those amendments actually carry -- and I presume that those amendments will carry, although there is some controversy about how far the amendment is to go throughout the bill -- we want it made clear that both payor and payee are owed a responsibility by the bureaucracy. Of course that is in fact quite what it should be because there are moneys passing from one to the other, trustees, relationships set up between payor, payee and the government now, in every case where there is a breakdown.
I also wanted to make it clear that if this was a genuine attack on child poverty we should not speak so much about an attack on child poverty unless we were willing to move forward and indicate that the director had the discretion -- and one of our amendments goes to this extent -- to refuse to honour an assignment until such time as money had been paid in large enough quantity to the payee and her dependants, or his dependants, as the situation may be, that they reach at least the poverty line. If this bill is to do anything about child poverty, as a number of groups urge us to do, it would not require any expenditure of money at all. We could allow them to receive the payments from family benefits or general welfare assistance plus the private source of funds so that they could actually be better off, rather than having the director going ahead and making the private payments available to the consolidated revenue fund. That is problematic if the purpose of the bill, about which the parliamentary assistant was so kind as to speak at the opening of these exercises today, is to be carried out.
There are a whole series of other issues that have some very practical questions behind them. Our amendments are designed to bring those issues to the fore so that we can deliberate upon them one at a time. We also have, by the way, some of the same concerns that I know are going to be exhibited by a number of the government members on this committee. Some of us have talked, if not at length, at least intensely, about some of the issues generated by some of the proposed amendments that we have had before us for some time.
Having the opportunity to listen to all of the people make presentations, it was quite clear that the bill was widely supported, that the parties here do support it, but that all of us have very real concerns about the practical nature of its application if two or three things fail to occur.
1. If there is a failure to provide real and broad-based financial support to this organization, this whole regime is bound to fail. I think that becomes clear. We have a very big backlog now under a system that does not require the inclusion of every agreement in it.
2. It seems to me that this is also bound to fail if we provide a very inflexible collection-agency-type model that does nothing but take cheques and is unable to respond to the real and legitimate concerns for fairness and for flexibility that individuals in the community need. That is particularly the case when you consider that a whole number of people, even if it is 20%, are not in default in payments, who are voluntarily making their payments now. I think that is the minimum number we could agree upon. We are now introducing a third party into a relationship between two people which has already broken down -- necessarily, because it will have to result in that before we get collections and other things required. We are introducing a third party into a relationship that is already strained, which it seems to me, develops a new tension in a relationship between payor and payee and their dependants. This legislation is bound to fail socially if we mandate this collection agency with such an inflexibility that it is unable to respond to the real social and emotional needs of the people who are party to these actions.
I am very much concerned by that. We had a group of people in here, I guess it was on the second-last and the last day, who made presentations about the difficulty of assuming some sort of normal relationship, particularly with their children, but even with their former spouses. We already know that the relationship is marked by emotions of anger and hostility, but when we introduce this third player it will become much more impossible. I think that makes it particularly more difficult to say that this piece of legislation is socially responsible. If it is not flexible enough to take into account the human emotional needs of the parties, then of course this legislation will fail. It may be a good collection agency bill, but it will be bad social legislation.
3. The third part I think that we will see is that if we do not provide for the individuals -- and I have talked about the social and emotional side of it -- who are party to these breakdowns, an avenue for the development of a sense of responsibility for their own affairs, I would say that we are failing again on the social side of the legislation. If it would appear that every time there is a problem between two people they can either run to the courts, as they now do, where it is extremely expensive -- and that is something else I would like to underscore in my remarks, the expense of the court system -- or if they resort to the director to verify the right of the so-called aggrieved party, then this legislation will fail.
Right now there is provision in the bill, obviously, which says that for separation agreements or for court orders before 1987 they can be registered at the discretion of the director and upon a call or request by one of the parties, they can become subject to a support deduction order. It seems to me that that is an invitation for visitation of emotion by one party resorting to the bureaucracy of the government of Ontario. I find that that, as a result of this bill, would be a failure again from a social legislation perspective.
While I outline these as major concerns, I am not sure that any or all of the amendments will answer those questions sufficiently, except to say that as we go through clause-by-clause -- and I regret that I am not here for each of the clauses, but we are interviewing, with Ms Murdock, the candidates for Freedom of Information Commissioner. I thought I would tell you what we are doing since it is freedom of information we are dealing with. But we will be in and out of this committee, and I only wish that I was here for each of the clauses so that I could ensure to the best degree possible that we build into this legislation the type of flexibility that is necessary, because we are dealing first and foremost with human beings, with individuals who have emotional as well as financial needs.
I just wanted to underscore those three areas of concern for you, Mr Chair, and I have taken up just a few minutes more than I planned, but I thought I would give you the context of the concerns that we have as a caucus.
One last item: I guess if I looked at the amendments we have put in, some deal with very practical matters like assigning interest to amounts that are received, and how you credit those, and a number of other very nitty-gritty items that might very well be the subject matter of regulations. But that brings you, Mr Chair, up to date on exactly where we have come as a caucus. I know Mr Sorbara has some more remarks, but those are mine.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Elston. I am very pleased that you take the time out to sit with the committee this week, knowing your very busy schedule.
Mr Sorbara: I do not propose to go on at great length in my opening remarks, but I do just want to expand on some of the things said by my colleague Mr Elston and make a few of my own remarks.
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I think I, like the other members of the committee, was very impressed and in some cases very touched and in some cases very moved by the presentations that we as a committee heard from members of the public during our several days of public hearings.
I am wondering whether any of what we heard had any affect on the government. I have not had an opportunity to review the government's amendments. I would have thought that the Attorney General, or the Attorney General's parliamentary assistant, would have come before the committee today to prepare this committee for the work it is going to undertake.
When I say this, I am not simply trying to put the government or the Ministry of the Attorney General in an embarrassing position, but if you look at the documentation that we have, the annotated version of Bill 17, you can see that we are going to be undertaking a significant amount of work in dealing with this bill clause by clause.
I do not know if the amendments that the government are proposing bear any relationship whatever to what we heard. I want to know that and I would like to know it now because if the amendments are just the amendments that they talked about at the beginning of the public hearings, or if the amendments are just amendments that are put forward by brilliant legal scholars like legislative counsel, because the bill would work more effectively with those amendments, then we wasted a number of days listening to people who really thought that we could have an impact.
I know for a fact that the amendments that we are putting forward, in particular those requested by my colleague Mr Elston, arise from two sources: first, his own view as a politician about the way in which government should function; but second, and more important, what we heard when we had public hearings.
It will be very sad for this committee to begin consideration of its very first bill in a brand-new Parliament -- first NDP government in the history of Ontario -- if it just began in the same old style of: "Yes, let the public come in. Let them have their say. Let's pretend that we are listening to them." Then we have a series of amendments that are drafted as if they had never been here, as if they had never set foot in this room, as if they had not worked for, in some cases, weeks to craft down to 15 minutes -- we say, "That is all the time you get, but we want to hear from you." Do any of these amendments arise from what we heard? If not, let us hear from the government about that. Let us hear the government's assessment about what went on during the public hearings.
I think there were Liberal members who sat through all of the public hearings. I know my friend Mr Kwinter was here for many of them. I was here for many of them. I think Mr Elston was here for all of them. We were listening very attentively. We heard a number of people say: "This bill is needed. We need to do this." In fact, we had some groups saying, "It is not enough; it is taking the first step, but there is a long staircase to go up and we expected the New Democratic Party government to go further."
We heard other people come in and say, "There is absolutely no way in the world that this government should pass this bill, should interfere with my right to privacy between me and my employer." These were mostly men, I think, although I think there were a couple of people on the other side, if I can put it like that, who argued that this bill represented an unacceptable invasion into matters that are private.
We heard some very personal stories during those public hearings. Some of them did not bear directly on the substance of the bill, I would have to say, and I think I or others did say at the time, "While your story was an important one to hear, unfortunately this committee is not seized with the power to do anything about that." I am thinking in particular of the access cases. Remember the government determined, in its wisdom -- put "wisdom" in quotation marks in this case -- not to proceed with Bill 124 to deal with some of the problems, I emphasize some of the problems, of access in this province, access to children of a marriage when a marriage has broken down.
We could not deal with that, although, let's be frank about this, there are many, many people in this province who believe that if they are to be denied access, their willingness to continue support is compromised. Now, we know that is not what the law says. The law says something very different. The law says the two are separate and shall remain separate.
But we did hear people before this committee say: "I do not care what your laws say, I feel it. You do not know what it is like," they said, "to be denied the opportunity to see your children, and yet you still want me to pay money and, not only that, you want to take it off my paycheque even before I see my paycheque." And I say, yes, that is what we want and that is what we are going to do, because the issue of support is so very important and it is a fundamental right of a parent who is the beneficiary of an order to support to have that support and to leave other questions for consideration elsewhere, including the question of access.
But through it all, Mr Chairman, all of the matters that we heard during our public hearings and the discussions that we have had, regrettably I am forced to say that the government has not been willing to admit that this bill, important as it is, represents an administrative change in the way in which the support and custody order enforcement branch does its business, to make the doing of its business more efficient and more effective, and does not, and will not, and cannot really address the issues of poverty among some of our citizens, poverty in the way in which it affects children. So I disagree with my friend Mr Wessenger who says that one of the chief aims of this bill, chief among its purposes, he says, is dealing with child poverty.
Particularly is that the case now, when so many of the people who are subject to an obligation to provide support and would willingly do it if they had any money, are out of work or the subject of layoff notices or have not been able to secure a job in many, many months.
That is the reality of a recession, I say to you, Mr Chairman, and to the members of this committee.
If we really want to get on with dealing with questions of poverty, well, we should do that one of these days; not in this bill. This bill is an administrative matter. It saves the Ministry of Community and Social Services some money and it allows or provides collection tools to the Ministry of the Attorney General that it has not had before.
Some information was provided to us at the beginning of this clause-by-clause consideration of the bill, which I wish had been available to us earlier. I think probably this research is not new research, and it would have made our deliberations far easier.
I see, for example, an analysis of the support and custody order enforcement case load for January 1991. If any committee members care to follow this, the information is provided in Briefing Information for Members of the Standing Committee on Administration of Justice, Bill 17, etc submitted to us -- well, it is dated 18 February. We saw it today, I guess, for the first time.
But if you go through it and if you look at section A on the page identified as SCOE Caseload Summary Statistics, January 1991, if you look at this chart, it does not take you very long to see that, notwithstanding the evidence that we had before this committee during its deliberations and consideration, some 35.3% of the case load is doing not so badly, thanks very much, with 16.2% in full compliance, 13,539 cases. Some 19.1% have some arrears owing, but these are cases where funds have flowed within the last 35 days.
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It is the second box, the B box that all of us should really be concerned about; all of us should have far more information about what is in the B box, so that we could make a better judgement as to whether or not this bill is going to make any difference.
Let us look at the B box. These are cases where no money has flowed within the last 35 days. Some businesses do not pay for 90 days, but we do not have a breakdown of 30, 60, 90 days, which is customary in business terms. I am glad of that, really, because any default in this case creates a problem. But you notice that in box B there are two categories of cases: "Program unable to enforce," and look what you have under there: "Transferred out of province." Okay, Bill 17 is not going to help there. "No filing package received from creditor." This bill is not going to help there, although there are a significant number of cases there, 17.3%. "Enforcement stayed by the court." There the court says, "We're not going to enforce those."
Then there is the second box, (2): "Enforcement undertaken/pending." Now that really is the heart and soul of the case: 42.5% -- 35,572 cases where enforcement is undertaken or pending. What does that mean? Does that mean there are garnishment proceedings for those 42.5% of the cases? If we had had testimony from the ministry at least about that line, if they had been able to show us that Bill 17 is going to change that figure and move it from 42.5% to 2.5%, I think all of us could have said, "Let's get on with it." But frankly, and this is a great disappointment to me, Mr Chairman, I did not hear that kind of testimony from the Attorney General while we were considering this bill. Nor did I hear it from any of the witnesses who came to testify, but to tell you the truth, it is not those witnesses who had the responsibility for showing us how we would go from 42.5% to 2.5%. They were here to tell us what we could not have found out ourselves about the bill. Had we had that information, these hearings would have gone far easier and this consideration would have been far easier, but it is too late now. We are at clause-by-clause now and we should get on with it.
I want to thank the people from the policy development branch of the ministry who provided us with the other handout, Information Requested by Members of the Standing Committee on Administration of Justice, Bill 17. Again, this one is dated 25 February. It is fresh out today. The information that I am interested in, Mr Chairman, is in appendix B, which provides examples of statutory opt-out provisions in a number of jurisdictions within the United States. We will be moving an amendment to the bill which provides for creditors and debtors to avoid the SCOE system of enforcement. By the way, we are not going to be using SCOE for very long because we are going to change the name of the act to something, I think, more attractive. Changing the name does not protect the innocent or collect any more money, but we are going to be doing that as well. These clauses will be effective as we get into the discussion surrounding the amendments that we are going to bring forward concerning Bill 17 and the ability to opt out of the enforcement provisions of Bill 17, and I commend these examples to my colleagues on the committee.
Finally, Mr Chairman, I just want to say another word about the funding of this program. The members of this committee should be under no illusions about whether or not the passage of this bill is going to change the lives of very many people, if the government of Ontario continues to under-resource this branch.
This branch, as a result of this bill, is taking on a far more significant workload. Let us not kid ourselves about that. Virtually every order for support is now going to come under the jurisdiction and be the responsibility of SCOE. That goes beyond what exists now. We established that during our hearings. So there is far more work to do; there are far more cheques to be entered into a computer when they arrive from the employer; there are far more employers to fight with over discrepancies in amounts; there are far more employers to fight with if there is an error in the order or if the employee, the debtor, has left. And then there are far more cheques to send out. Hopefully, some more of them will be in a more complete amount.
This is a huge case load already and it is expanding dramatically and if we come back to this committee in a year or two and find out, in considering the nature of enforcement, that funds are not available for this program and that people are waiting two and three and four and six months, then I say to you that it will be time for the Attorney General at that time to apologize, not only to this committee and this Legislature but to the province, because in his statement he said that the government was finally going to be dealing with child poverty. Hogwash. And certainly hogwash if money is not made available to this branch to do the responsible thing and make sure that the system is one that is state-of-the-art and really responds to those thousands and thousands of people who now will look exclusively to the government for the support that the court says they have a right to.
I look forward to clause-by-clause consideration. I want to tell the members of the committee that they have heard from us about what amendments they will be seeing from our party. I want to remind them that we have not heard from the government on that score and that is too bad, but the government has, I guess, decided that it would be better just to proceed without an overall discussion, an overall statement, about their intentions. I, for one, Mr Chairman, will be looking to see whether the government's amendments reflect what we heard during committee consideration. It is my suspicion that these amendments do not reflect that and if that is the case I will be very disappointed. More than that, the people who took the time to come to this committee will be very disappointed indeed. Those are my remarks.
The Chair: Mr Fletcher, Mr Wessenger has waived the right to make a statement at the outset. Was it a statement you wished to make about the bill?
Mr Fletcher: I was just wondering how many opening statements we were allowed.
The Chair: Mr Elston and Mr Sorbara did make statements at some length. Mrs Cunningham made a very brief statement earlier.
Mr Sorbara: She has not made her statement yet.
The Chair: But I do not know how many.
Mr Fletcher: Are you making a statement?
Mrs Cunningham: Three minutes.
The Chair: Mrs Cunningham has certainly the right to expand on her opening comments.
Mr Fletcher: Is Mr Carr making a statement also?
The Chair: For the interests of brevity, I am sure that Mr Carr is going to waive that.
Mr Carr: You never know.
Mr Fletcher: Thank you. That is all I wanted to know.
Mrs Cunningham: I will add to our initial statement. It had been my intention to make statements as we went through the clauses, but I think, in the interest of letting everyone know exactly where the Progressive Conservatives are coming from, you should know that the intentions for our amendments were made in the initial statement by our critic, Mr Harnick, when the bill was introduced into the House and upon subsequent readings.
I would like to say that the great concern that was expressed at that time was, first of all, the inability, so far, of the government to enforce the support and custody orders to date. Basically, our great concerns, as related to us through our caucus colleagues, are of the operations and the inefficiencies of many SCOE offices across the province of Ontario, not to be judgemental but to raise a real concern, and I am certain that they would, on their behalf, want us to raise those concerns as the committee proceeds.
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I would remind the Chairman of the committee that the minister, when in opposition, stated that the resources for the SCOE offices should be doubled. He was angered by the cases that came to his attention as an individual member and in his critic portfolio as related to him by his colleagues.
We are saying that there must be better ways for the offices to operate, but having looked briefly at the report that was prepared for us in the last few days by the director of the support and custody enforcement branch, as one takes a look at the case loads alone that involve much more than getting money from people: 761 case loads per enforcement staff. That is a provincial average, and I think that is what we are getting to. We sit here working through legislation which we hope will be of some assistance and, of course, we are sending a message to people who are not fulfilling their responsibilities and are breaking court orders; but at the same time we have to take a look at the supports which are out there to support families. I look at that as being the work of that office. The people in my office spend more time with Workers' Compensation Board issues and SCOE cases than anything else. We, in this committee, have an opportunity to lighten that workload, and that will be the essence of our two major amendments which were presented by Mr Harnick during the deliberations in the House as his intent; that people who are already paying and whom SCOE do not have to deal with at this point in time, ought to be given, certainly, the opportunity to continue with their good record. I believe my colleagues from the Liberal caucus both mentioned the quality of life and the anger that is involved, in other words, and any interference by government in family life where it is already working, of course, is something that we will be talking about at a later date.
I would also like to say at this point in time that we have placed with you some 10 amendments, two of which I have spoken about. Others are in direct response to requests by witnesses, where we felt that they had, in fact, made reasonable and important and very useful comments. I am not certain which of those have already been picked up by the government because I have not had an opportunity to look through it, but as we go through it I am sure we will be making comments there.
The other issue that I would like to raise today is that, certainly in the province of Ontario, this will be one very small part of assisting families who are a part of a very large trend in Ontario, and that is families that are having to go through the whole issue of separation and custody and ultimately divorce. We hear about many of the children and many of the parents who, of course, are living below the poverty level. We also hear about the mental health problems of young children and adults, often related to family breakup. I feel that we would have spent our time much more wisely if our committee had had the opportunity to look at one of the pilots that is in process now, something that many of us have been following very carefully, and that is the pilot project around mediation and family law. I would hope that your committee, Mr Chairman, would look at that.
Equally important, we have said it before and we will say it again: We feel that this committee should look at the supervised-access arrangements that are being practised across the province of Ontario, not to the extent that we would like them, but certainly in some parts of the province. I do not feel that this piece of legislation can be enacted on its own to make even a small dent in taking a look at the quality of life of families. In particular, one of the primary problems that we have with the bill is a criticism on behalf of many of the witnesses, and that is, I am not sure how you can deal, to the extent that was brought before this committee, with the procedural difficulties that are inherent in this legislation -- how much you put into print, that is. We have had a couple of amendments that would probably more properly be in regulation, but we are so concerned about the whole implementation process that SCOE has to deal with right now that we want to see it written right in front of us so we clearly understand it. So the procedural difficulties, whether they relate to the witnesses who came to us on behalf of small businesses or on behalf of witnesses who came to us from large corporations with automated payrolls and with resource people, I think you will be hearing from us as we proceed through the legislation.
I objected in the very beginning to raising, as one of the objectives of this legislation, the whole concern of child poverty. I have not heard the government refer to it since and I hope they will not. That is the kind of smokescreen that we do not need in dealing with real problems in society, especially for children in these times. I feel this legislation may have an impact, but certainly, taking a look at the operations of SCOE and giving more support would be much more valuable than spending the kind of time that we have to spend on writing laws in this province, and the kind of resources that we have as we proceed with them, as opposed to providing the kind of programs that families need to see them through the tremendous challenges of daily life, in our school systems, our health care systems, our social systems and in our legal environment.
So with that I would like to close our remarks on behalf of our party. I would ask for some support from yourself as we go through this. I think it is going to be somewhat cumbersome and in the beginning it might take us a while to get into it. I do not want to delay the progress of the committee, except from time to time I may ask for a short adjournment just in order to keep things moving along more smoothly, because of, I think, a lot of information at the last minute. But I thank you for the opportunity.
Section 1:
The Chair: I believe I have already asked for questions, comments or amendments to section 1 and Mr Wessenger was trying to respond.
Mr Wessenger: The first amendment that I am going to make is -- and I might suggest that members of the committee refer to the annotated version of Bill 17, which may be of some assistance to them in going through the amendments; it sets out the purpose of the bill, then the government amendments that are proposed and the purpose of the amendment. The first amendment that I have is set out on page 3 of the annotated version of Bill 17. I should mention that this amendment I am proposing does require the unanimous consent of members of the committee, because it amends the whole previous act with respect to the definitions.
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The Chair: Is there unanimous consent for this amendment?
Agreed to.
Mr Wessenger: Okay. I move that part I of the bill be amended by adding the following section:
"1. The Support and Custody Orders Enforcement Act, 1985 is amended by striking out `debtor' and `debtor's' wherever those words appear and replacing them in each case with `payor' or `payor's' as is appropriate."
I might add that this amendment was previously submitted to the committee. I believe two deputations had objection to the word "debtor" in the legislation, and by changing it to "payor" I think it meets that objection.
Mrs Cunningham: Just a comment --
Mr Sorbara: If Mrs Cunningham wants to speak I will speak after her, if it is all right.
The Chair: Oh, you are not waiving.
Mr Sorbara: I know Mr Fletcher is just waiting for my remarks. My objective every day is just to see how much I can upset him.
Mrs Cunningham: I just wanted to point out that this was very clearly the concern of many of us. Certainly both the Liberals and ourselves spoke to this many times to the witnesses as we asked questions of them. I think it was more than just two who came before us. I think many of us raised that concern, as did members of the government as we proceeded through this legislation.
Mr Mills: I would just like to make a remark for my colleague and friend Mr Sorbara, that here is an example where we have listened to the people who came before this commission. Contrary to your belief and understanding that we may not be listening, I think this is the first example on the first amendment where we have listened and taken heed of what the public said to us.
Mrs Cunningham: This is one of the easier ones, Mr Mills.
Mr Mills: I wanted to make that point.
Mr Sorbara: I am glad my friend Mr Mills pointed that out, because obviously he is going to be the government spokesperson explaining how these amendments relate to what we heard. That is good, Gord. I am glad you volunteered for that. Obviously the parliamentary assistant does not want to do that, but I am glad somebody is going to. But of course Mr Kwinter makes the point, rightly so. He says to the committee: "No, no, you can't have that, Gord, because the government proposed this amendment before we even started the public hearings." So the score is government 0, opposition 1 so far. Now, can I just --
The Chair: Are you finished?
Mr Sorbara: No, I am not, not at all. This is a very significant amendment. Mr Chairman, I unfortunately was out of the room when you asked for unanimous consent for this. I am not sure what my answer would have been. I was just deliberating about that as I was outside of the room.
But it does not really matter because the government had an alternative motion, if it was not going to get unanimous consent on this one, which would do essentially the same thing. I think this is a bad idea, this amendment.
The Chair: May I clarify, Mr Sorbara? It was unanimous consent to introduce the amendment, not to pass the amendment.
Mr Sorbara: Introduce it, I understand that, not to pass it. No, I appreciate that. Members in our party will vote how they feel on this thing. This is not crucial to the success of the act. In fact, the reason why I object to it is that it is cosmetic, does not do anything, and it simply portrays a false impression to the public, first. Second, it is an offence to the language, the English language, that is. I do not know if there is a French equivalent to this amendment. I guess I should check the act and find that out. I will do that in a moment, sir.
The Chair: The clerk informs me that amendments could be entered in French or English.
Mr Sorbara: No, what I am wondering is whether or not there is a French equivalent, whether we are changing the French word, which is "«payeur» Personne qui est tenue de verser des aliments aux termes d'une ordonnance alimentaire." Okay, so we are using "payeur" instead of --
M. Poirier: «Débiteur».
M. Sorbara: «Débiteur» ? Merci, monsieur.
M. Revell: Oui, Monsieur Sorbara. Il y a une motion disponible en français qui est à changer le mot «débiteur» contre le mot «payeur».
Mr Sorbara: Merci beaucoup. I apologize for the fact that my Black's Law Dictionary is out of date in that it is the third edition. But I do not think either the fourth or fifth edition would change the definition of "debtor" very much. It is very simple. It says: "Debtor. One who owes a debt" -- what is someone who is the subject of a support order? Someone who owes a debt -- "he who may be compelled to pay a claim or demand. Anyone liable on a claim, whether due or to become due." That is why even if you do not have to pay yet, you are a debtor. Understand the legal definition, "whether due or to become due." The authority for that is Cozart v Barnes, CCASC. I wonder what that stands for? I will have to defer to legislative counsel.
So that is the appropriate definition of "debtor." What does it say about "payor"? Payor is "One who pays or is to make a payment, particularly a person who is to make a payment of a bill or a note." The correlative is "payee." The payor is the one who pays, and the payee is the one who gets paid.
So why are we changing the language? I appreciate that you would like to make it look attractive to the general public. But the fact is that our work here is to write laws, and when we write laws we use words that have the appropriate legal meaning. What we are talking about here, when we refer to someone who is the subject of a support order, is someone who owes a debt, someone who has to pay something whether it is due or to become due. You cannot solve the problem of child poverty by changing the legal meaning of the word "debtor" and using a word like "payor," which ought not to be used in this circumstance. It simply ought not to be used.
I suspect the motion is going to pass. I guess I am glad it got unanimous consent so that we would not have to read the alternative motion into the record. But I for one think that you should call something what it is, and particularly when you are writing laws you should use the words that have the correct legal meaning. So whether or not you are going to have it "payer" or "payor" -- that is a problem for the Toronto Star, I understand -- the correct legal word is "debtor" and I regret the fact that legal counsel has allowed you to manipulate, bastardize, the language a little bit with "payor" instead of "debtor."
Mrs Cunningham: I am personally pleased to see that the legal counsel is enlightened to today's world. I do not consider myself a debtor because I owe --
Interjection.
Mrs Cunningham: No, I do not like the term. I do not think kids should call their parents debtors any more than we should consider ourselves debtors because we have got so many days to pay for something. If people in this room feel that way, they should rip up their credit cards. It is the same thing as far as I am concerned. But I would suspect this is not going to be Mr Sorbara's great concern in the long run, and I would also challenge what "legal language" means. I am glad there are fewer lawyers writing legislation if that is the case, or getting elected, because I really think that we in fact --
Interjection.
Mrs Cunningham: No, I am fed up with it; I really am. I spent so many years on councils where I had to listen to people argue about words that do not mean a damn thing. This one I think is saying exactly what it means, with respect to my friend and colleague -- most people would not believe that, Greg, but they know that we are very fond of each other -- and I will say that I think this is more progressive, and if that is what we are getting from our younger legal people, then I am pleased.
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The Chair: Any further comments? Mr Poirier.
Mr Poirier: I am not a lawyer so Dianne can rest reassured. But I have got another nightmare for her: I am one of three honorary members of the Association of Translators and Interpreters of Ontario.
Mrs Cunningham: That will not be a nightmare.
Mr Poirier: Well, it may end up to be. Obviously, in that perspective words and definitions of words are very important, and "debtor" to me does not necessarily mean a negative sense. But if you look at the definition that my friend Sorbara brought forward from his very antique law dictionary, which would be -- if they were payors, they may not be under SCOE in the first place. I am not cringing at the use of the word "debtors." If some people feel offended by that, I think it is over-engaged sensitivities pertaining to the word. Obviously it would be nice, Utopian, to see an area in Ontario where you would not even need SCOE. The fact that we do need it so much is very distressing, that people are not respectful of their debts, because we all have debts and we all have credits. But in that particular case with SCOE and the intensity of what is happening under SCOE, I think the word "debtor" is quite appropriate and I think, with all due respect, that the government motion was being oversensitive to the use of that word, which is obviously still in the English language dictionary as far as I am concerned and still with a very honourable definition. If some people are uncomfortable with it, well, too bad, because some of us could put a credit card that is maybe full up on the table and not feel bad about it. So even though we ourselves are debtors, we do not feel bad about it and if some people are caught as debtors under SCOE, they should not feel bad about being there; but once you are there you are still a debtor.
Mr Kwinter: Let me just briefly expand on the same issue. To listen to the government position and to the ministry position, the bulk of the people under SCOE are, in fact, debtors. That is the reason for the legislation, that according to them there are relatively few who are payers. As a result, it would seem to me that, notwithstanding we are splitting hairs over the definition, there would be some merit in taking a look at it because we really are talking about debtors.
The Chair: Mr Sorbara. You are responding to the bill, not to Mrs Cunningham?
Mr Sorbara: I would certainly respond to Mrs Cunningham. She said that she does not care what kind of language we use. But words have specific meaning. I only choose to speak of this again because this is a perfect example of what this new government is doing. It is dealing with cosmetics. They talk about child poverty and then introduce a bill to make it easier to collect money. It assists them administratively. It gives the government new collection powers. It does not do a damn thing about child poverty.
The idea that you would want to bring forward an amendment to say, "payor," which these debtors are not, many of them, instead of "debtor," which these debtors, all of them, are, is just absolutely silly and I do not know really why you are doing it. Dianne Cunningham does not like lawyers, but lawyers argue cases in court and some day, some lawyer is going to latch upon the government of Ontario's new definition of a payor and that is going to have an impact on some case at some time. The fact that she finds that unfortunate is just the way the world is. That is what lawyers do and I think it is important work. The fact here is that, indeed, in the case of many people who will be the subject of automatic deduction, they are not even the payor. Guess who the payor is; the employer is the payor. They are the ones that are going to be paying into the support and custody order enforcement branch. They are the payors. They are not the debtors. They could become a debtor if they fail to make a payment. That is what the bill says. That is what is going to happen to them. They are going to become payors and then, if they fail to pay, they are going to become debtors, because they are going to owe a debt.
I guess we are going to have a vote on this and of course, maybe some of the government members want to speak on it, who knows? The fact is that I simply lodge this tiny little, insignificant, "Oh well, it does not mean anything," objection to the misuse of the language, notwithstanding that someone that testified before us said they would prefer to see "payor" rather than "debtor."
I do not make any bones about the fact that I am a debtor. I owe lots of debts and some of them are going to come due pretty soon and therefore I am a debtor. Legally I am a debtor. Now and again I am a payor when I have enough money to pay those debts. When I do not pay them, I might become a debtor in default. Unfortunately, with SCOE, there are too many debtors who are in default of their legal obligations to pay. They are not payors, and that is why we have this bill.
So, Mr Chairman, all I can tell you is that legislative counsel have succumbed to the wishes of the political expedience of the new Attorney General of the province of Ontario and it looks like we are going to start calling debtors "payors," even if they do not pay and even if they have no legal obligation to pay because, after all, it is the employer under this act who is actually going to be the payor. SCOE will be the payee and the recipient of that payment will be the spouse who is the beneficiary of the order for support.
Mr Wessenger: I would just like to say first of all, on the question of language, I prefer to have positive connotations rather than negative connotations and I certainly want this act to have a positive connotation. The other aspect I would like to mention is this whole question of child poverty. I agree that this is not going to make a substantial difference to child poverty, but there is quite a difference in saying it will make no difference with respect to child poverty. There has been a study done with respect to families under the Divorce Act which indicates those living below the poverty line and those above, and I have the statistics here.
This was 1988; the size family, two; those receiving support payments, 33% of the families were below the poverty line; those not receiving support payments, 44% were below the poverty line. Size family, three, with support, 53% below the poverty line; without support, 70% below the poverty line. Family size, four, with support, 71% below the poverty line; without support, 85% below the poverty line. Family size of five, with support, 80% still below the poverty line; without support, 98% below the poverty line. This information is available if anybody wishes it, is that correct? I just thought I would put that in the record.
Mr Sorbara: I would not mind copies of it.
Mr Mills: Like many of my colleagues, this is my first experience in this format of discussion and it has been a tremendous learning experience for me, I must say, and I am sure I speak for the other folks of our party there for the first time.
I looked this over, I came to this first amendment and I thought, in my limited experience here, that it was going to take about a minute at the most. I shudder to think of all the rest here that have some meaning. This, in my estimation, had little meaning, and we have been debating for almost a half an hour the pros and cons of "debtor" and "payor." My wife has often told me that my greatest shortcoming is that I am always in a hurry, and I am in a hurry here today to get on with this.
I would just like to say, perhaps, from my own point of view, that as one gets older, one gets gentler and kinder. In my young days I was quite a different sort of person than I am today. I would say that I think the language of "payor," in my estimation, is a gentler, kinder way of telling someone that he owes money in support of his child. If that makes that collection or that fact of life that much easier, that much gentler and that much kinder in the workplace, then I am for it. I understand the point of view that you are making in so far as the correct definition in the English language and about the word "debtor," but I can really support this. I think it is kind, I think it will help the bill and I only wish that we could have got on with it in a couple of minutes because I am becoming sort of traumatic about how long this is going to take. So with those words --
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Mr Sorbara: These things take time.
Mr Mills: Yes, and as I say, this is a learning experience for me and I appreciate all the comments. It has all registered in my brain and I am sure that it is going to enhance my education of the system. At some point in time I will look back -- I keep a diary every day, I try to, of what happens -- and pass all this on to my grandchildren. I think it is wonderful that we have so much conversation about that one little word. Thank you.
Mr Sorbara: I know that my friend Mr Mills is going to note this in his diary and his grandchildren are going to enjoy it, and that is because he probably writes well.
My speeches on this subject have to do with two things: one, writing well -- and that is the small point -- and the larger point, although it is not so terribly big, is that in my five and a half years in government, it seems to me we spend too much time changing the bloody words. We have gone from people who are crippled to people who are developmentally handicapped; from people who are handicapped to people who are physically challenged. We keep changing the words and putting out new press releases and changing the insignia all over the government of Ontario because we have got a new style now, but we do not change the substance.
This is our problem with this bill, that it is administrative. It should just go right through, no problem, it is administrative; give them these powers to intervene in the workplace. But then the Attorney General wrecks it all, in my view, by standing up in the Legislature, in a bill that I was anticipating -- because remember good old Ian Scott had worked on this already; he was going to do it. I do not know what Scott would have said when he stood up, but it just upset me to no end when Howard Hampton, the new Attorney General, got up and gave a speech about child poverty instead of machinery of government.
The story on machinery of government is that we have done a terrible job, and Scott admitted this to me so many times. We have done a terrible job on collecting this money in SCOE. "The place is a disaster," he would say, and everyone knows about it who is an MPP because they got the phone calls every day of the week in their office: "I haven't got my cheque, I haven't got my cheque. Please do something. My kids are hungry." So Hampton has the gall to stand up and start talking about child poverty and he introduces a bill which makes some administrative changes.
We do the same thing when we tell lies about how we define people. These are debtors. All of us are debtors in this society if we owe someone some money, even if it does not have to be paid for 1,000 years. They are not payors, and that is the problem here. They do not pay so they are not payors. So we will just create a huge fantasy saying: "Okay, let's call them payors. They'll feel better." That is the problem with this new government. They think they are going to make everyone feel better by choosing the right language, and they are not going to make anyone feel better until they get on with income redistribution and changing who has what in this society. We have not seen one piece of legislation to that effect in the two months that we have been in this Parliament, or at least the Legislature sitting, and that is after 55 years of being denied the benefit of a New Democratic Party government. That is what upsets me, and I am determined to get the last word in on this section, Mr Chair.
The Chair: You realize what he is saying, Mrs Cunningham? Your making a statement propels him to make verbal --
Mrs Cunningham: I have tried to control myself, but this is a perfect example of my observations on lawyers as far as I am concerned. I like lawyers; it is what they do.
Mr Sorbara: What do you call 500 dead lawyers?
Mrs Cunningham: But in spite of it, if Mr Sorbara --
Mr Sorbara: A good start.
Mrs Cunningham: -- if Mr Sorbara could bear with me just for a moment, could we have from the legislative counsel a response to Mr Sorbara's concerns? Are we playing with words here?
From a point of view of trying to produce any legislation that appears more positive, I obviously feel strongly about the word "payor," but what is the response?
He read from his old book there.
Mr Poirier: It is right here.
Mrs Cunningham: The old one, what is it called? Black's Law Dictionary. Both terms seemed like they were suitable to me from what he read and I listened carefully, but could we have a response to the concern?
The Chair: The question was of the legislative counsel. Would you wish to respond to that?
Mr Revell: I have no problem with it. First of all, the choice of whether to use "payor" or "debtor" in this case, I think really is a policy choice. As I was trying to say earlier, I do not get a vote on policy issues. To that extent, it really is something that should be answered by the parliamentary assistant. But in terms of this particular bill, Mr Sorbara did raise one issue as well. If we change it here, is this going to have implications elsewhere? I think on that question I would have to say no, because "payor" will be a defined term within the legislation. Everything will work in this particular piece of legislation without any problem whether we left it unamended or whether we change it to "payor." To that extent, it is a pure policy choice between the two and I should let the parliamentary assistant address the policy issue.
The Chair: Mr Wessenger, would you? Would that be all right Mrs Cunningham?
Mrs Cunningham: No, I think Mr Wessenger talked about the policy --
Mr Wessenger: I did talk about the policy aspect.
Mrs Cunningham: -- aspect and I just wanted to be reassured.
The Chair: Any further discussion?
Mr Mills: He can have the last word.
Mr Sorbara: Obviously, Don Revell, legislative counsel, was absolutely correct in what he says. He has been writing this stuff for quite a long time and doing a very good job of it. He and I spent five and a half years together, I as chairman of the regulations committee of cabinet and he obviously in the capacity that he holds, and he does his work quite well. But just to point out for the record, Mr Chairman, in a bill of this sort, if it is a defined term, you can say anything means anything. You can say in a bill, "For the purposes of this bill, the number 1 means the number 2," or "The number 2 means the number 20," or "For the purposes of this bill, the word `black' means `white'" or "The word `white' means `black.'" So it is a defined term.
Within the perfect construct of this bill, yes, you can use "payor," you can use "charming good fellow," you can use anything you want. That is why, probably, if you used the word "debtor" you would not have to make it a defined term because it has a legal meaning. Now, you might want to make it a defined term to give it specific purpose and meaning in the context of this bill. Of course, I stand corrected. That is right. Probably no lawyer would be able to call upon the definition of "payor" in this act and change the definition of "payor" or "debtor" for some other purpose in some other case.
Here, within the context of the bill, the word "payor" will work, but it is offensive and it is offensive for the reason I referred to before, because it is trying to make everyone feel good and the purpose of government I do not think is to make everyone feel good.
Remember the Attorney General, sitting right beside you, Mr Chairman, talking about how, as a result of this bill, in our public education program, we are going to make people start feeling good about paying their support? Give me a break. Attorney General, will you get off of it? If you really believe that, they have got a bridge in New York that you can foreclose on.
So I defer to legislative counsel and I just say, once again, that it is symptomatic of the problems that we are confronting in this committee and in this bill and in the government's handling of this matter.
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The Chair: All those in favour? Opposed?
Motion agreed to.
Mr Wessenger: Mr Chair, I have a follow-up amendment.
I move that the definitions set out in subsection 1(3) of the bill, as printed, be amended by striking out "debtor" wherever it appears and replacing it in each case with "payor" and that wherever "debtor" subsequently appears in the bill, it be replaced in each case with "payor."
Mr Sorbara: That is not part of the amendment that we have here.
Mr Wessenger: We have slightly amended it.
The Chair: The amendment, I believe, is page 2. However, Mr Wessenger has added something in script.
Mr Wessenger: Yes.
The Chair: I can read the amendment back if the committee wishes, slowly and carefully and without dispensing, as it is not in front of you. It does not seem to be substantially different than the amendment in front of you, though.
So the intent is clear to the committee? Thank you.
Okay, Mr Sorbara. Can we read your comments from the last amendment as --
Mr Sorbara: Yes, you can volunteer to do that if you find them interesting. Most people found them rather dull, as I did.
Just as we are at this amendment, can I just get a clarification? I noted that the parliamentary assistant was reading from the printed amendments that we have all been provided, mercifully, by the clerk, in a particular order. Could I get a clarification? At the top of that amendment it said, "ALT-2." It was my understanding that ALT-2 meant that, were there not unanimous consent to introduce the amendment that we have just passed, we would go to ALT-2. So are we absolutely sure that this one is necessary?
Mr Wessenger: Yes, we are. The first amendment we passed related to the existing act, as it exists now. This amendment relates only to the bill. So this changes the definition of the bill. The first one only changed it in the act. So this amendment was necessary to change it in the bill to coincide with the change we made to the act.
Mr Sorbara: This is the one that you were planning on introducing. You see, there was one that you talked about right at the beginning of the public hearings. It is surprising, as a matter of fact, that you did not tell us that the amendment that you were proposing was out of order in the sense that it would require unanimous consent. Obviously someone in the Ministry of the Attorney General knew that, legislative counsel will know that, because they know all of these sorts of things.
In any event, we had a good long, fascinating discussion on the difference between "debtor" and "payor" and I do not propose to go over that again other than to just point out to the committee that the first thing we did, as Mr Wessenger pointed out, was to change the word right throughout the act, so that when you get the consolidated version of this act, and we will need a consolidated version -- I would take it that you have finished now, I ask legislative counsel, the Revised Statutes of Ontario?
Mr Revell: Yes, sir. We are actually in the middle of the statute revision process. The closing date was 31 December of this past year. The new one will be out on the street some time in October or November of this year.
Mr Sorbara: Make room on your bookshelves for the Revised Statutes of Ontario 1990.
Mr Revell: Yes.
Mr Sorbara: Great. So when you buy the little consolidated version of this act once all this work is done, wherever in this act the word "debtor" appears it will be replaced by the word "payor." Can I just ask the parliamentary assistant why he did not change the definition of "creditor" to "payee"? The obvious answer is "a matter of policy," but why is that? I want a better answer than that.
Mr Wessenger: I do not think the word "creditor" is in the bill.
Mr Sorbara: What word do we have now in the bill?
Mr Wessenger: The person entitled to receive support.
Mr Sorbara: Why do we not we call that person the "payee"?
Mr Wessenger: It is --
Mr Sorbara: A matter of policy.
Mr Wessenger: No, I would just say that that is a matter of draftsmanship, the way the bill was put out. There is no connotation to the person who is receiving support so that is the reason for not having a definition. Obviously it was not felt necessary to have a defined term.
Mr Sorbara: So the ordinary language did the job?
Mr Wessenger: Yes, the ordinary language did the job.
Mr Sorbara: Just like "debtor."
Mr Wessenger: I am not certain of that.
Mr Sorbara: Okay.
Mr Wessenger: In fact I would say --
Mr Sorbara: Enough said on that subject.
Mr Wessenger: -- "debtor" would have had to be defined anyway.
Mr Sorbara: Soon we will get to some good Liberal amendments so there was enough said on this subject.
The Chair: All in favour of the amendment as presented? Opposed?
Motion agreed to.
The Chair: Any further amendments to section 1?
Mr Wessenger: Yes, this amendment is set out on page 4 of the annotated version of the act.
Mr Sorbara: There is no page 3 --
Mr Wessenger: This is page 3 of the amendments, but it is on page 4 of the annotated version.
I move that the definition of --
The Chair: The clerk suggests that we not use the annotated version of the act but use page references in regard to this document here, for the purposes of recording.
Mr Wessenger: For the purposes of recording, okay. For clarification, though, it is page 3 of the government amendments.
The Chair: Mr Wessenger moves that the definition of "income source" in subsection 1(1) of the act, as set out in subsection 1(3) of the bill, as printed, except the clauses, be struck out and the following substituted: "`income source' means an individual, a corporation or other entity that owes periodic payment at regular intervals to a payor of."
Mr Kwinter: I hate to keep dragging us back to the first amendment, but if you take a look at the line and it says -- one of the problems with using the word "payor" as opposed to "debtor" is that "debtor" gives the connotation that you owe it and there are those who feel you do not owe it; it is just an obligation that you have to pay as it comes due. So should this not say "a corporation or other entity that pays periodic payment at regular intervals to a payor" as opposed to "owe"?
Mr Poirier: Good point.
Mr Elston: Very good point. Did you say you were a lawyer?
Mrs Cunningham: Probably not, with that good suggestion.
Mr Wessenger: Obviously there could be payments made that are not legal obligations and so therefore you want to ensure that it only applies to the legal obligations.
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Mr Sorbara: I want to invite the parliamentary assistant to address the committee as to the purpose of this amendment to the bill, so could he do that? He has changed but a few words there. So just tell us what you are trying to accomplish.
Mr Wessenger: The purpose of the amendment is actually described on page 4 of the annotated version.
Mr Sorbara: But we want to hear from you.
Mr Wessenger: It is to make it clear that it is payments that are made at regular intervals, in the way of salary or wages, and not to catch some other type of payments that might be made.
Mrs Cunningham: Actually, there was a complaint from one of the witnesses about the words "periodic payment." They wanted it defined, and I think "periodic payments at regular intervals" probably does it. But that was why, I am assuming from my head --
Mr Wessenger: Yes, and there was a representation made to that point.
Mrs Cunningham: A response.
Ms S. Murdock: Actually, it is the corporation or individual that owes the money through work done or performance performed or whatever and so it is owed, although initially the suggestion sounded really good.
Mr Mills: I would just like to have it on the record that this is, I think, another example of how this committee listened to the input from the deputations made here. That was one of the concerns and the government has recognized that concern and introduced it as an amendment. Just for the record.
Mr Sorbara: Let's just have an adjudication on that. Can we find out from the parliamentary assistant whence this amendment? You are not under oath, but tell us the truth anyway. Where did this come from? Who thought this up? Did someone testify here and say, "Oh, my God, we've got a problem," and then you changed it, or what?
Mr Wessenger: Basically there was confusion about the actual meaning.
Mr Sorbara: Of what? The actual meaning of --
Mr Wessenger: Of the original definition, and this was to clear up the ambiguity in the actual meaning.
Mr Sorbara: Before we even began public hearings.
Mr Wessenger: No, this came out during the course of the public hearings. It came to our attention as a result of the representations made that there was ambiguity --
Mr Sorbara: Mr Chairman, the score is now 1 to 1. We acknowledge that the committee did listen to someone who was concerned about the vagueness of the words "periodic payment."
The Chair: Thank you for the acknowledgement, Mr Sorbara.
Mrs Cunningham: I am going to go back to this word "owes" and pose a bit of a challenge for the committee here. If in fact we were trying to be more positive, in order to be consistent, maybe it is not the word. Maybe we are not supposed to be saying -- what was the word that Mr Kwinter raised? Was it "pays"? Well, "provides" or something, but if you want to be positive here, to be consistent, one should think that the corporation in a positive way would either pay or provide periodic payments, or there must be another word. But "owes" is not consistent with the intent at all and there must be a better word, if somebody wants to think it up. But I think Mr Kwinter made a very real point.
Ms S. Murdock: The whole intent of changing the word to "payor" rather than to "debtor" is to be positive. It is to move from the negative to the positive, but in this particular instance the verb "owes" refers to the income source, income source being the corporation or the person who owes the money for work done or performance done or whatever the amount of money that they are getting it for. It is an owed piece of money, so that it is not negative to the individuals as the payor or the receiver of the money. It cannot even be considered negative to the corporation because it is common in collective bargaining that it is owed money for work performed.
Mr Sorbara: I do not care very much about the amendment that was brought to the bill. It does not do very much. It adds the words "at regular intervals." Fine. Okay. You want to put "at regular intervals," that is not a problem. I would have thought that a periodic payment is paid at regular intervals. That would have been, I think, the ordinary meaning of the language, but who cares about that? The importance of this particular section is that this definition of income source defines the sweep and catch of this entire bill so it is important for that reason and, I would submit, for that reason alone.
If income source is defined narrowly, lots of people can get out of the obligation, right? If income source is defined narrowly, you can get out of the obligation because I get my salary from something that is not defined as an income source. So, my friends, I will tell you that if I spend a little bit of time on this section, I am doing it in this case because it is part of the basic machinery of the legislation that we are being asked to pass. I repeat, if income source is defined narrowly -- let's say income source was defined as a public corporation that made periodic payments, or a government source -- then you could only automatically attach the wage of a government payor. Oh, my God, there I have used the word "payor" in the wrong context for the purposes of this bill. So the definition of income source is extremely important.
I would like the government to be able to describe to us in ordinary, non-legal language how far this net spreads over the payors of wages and salaries and commissions and benefits and disability payments and annuities. Look at clause 1(3)(f). Clause (f), by the way, I say to the new members of this committee, is the section which reads, "income of a type described in the regulations." That really means "whoever else we want to bring in later on that we forgot right now," because the government makes regulations not by bringing it to Parliament but by bringing it to cabinet. Some of you may even sit on the cabinet committee on regulations and if you do, you will know that the real power is in that committee, because once the government has the authority to make regulations, they can define anyone else as an income source under the regulations. This is a powerful section. Pay attention to it. You will see it in bill after bill that your government brings forward. Any other group that may be defined by regulation -- sweeping in its power to scoop in.
Legislative counsel here pays very close attention when they allow that kind of section to be written in. They want authority for the proposition that a regulation should be made, and when the regulation is made they take a careful look to make sure that the government has the authority to make regulations.
I think it is time for the parliamentary assistant to the Attorney General to tell us whom they have in mind, and if they do not have anyone in mind, let's get rid of it. If they do have someone in mind whom they have not thought about in (a) wages, (b) commissions, (c) a benefit under an accident, disability or sickness plan, (d) a disability, retirement or other pension, or (e) an annuity, whom else do you have in mind? Who have you not caught in this net right now that you will want to catch later by regulation?
The Chair: Is this a question to the parliamentary assistant?
Mr Sorbara: Mr Chairman, I am asking the parliamentary assistant to make a note of it because inevitably he should give a speech on this section and tell us what he is trying to do.
The Chair: Perhaps at some later point when that comes up. Mr Elston.
Mr Sorbara: Now hold on a second, Mr Chair.
The Chair: I thought you had made a request. Mr Elston and Mr Poirier also wish to speak.
Mr Sorbara: Okay. Is there anyone who is not going to be caught by this net? Answer: yes. First of all, the unemployed people who are not making any money at all --
The Chair: Which makes it very difficult to pay support, sir.
Mr Sorbara: No. You can be wealthy and be unemployed. If you are self-employed, you have an obligation. But what about the person who is self-employed in the sense that he owns his own company and he or she is a one-person company and pays himself/herself a salary? Does that person become both a payor of the wage and a payor under the act? The parliamentary assistant is making notes and is going to answer that, I hope. What about unemployment insurance? If you are getting unemployment insurance, can he tell us whether or not that comes under the act? What about someone who is receiving a periodic gift from someone else? And what else?
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I have not done much study of compensation law but (a) to (f), when you say salaries, wages, commission, benefits, disability plans, annuity, that looks like everyone. I want to know who else is there? I want to know whether a workers' compensation payment is subject to a deduction. While you are at it, does the Workers' Compensation Board have to make the deduction at source before it gets paid out? No answers yet. I am just wanting you to compile them.
Does the government of Canada under a disability pension have to make the payment? Are they liable if they make a mistake? Because I will tell you, just ask Sharon Murdock, the Workers' Compensation Board makes huge mistakes. Are they liable if they make a mistake and they forget to deduct, and are they subject to the same sort of 50% rule?
As well, what happens if someone who used to be an employee arranges his affairs so that he does not receive a periodic payment paid at regular intervals, as a result of the government amendment? Can the obligation to have deduction at source be avoided under those circumstances?
Finally, if you look at the section and you read it with the two new amendments, that is, the words "at regular intervals" being put in and the word "payor" being put in, listen to how silly it sounds. I am going to read it to you -- at least (a) and (b):
"`income source' mean an individual, a corporation or other entity that owes periodic payment at regular intervals to a payor of wages," commissions, benefits, disabilities, "to a payor of wages." If you do not have the right comma in there, the thing does not make sense at all because when you read it, the ordinary language suggests that an income source is someone who owes periodic payments to a payor of wages. Who is the payor of wages? The employer.
Ms S. Murdock: You answered the question yourself.
Mr Sorbara: Well, I am just telling you that because you have struck out "debtor" there and put in "payor," it makes the definition read very poorly. I would say that to legislative counsel, to you, Mr Chairman, and to the other members of the committee. I understand that my friend Mr Elston has some comments on the section as well.
Mr Elston: I am more concerned about the practical nature of this change. I took a look, although I am not supposed to, at the annotated version for the purposes of officially dealing with this stuff. It is helpful in the sense that basically the purpose of the amendment, as described, is to take the onus off the bureaucrats from looking after when a payment is to be made. I think that is the wrong issue to be pursuing if this really is about getting money to people who are in need of support. Basically, if you read the purpose for amendment on page 4, it says it is too difficult because we will have to constantly monitor if it isn't a periodic payment at regular intervals. That is contrary to what the specific nature of this bill is supposed to be about, if we buy the rationale that has been given to us by the Attorney General and by several other people who appeared, which is to put money in the hands of people who need it.
If a person is entitled to receive money on a periodic payment basis, even though it is not at regular intervals, should we not be getting that money if the person to whom it is owed is not a person who is in compliance with their support order? It seems rather silly just to be putting an amendment that makes it easier for the bureaucracy. I do not understand that, but that is what this purpose for the amendment seems to say.
Basically, it is interesting because I could be involved in receiving periodic payments from a whole series of clients as a consultant; but I would then decide that I will get paid the first three weeks and I will bill out; then I will be paid seven weeks hence; then I will be paid out eight weeks hence; then I will be paid out the next two weeks and I could, it seems to me, make sure that the person who was in long-term contract with me would be outside the definition of income source. Does that not seem rather strange for a piece of legislation that is supposed to deal with income sources for the benefit, not of the bureaucracy's convenience, but for the benefit of receiving money from a person who is not in compliance with their support order? I think we really seriously have to ask ourselves, should we be amending the bill to include this term "at regular intervals" because there is a whole group of people who will be able to structure their business affairs in such a way as to make sure these people are avoided as income sources.
This is another one of those situations about which I spoke a little bit adamantly during the hearings, where I believe this bill has been set to attach those people who are most unable to defend themselves, if I can put it in those terms, the people who are the working poor, who have all kinds of restrictions on them financially. It is a benefit or a boon for those people who can order themselves, because of economic power, in such a way as to avoid the act. We have got to get ourselves together on this or we are going to end up with the same group of people who are most able to pay avoiding the grasp of this legislation. So let us think seriously about this, because this is a serious deficiency.
Mr Poirier: I was looking at the term in that motion -- and I am addressing my question to the parliamentary assistant -- it talks about "payor" in the last line. Would that be assuming that the first definition would have been passed by this committee for you to change from debtor to payor? Am I assuming this correctly?
Mr Wessenger: Yes, you are.
Mr Poirier: I have been here for over six years and, from the time I sat on committees and the time that I worked as Deputy Speaker and Chair of the committee of the whole House, I do not recall having seen anyone assume that. Usually you ask for a definition to be changed and once it is changed, then you ask for it to be changed everywhere it is found, and only then do you change the definition in the clause that you want amended. I think a certain party that was forming the former government would have been accused of some pretty horrible things if that party had made that kind of assumption. I think you were in good faith in doing it, but may I respectfully suggest you wait for the proper time and not assume that whatever you want to do has already been passed by committee, when it has not even been brought forward by the committee to consider. I submit that respectfully. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Poirier. Mrs Cunningham.
Mr Sorbara: When this happens, generally the Chairman offers his resignation.
The Chair: Thank you very much for your advice, Mr Sorbara. Mrs Cunningham.
Mr Poirier: I want the reaction of the --
The Chair: I thought you offered advice to the parliamentary assistant. Do you have a question?
Mr Poirier: Yes, I would like the parliamentary assistant's reaction to my comment, please. If I may, Mr Chair.
The Chair: Certainly. Mr Wessenger?
Mr Wessenger: The motions have been out for the past two weeks ahead of time for people to have seen, so I apologize if there is some difficulty there, but it has been before the committee before. It was not just thrown in today, the one on the payor.
Mr Poirier: This is my first participation --
Mr Wessenger: I know it is your first participation, I understand that.
Mrs Cunningham: Mr Elston makes a very good point and I am wondering, in response to his concerns -- I will ask two questions here. One of the suggestions was that the entire section defining income source should be deleted -- that was one of our very first suggestions -- and replaced with a list of all of the types of periodic payments that will be subject to a support deduction order. I did not think we should see something like that in the legislation, but I am wondering if that is the intent for the regulations.
The other question I have is, under clause (f), "income of a type described in the regulations," would cover Mr Elston's concerns. So I guess I have got two questions: one to the government and one to Mr Elston.
The Chair: I am sorry, you have two questions --
Mr Elston: I can answer the one to me. Basically when you put in there a provision that is going to be saying "at regular intervals," it does not matter what they describe the revenue source to be.
Mrs Cunningham: Yes.
Mr Elston: It could be anything, but as soon as you move to make it irregular and as soon as you are in control and receipt of those payments, it completely does away with anything that the regulations might try to clear up. That "at regular intervals" is a real place where people can manipulate and only those people who control their income sources or can manage their income sources, which are generally people who are a little better off, are going to be able to do it. The other people, who work for a living in wage situations, will never be able to manage their way through this and --
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Interjection: They will now.
Mr Elston: -- in which case you are probably losing out on catching some of those people who are best able to pay. So it does not answer my concern.
Mrs Cunningham: If I can just follow through, perhaps what has happened here is that, in trying to respond to the input, we have made things more difficult, we have complicated things. One of the greatest disadvantages of the system is that once we put the amendments forth, the very people who gave us responsible input to the bill as it stood are not here to tell us how they feel about the amendments. So we always have a difficulty in trying to fix something. We sometimes make it worse. I am thinking that this might be one of the examples of that.
Mr Sorbara: Let's have more public hearings.
Mr Wessenger: If I could respond to this concern, the reason why we put in "at regular intervals" and in effect have, as Mr Elston said, perhaps allowed certain income sources to escape from the procedure of support deduction, is for administrative efficiency purposes.
Mr Elston: No, administrative ease. It is too much of a bother, it is an inconvenience.
Mr Wessenger: No, no. We are advised by the people who will be administering this program that if you did not have this exception it would slow up the whole process, it would make less effective --
Mr Elston: It is too hard.
Mr Wessenger: It is always a balance, the whole question in any legislation is always a balance, having a system that works efficiently and one that might be ideal, but might just require double or triple the resources.
Mr Elston: So this is not about child poverty. This is about bureaucratic efficiencies.
Mr Wessenger: The other thing I would like to say is support deduction is only one of our enforcement tools. We still have the whole garnishee process, which could work against it.
Mr Elston: But you kept telling us that was too expensive and too cumbersome.
The Chair: Mr Kwinter is to speak after Mr Wessenger.
Mr Wessenger: Not for these types of people. The person is in default. The garnishee process would work well with the self-employed person who has a corporation, who pays himself a bonus. That would work very well in that situation. We have to have a system that is going to work well and effectively and if we are going to be in a situation, as my friend Mr Sorbara has stated, if in six months after this program comes into effect it is not working efficiently --
Mr Sorbara: The Attorney General is going to resign.
Mr Wessenger: Then we would have failed in this legislation. The important thing is to have a system that works --
Mr Elston: Paul Wessenger will become the Attorney General.
Mr Sorbara: Hear, hear.
Mr Wessenger: -- a system that works efficiently.
Now, I might address some of the other questions that have been raised, too, and that is concerning what types of income might be considered under regulations. One that we hope will be considered under regulations is the whole question of federal payments, but this has to involve an agreement with the federal government. Unemployment insurance payments we hope to include in future as part of this deduction program, or federal pension payments, which cannot be included. So these are the types of things we hope to include under the regulations.
Mr Sorbara: If I might just interrupt you, are you telling us at this point that unemployment insurance payments are not an income source under this act at this time?
The Chair: Excuse me, Mr Kwinter was the next one to speak.
Mr Sorbara: I realize --
Mr Wessenger: They could not be collected at the present time because we need the agreement of the federal government.
Mr Elston: So the answer is that they are an income source but you cannot collect them.
Mr Wessenger: We cannot collect them.
Mr Elston: Would they be covered by the definition?
Mr Wessenger: Yes, just as Workers' Compensation Board payments are in fact covered by the definition. They would be caught now. The areas that are not caught, as you have set out, are the situation of the independent, self-employed individual. That is not covered, unless that independent individual has a corporation and pays himself a salary, which many individuals do for tax reasons, for other reasons.
Mr Elston: They might not pay themselves at all for tax reasons.
Mr Wessenger: They may not; that is right. And if they do not pay themselves a salary, then of course they may not be covered --
Mr Elston: The board of directors, of whom the self-employed person is the chief director, can then determine when they will make the payments on account of amounts to be paid.
Mr Wessenger: That is right.
Mr Elston: And in fact could avoid any kind of garnishment, because when the garnishment comes in it is the amount that is owed -- right? -- at the time they receive it.
Mr Wessenger: This would be an appropriate case for a default hearing in the case of a self-employed.
Mr Elston: But that is no improvement. All I wanted to do was set out very strongly that what we are trying to do is address child poverty, which is the issue of not getting money to the people who are in need of financial support.
What you have done here is that you have gone away from a tough case, and what we all know and understand from the presenters is that it is not the group of people who are voluntarily paying, or even those people who default sometimes but are paying when they are at work, or when they are working or receiving funds; those are the easy ones, but what you have done for administrative ease -- and that is what this thing says, it is administrative ease, nothing else -- is that you do not want to deal with periodic payments made at irregular times.
As soon as you tell the community that for administrative ease you are not going to deal with that whole series of income sources, then you are defaulting on the primary principle of the bill, and that is what I object to. Either you are going to be consistent or you are going to make a statement in this committee that says, "This is about bureaucratic ease of administration and nothing else."
Mr Wessenger: It obviously is about administrative efficiency and collecting a higher percentage of support payments, but there are many individuals, certainly in my experience as a private practitioner of law --
Mr Elston: What about the chief issue of child poverty, which is where we started this day?
The Chair: Mrs Cunningham, please.
Mrs Cunningham: The Canadian Payroll Association made a point and it said that the term "periodic payment" needs to be defined to clarify whether irregular payments to a payor, such as a draw on commission -- I am talking about irregular payments, again -- are to be included. Now, we did not deal with that one. I do not think the draw on commission is here, is it?
Mr Wessenger: Yes, it is in the definition, yes.
Mrs Cunningham: It is? Is that under clause 1(3)(b)?
Mr Wessenger: That is correct. As long as the payment is not recoverable, it is covered by the support deduction. So an advance that is non-recoverable is subject to support deduction. An advance that is recoverable is not subject to support deduction, as long as it is periodic.
Mrs Cunningham: As long as it is periodic? Their point is "irregular." I am just trying to support one of the concerns again, but I just think that the very first point, where they told us to delete the whole thing and replace it with a list, is probably a good idea.
Interjection.
Mrs Cunningham: Oh, you will, but we have got a list here now; that is the point.
The Chair: Thank you, Mrs Cunningham.
Mrs Cunningham: Do not thank me, because I did not add one thing with my question or my discussion. I am thinking out loud.
The Chair: We would like to recess at some point in the near future, perhaps after we have dealt with this particular amendment.
Mr Kwinter: If I could just comment: I know the purpose of the additional words "regular intervals" is meant to give more specificity to "periodic payments." I think it does just the opposite. I will give you an example of a ministerial order on bingos.
Mr Sorbara: Oh yes, yes.
Mr Kwinter: It talks about "occasional" bingos and it says that charitable organizations can have bingos if they are held on an occasional basis. That has now got so that if you have it six days of seven it is occasional, as long as there is a break in there somewhere. I think that the minute you start talking about "regular intervals," if someone gets paid once every five years but it is regularly every five years, is that a regular payment?
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The feeling that I get from the members of the government side is that we are spending a lot of time nitpicking, and you should know that lawyers -- that is their job. That is where they make their livelihood, nitpicking. They take a look at an act and they say, "I'm going to challenge that word and I'm going to go to court and I'm going to make the argument." The judge listens to it and says, "You know what? You're right, that word does not describe this particular situation, and I find for the appellant," or whoever it is, and out it goes. When you start putting in "regular intervals," then I think you have an obligation to define what constitutes a regular interval. Then you leave yourself wide open to all kinds of interpretations.
I think that if you leave it at "periodic payments," it does not really make a difference when that periodic payment -- it is a periodic payment; but when you start talking "regular intervals" it may seem to be administratively convenient, because it means that if they are irregular, you do not have to worry about when they are coming through. But you are leaving a loophole that is going to widen out to the point where you are going to be able to drive a truck through it. As soon as the word gets out, they are going to say, "Very, very simple; we'll just change the sequence of when you get paid and that isn't regular." I think that is a problem.
Mr Fletcher: Any word can be challenged.
Mrs Cunningham: Oh, come on. Put your thinking caps on. If there is a real problem, let's solve it.
The Chair: Mr Kwinter was last recognized. Does anyone else wish to speak on this issue? Mr Sorbara.
Mr Sorbara: I will defer for the moment to any of the members of the government party if they want to make a comment on it. You are free, by the way, to agree with us on these little points, like "at regular intervals." The government will not kick you out of caucus if you say, "Yes, they're right" --
Mrs Cunningham: Or irregular, or irregular.
Mr Sorbara: Or irregular, yes. Whether you are regular or irregular, you are free to agree with us on this point and vote with us and just eliminate the words. The government will not come down. You were elected, by the way, to do just that. You do not have to obey orders on tiny little things like this. You would be in trouble if you vote against the bill in its entirety, but we are here to shape this bill clause-by-clause. Feel free to participate and go with the flow and say, "Yes, Mr Kwinter is right," or, "Yes, Murray is right, that section shouldn't be there."
Mr Chairman, I have some comments on the substantive aspects of the bill, but I would just check with them to --
The Chair: On the bill or the amendments?
Mr Sorbara: -- is there anyone awake over there who wants to --
Mr Mills: Mr Chairman --
Mr Sorbara: Gord is always awake.
Mr Mills: Mr Chairman, I am very much awake and very intense and I am learning a lot, believe you me.
Mr Sorbara: Gord, this is the first time for me as well. I have never done a clause-by-clause of a bill.
Mr Mills: I am not saying that in a flippant way. I know where Mr Kwinter is coming from, because I was -- I am not going to say "unfortunate," but I did enforce certain acts under the fuel tax act and I know exactly what he is saying.
Mr Sorbara: So you worked for both Monte and me when we were ministers.
Mr Mills: Yes. The wording in those acts were wriggled out of by lawyers, and I think there is a case come to light just now that has gone to the Supreme Court where they wriggled out of some wording. So I know where you are coming from and I do not see that you are nitpicking. I am very interested in getting it right and I just wanted to say that for the record, that I am listening. If we do not have any comments, I do not think it is to indicate our disinterest in what you are saying, from my point of view.
The Chair: Mr Poirier, a brief comment.
Mr Poirier: I just wanted very briefly to remind the government members that I have been here for a number of years and I know that people who default on payments through SCOE, a lot of them become recognized experts at these little nitpickings. They find loopholes, and I am afraid that Mr Kwinter is quite correct. I agree with the PA that it may make a bit more work for the staff or a lot more work for the staff, but mark our words, when you go back to your offices as MPPs and the phone calls for SCOE start coming in again, you will find out that somebody will have read the Hansard for this committee, will have found out that this is a great loophole and they will use it and you will be stuck with it, and not only you but so will the people who are the payees. Because of SCOE, they will be penalized because it says "regular" right here. Mark my words, remember this very well; you will see that we are right.
The Chair: Any further comments, or should we recess?
Mr Sorbara: We could continue after recess.
The Chair: Okay, thank you. We are going to have a recess for about 10 minutes.
Mr Sorbara: Before we recess, Mr Chairman, is there some sort of agreement as to what time we are going to today? We will have a recess of how many minutes and go until what time today?
The Chair: I leave that open to discussion -- 5 o'clock, 6 o'clock, what time?
Mr Sorbara: It is up to the government. I would not mind 5 o'clock, but you guys have a majority.
Interjections.
The Chair: Five o'clock seems to be the agreed-upon time. Shall we recess for 10 minutes, please?
The committee recessed at 1526.
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The Chair: I would like to call the committee back to order. Is Mr Fletcher in the hallway still? Ah, thank you, Mr Fletcher. Had we concluded discussion on this particular amendment?
Mr Sorbara: No. Not by a long shot.
Mrs Cunningham: We thought you were going to come back and make an announcement, Mr Chairman. You changed your mind or something.
The Chair: Mrs Cunningham, further discussion on this amendment?
Mrs Cunningham: No, I thought you were taking a break to take a look at the tremendous concerns -- for all of us, by the way -- over the issue of the periodic payments at regular intervals. That is what I thought you were doing.
The Chair: Mr Sorbara, further discussion.
Mr Sorbara: Yes, I do have some more things to say about this section. You see, Mr Chairman, you will want to get through some of these sections very, very quickly. To tell you the truth we will want to get through some of these sections very, very quickly as well. But this section is, as I said, the heart and soul of the bill because you are identifying legislatively, you are drawing the diagram legislatively: an income source. This bill is going to use the power of the state to intervene in the private relationship between an employer and an employee and attach the benefits flowing between the employer and the employee; so as a matter of statecraft, one of the things that you have to do is identify the income source: who is included and who is not.
My friend the parliamentary assistant to the Attorney General said that all federal payments are not included. Can I ask my friend, does that mean, then, that anyone who works for the federal government is not included? Yes or no?
Mr Wessenger: Yes. A person who is employed by the federal government is not subject to income deduction at this time.
Mr Sorbara: Could the parliamentary assistant tell us why?
Mr Wessenger: Because of the constitutional problems. It would require the agreement of the federal government to permit this legislation to apply.
Mr Sorbara: Could he tell us whether or not the Allaire report solves that? Or do you prefer not to comment?
Mr Wessenger: The Allaire report does not solve anything.
Mr Sorbara: Sure it does. It solves it. It puts all this stuff in the hands of the province. That is why Quebec wants to do it. But that is not --
The Chair: Was that not a report to the Quebec Liberal Party?
Mr Sorbara: Yes, it is, and it may change the very country that you are trying to help govern, Mr Chairman. I say to my friend the new member for Sudbury, formerly the constituency assistant to the member for Sudbury East, now a welcome addition to the Legislature in the province of Ontario --
Mrs Cunningham: You mean it, don't you?
Mr Sorbara: I am glad she is here. I would have preferred Sterling Campbell to have been elected. You want to know the truth? But nevertheless we are glad to have her here and she is going to contribute. The government should have said, "By the way, we've got a terrible problem when we present this thing, because all those people in Ontario who work for the federal government are not going to be subject to the act."
Mr Wessenger: But as stated, there is federal legislation that currently allows attachment of federal funds in accordance with provincial garnishment law, so we can garnish --
Mr Sorbara: Provincial garnishment law.
Mr Wessenger: That is right.
Mr Sorbara: That is right. Why did you not defer the introduction of this bill until you had worked out the details with the federal government, or why did you not tell us? We have to ferret it out. See how difficult it is to be in opposition, Mr Chairman? We have to ferret it out that if you work for Revenue Canada, if you work for the federal ministry of the environment, if you work for the Department of National Health and Welfare, the post office, all those others out there, the CBC, Radio-Canada, n'est-ce pas --
Mr Kwinter: The military.
Mr Sorbara: Or the military. Oh, my friend the member for Wilson Heights mentions the military. Who is the largest employer in the province of Ontario?
Ms S. Murdock: The province of Ontario.
Mr Sorbara: Who is the second-largest in the province? Le gouvernement du Canada, je suppose. So, big deal, from the Ministry of the Attorney General a new bill to automatically attach wages of employers, but the second-largest employer in the province of Ontario is out of the act. Why did we not hear about this? That is why this section is so important, because "income source" says, remember, who gets caught in the net and who does not.
The federal government is out. Yes, garnishment is okay, that is, if you go through the old route of garnishment; so the bureaucrats will say, "Yes, but," and I am quoting here, "in the case of payors who worked for the federal government," and now I am paraphrasing, "other enforcement mechanisms such as default and seizure and sale proceedings are more suitable or, in this case, are the only ones available." Will the parliamentary assistant now tell us who else is outside the act and what stage we have got to in terms of getting the federal government into the act? Who else is included in clause 1(3)(f)? Those people who have types of income described in the regulations. Are you sure you have got the right words there, "income of a type," is that right? Will the federal government come in there? It is not a different type of income; it is income from a different source, currently excluded. Maybe the regulation power is not exactly the one you need. You had better check on that one again. Did you tell legislative counsel that you want to bring the federal government in on that regulation?
The Chair: You have six questions and three directives at the moment to the parliamentary assistant.
Mr Sorbara: I have got lots and lots of questions on this section.
The Chair: Would you like to hear his answer or shall we proceed?
Mr Sorbara: Not quite yet.
Mr Wessenger: I am sure I will not remember them all.
The Chair: The committee, of course, wants to have a thorough response to all of your questions.
Mr Sorbara: That is right, but I want to make sure that all my questions are on the table. I want the parliamentary assistant to describe for me, with the assistance of both the new director of the branch and the policy advisers, how SCOE is technically going to manage the affairs of the following hypothetical employee who has a support order registered against him:
An employee currently works for Radio-Canada, CBC, in Toronto. He did not get the axe when many of his colleagues got the axe, the 1,100. He then goes to work for a real estate firm that pays a commission but the commission is not a periodic payment made at a regular interval. Whenever he sells a house or rents a factory, he gets a commission. Then that individual does not do very well in the real estate business so he takes a job selling hamburgers at a local McDonald's restaurant at the minimum wage.
Just to build on the example, he has an order for $500 per month against him. He wins the lottery and is the beneficiary of a small prize, $50,000, during the six months that he works at McDonald's, and then quits his job at McDonald's and is for a period of time unemployed because he is the beneficiary of this $50,000 Wintario prize. After that, unbeknownst to anyone, he spent all the money, drank it all, probably, and then went up north and began to work as an independent contractor working in the bush for a logging company. In his fourth month there, he brings down a tree but he gets clipped with the butt of the tree and he breaks his leg, serious accident, and is on workers' compensation. Can you tell us how SCOE is going to handle that man's case, how it is going to keep the support order in force during that time? If you want we can defer consideration of this section for a while if you want the staff to work on that over night, and we can take it up tomorrow.
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My friends on the other side are grimacing a little bit, but that is important to us because we want to know how this bill is going to work. I have tried in my example to put forward as many income sources as I could to make sure that our friends in the branch have got their act together and are going to be able to handle this sort of situation.
The reason why I do that is because that is actually the way in which people live their lives, believe it or not, in this province. They move from job to job regularly. They get laid off. They quit. They win prizes. They go on long holidays. They have children whom they are supposed to continue to support. They go up north. They get hurt. They go on unemployment insurance. Oh, I did not include unemployment insurance in there. I want to, so add that to the example. Let's say that he is hurt for a year and a half, then he goes back to work and works for the government of Ontario but then gets laid off because of budget cuts by the Treasurer, the honourable Floyd Laughren, and goes on unemployment insurance. That is the example. Take us through it.
Mr Wessenger: Okay. If you would like, I will take it through. I may need the assistance of staff as I am going through in case I miss something here.
As far as the Radio-Canada situation, he is a federal employee, so he is subject to the federal garnishment legislation, so we could issue a garnishment order against him.
Mr Sorbara: Okay, let's take it back a step. We are assuming that at this point this bill has passed so there is an order for automatic deduction made by the court. Is that right?
Mr Wessenger: Yes, that is right.
Mr Sorbara: Has it been served on the CBC but are they told to ignore it?
Mr Wessenger: It would not be served on the CBC. It obviously would not apply as of yet, unless by that time we will have either --
Mr Sorbara: No, we do not have the regulations made yet.
Mr Wessenger: It would apply if we had the agreement of the federal government. Now, there are two possible ways. There may have to be federal legislation to allow us to have support deductions, or it is possible we may be able to amend the existing act to apply to federal institutions. We are having discussions with the federal Minister of Justice with respect to this matter. If they agree that we can do it, then we will do it by amending the bill. We could even do it in this committee before we finish the sittings, if we have that agreement in time before the legislation is final.
Mr Sorbara: No, I am assuming that the legislation is passed as it stands now and that there have been no regulations made yet.
Mr Wessenger: In which case the garnishee is the process we would have to go against Radio-Canada.
Mr Sorbara: There is default. As a practical matter -- and by the way, I do not mind if staff or policy advisers just chirp in here --
The Chair: Mr Sorbara, we have a lengthy series of employment changes with many permutations. Perhaps if the parliamentary assistant could go over that fine example, as you wish, case by case, without any further interruption.
Mr Sorbara: Mr Chairman, with all due respect to your capable management of the Chair, clause-by-clause consideration of a bill is to permit this very kind of back and forth, question and answer analysis. It is called clause-by-clause and --
The Chair: We are not talking about clause-by-clause of the example, though, sir, but rather of the bill.
Mr Sorbara: I expect other members to be able to chirp in. Because what we do here is get a sense of how the thing really works.
The Chair: We can get that if Mr Wessenger is allowed to --
Mr Sorbara: But if I am not allowed to ask additional questions, there may be some holes in my understanding.
Mr Wessenger: I quite understand. I would be happy to try to assist Mr Sorbara, or my staff would. The next aspect is the whole question of the real estate as a commission.
Mr Sorbara: Can we just stick with the CBC for a second? I understand then that --
Mr Wessenger: Once the garnishee is in effect --
Mr Sorbara: No, no, just step back. After the hearing where a support order is made, automatically a form will be filled out, an automatic deduction order --
Mr Wessenger: That is correct.
Mr Sorbara: Notwithstanding that the debtor -- whoops, I am sorry -- the payor is working for the CBC, that order will be made. The automatic deduction will be made.
Mr Wessenger: Yes, that order will be made.
Mr Sorbara: Is that correct? Agreed? Does everyone agree?
Ms Feldman: There will be an indication that it is inoperable at the time.
Mr Sorbara: Who will make that indication?
Ms Feldman: The format to be drafted would have, I imagine, an area as to whether an income source has been identified in accordance with the definition. If an income source has not been identified then the support deduction order is made but is inoperable. The beauty of it, though, is that if, as in your example with McDonald's, there is an income source subsequently located and the information comes to the program's attention, rather than having to return to court there can be an administration of that support deduction immediately and efficiently by the program. They have already got the order in hand. Now they have an identified income source. It can go out in the McDonald's example, that portion of your example that you gave to the committee.
Mr Sorbara: Just let's go back, though, to the CBC. There is nothing in this act that would indicate, even to, let's say, a lawyer practising for the first couple of years in family law, that the CBC was not an income source under the act. Is the form going to set out that this form is inoperable if an employer is a federal agency? Who knows? How is the decision made? How are we going to stop these support orders from inadvertently getting to Radio-Canada?
Ms Feldman: It is a program that will serve the notice of the support deduction order on any income source specified. If an income source was improperly identified, if a federal employer before an agreement with the federal Department of Justice was reached was identified, then it would not be practical to serve a support deduction order notice on that particular employer, because constitutionally at the present time it simply cannot be done.
Mr Sorbara: So we are going to rely on the administration at SCOE to make those determinations.
Ms Feldman: I think the government would like to think that the education that is going to precede the proclamation of this piece of legislation will assist in allowing judges and lawyers to identify what is an income source under the act, ie, federal versus provincial employers. Otherwise, I think the definition speaks for itself, periodically being --
Mr Sorbara: I think the director has something to say about that.
Mrs E. Mills: In this situation where there is not an income source that has been identified to fall within the definition, you must go back and remember the other sections in the act where the onus is on the payor to make the payments directly to the program if the deduction part of it is not workable. We do have to re-emphasize that and the lawyers will have to re-emphasize that with their client, where the support deduction is not workable.
Mr Kwinter: I just want to comment that the whole purpose of this amendment to the bill is to deal with those people. Right now the onus is on them and they are not living up to their onus. That is why we are doing this. So to say, "Well, don't forget, they always have this onus," if we take that particular position, we do not have to bring in these amendments.
Mrs E. Mills: I think that there are some who pay and there are a great deal who do not pay, and we are trying to get at it, as you suggest, with this bill, but in these cases it will have to be further emphasized. We will have some who will comply and some who will not and then we will immediately move in to the other measures that we already have the power to take, which the lawyers have identified around garnishment.
Mr Kwinter: Mr Chairman, if I may, can I just add to Mr Sorbara's example, in one other situation where the man is employed by a company whose head office is either in Quebec, Alberta or any other province in Canada and is being paid from that province, and how that impacts?
Mr Sorbara: That is the final job that he gets, let's say.
Okay, so we are at Radio-Canada right now; he has the job. The order is made. What happens in the court process then? There is an automatic deduction order filled out, right? Radio-Canada is identified as the employer. Does anyone advise either of the spouses that this is not enforceable at this time or do they have to rely on counsel to do that?
Mrs E. Mills: Oh, it is enforceable. The support order is enforceable.
Mr Sorbara: No, I am talking about the automatic deduction order. Who tells them, "Whoops, don't rely on this"? We have to fill this out.
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Mrs E. Mills: From my perspective, until some of these fine details of the bill are final, we cannot have the program work through the actual procedure. Some of these certain steps, some of the major ones are in the act. The other ones are really the final implementation planning of how this will actually be administered and until some of this is final --
Mr Sorbara: You are saying to me that on the simple form that we are going to have, there is going to have to be quite a little bit of detail saying, "Please note, if it is a federal employer in the following category, this is not enforceable," etc., etc. Is that going to be detail on the back of the form in both official languages or what?
Mrs E. Mills: No, I am saying that, in the situation regarding the Radio-Canada employee, where it has been determined that the support deduction order is not enforceable at this point, assuming we have not been able to finalize negotiations with the federal government, there is a clause where it is determined that it is not practical to use the deduction order. The procedures around notification, who and how, have not been finally worked out, and that is part of what I call the detailed implementation planning.
Mr Sorbara: Some of those questions are pretty important. In any event, we have got an automatic deduction order filled out. It comes to the office and in the absence of anything else, somebody at the office says: "Oh my God, this is one of those kooky Radio-Canada employees. We cannot enforce it, I guess." Is that right?
Mr Wessenger: They would have to make that decision that it was unenforceable at the enforcement branch, obviously.
Mr Sorbara: Right throughout the example, we have got a person who is a defaulter. That is different to a debtor. This is a debtor who does not pay his obligations, so we have got a defaulter. What would happen in the office now?
Mr Wessenger: When default occurs.
Mr Sorbara: Four months have gone by, they thought that it was going to be automatically deducted. They did not realize the Constitution of Canada stupidly prohibits such a deduction, and they went away from the courts thinking, "Oh well, it is all looked after." He is mad as hell but he thinks the money is going to be deducted. So four months go by, no cheques have flowed, someone in the office said, "Oops, we cannot enforce this." What happens?
Mrs E. Mills: First of all, I would rather be positive and hope that we will be able to get this worked out with the federal government before the bill goes in. Assuming it has not, first of all, the payor knows that he has not had anything deducted from his paycheque and the computer system will know that he has not sent us a payment, that we have not received a payment. So now you are into the normal stream of enforcement procedures, and the first thing is he will get a warning letter. There is a set period of time that he has to respond to that, and then we will work through the various procedures.
Mr Sorbara: But that is the very system --
Mrs E. Mills: That is the system that exists at the moment.
Mr Sorbara: Right, which is so bogged down and which people find so difficult and we get so many questions about in our constituencies now.
Mrs E. Mills: We are assuming, with some of the initiatives to deal with the backlog, we will be in better shape; and we are assuming, with the deduction order in place, a lot of those will be running smoothly and those which are difficult we will be able to spend the time on, and not actually spend any time --
Mr Sorbara: I have got a few questions on the warning letter. The Attorney General said that he wants to change the dynamics, make people feel good and comfortable and upstanding about this. Others have said to us, both here and in our constituency office, "You should see the way they talk to me and the tone of their warning letters." Is this going to change as well? Are people going to be coddled when they default?
Mrs E. Mills: Let me say first of all, yes. You mentioned I am the new director and I am, and we will be looking at the whole program. The way I like to phrase it is that we are going to be looking at everything and putting it through the sieve of what I call "customer service." Whether that happens to be on forms; whether that happens to be how we deal with staff across the counter; whether we have rules that are more a matter of privacy when they come in to talk about their affairs, that will not happen overnight. But, yes, I intend to look at all those. Just as using "debtors" is a stronger term, and that perhaps is the term that should be used, maybe "warning letter" is the term, as it is a warning letter, but we will still look at it and see how it is phrased. It does serve a purpose, to put them on notice that he or she has not submitted the payment and certain other remedies begin if we do not hear within a certain period of time. We cannot change the facts.
Mr Sorbara: You see, this is an important point, because all governments, not just this new government, send out a variety of messages, and sometimes those messages clash. I once was responsible for the Workers' Compensation Board. They, and we, did a lot of advertising about the new board, the new look in workers' compensation: "Come talk to us, we have new systems and it is going to be all right." The reality of what happened sometimes as between injured worker and board is just shocking. When you still use terms like "warning letter" and "threatening," they get even madder because they say, "You have just spent all this money advertising, and they called me up and they threatened to sell my house if I did not pay within 10 days," I am just saying --
Mrs E. Mills: That is why "payor" is so important.
Mr Sorbara: Let me tell you something, it is not going to change life when you just change the use of words like that.
Okay, so you have begun garnishment proceedings at the CBC. So you are going to court, right?
Ms Feldman: No, not necessarily. It depends. If the payor files a dispute to that garnishment or if Radio-Canada files a dispute for whatever reason to that garnishment, then a court hearing date will be set. If there is validity to that dispute, then the director can withdraw the garnishment, but that is a whole other issue and I am hoping that we do not have to get into that.
Mr Sorbara: No, we do not have to do that.
Ms Feldman: So there may be a court date or there may not. To obtain the garnishment, a request for garnishment is sworn in, the notice of garnishment drafted up and sent to the court, and the court issues it.
Mr Sorbara: How long does that take?
Ms Feldman: I am not sure now how long it takes, but I assume it probably varies from region to region. About a year ago it took roughly 10 days to do it up, send it off, get it returned and then get it out to the employer, but that is --
Mr Sorbara: But not 10 days of work. It is just filling out a form
Ms Feldman: Ten working days.
Mr Sorbara: Ten working days before it is done.
Ms Feldman: It depends. At any particular time it depends on the workload at the regional office and the workload at the court office to get things issued and returned and then sent out.
Mr Sorbara: I am sorry to interrupt you, but you very quickly went over the steps and I think the steps are important. The office decides that there is going to be a garnishment. What happens?
Ms Feldman: The file is reviewed; the arrears and the statement of arrears would have been checked in most cases. The request for garnishment, which is a form, would be completed.
Mr Sorbara: It is a form. Fill out a form, okay, first step.
Ms Feldman: The more important point, incidentally, preceding all this is that the income source is known. In garnishment, it would have to be traced in most --
Mr Sorbara: In this example, everyone knows that Radio-Canada --
Ms Feldman: But if we are trying to compare, for instance, garnishments and the efficiency of garnishments with the court deductions, one of the very important points is that with garnishments, the information has to come to the program or the program has to be proactive and seek it out. With income sources, particularly the duty-to-inform provision, that information is given to the program, which is one of the main advantages.
The request for garnishment is filled out and a notice of garnishment form is completed for the court's review and signature. At that point, it goes to the family court. I do not know exactly what happens in the family court.
Mr Sorbara: What happens in the family court, correct me if I am wrong if there is a lawyer here, it goes to a judge in chambers and he signs it.
Ms Feldman: Not necessarily, not in Toronto. In Toronto a clerk would sign.
Mr Sorbara: Somebody signs it.
Ms Feldman: Copies are taken, I assume, for the court files because they are often there when we do go to court and it comes back to SCOE.
Mr Sorbara: And?
Ms Feldman: The request for garnishment and the notice of garnishment are sent out to the payor --
Mr Sorbara: Which is the debtor.
Ms Feldman: -- an affidavit of service completed and the notice of garnishment standing alone is sent out to the garnishee and an affidavit of service completed.
Mr Sorbara: That is the employer in our example, Radio-Canada.
Ms Feldman: Then the file would be brought forward, I do not know for what length of time, but to see whether payments are forthcoming. Actually there is a garnishment clerk at each family court who would, at first instance, monitor that particular court file for the payments that are coming in; and if payments are not coming in, then the provincial court rules indicate that there is a court hearing date set as to why the payments are not forthcoming.
Mr Sorbara: Are the same rules going to apply on an automatic order for deduction?
Ms Feldman: There are similarities. Because a support deduction order is made in the court at first instance, there is some necessary modification, but there has been some thought given to similarities between garnishment and support deductions.
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Mr Sorbara: Okay, so you are into that process and a couple of payments are deducted and then what happened to our guy?
Mr Mills: He won the lottery.
Mr Sorbara: No, no, he did not. He got laid off.
Mr Kwinter: He got laid off and he went into the real estate business.
Mr Sorbara: He got laid off and went into the real estate business. What happens?
Mr Wessenger: Just to give a break, we will shift back and forth. At that stage, you could either serve a garnishee on the real estate broker --
Mr Sorbara: How do you know that he has been laid off?
Mr Wessenger: You would have a default hearing, first of all, to find out what he is doing, so the default hearing would determine what assets he had, who his employer was. Once that was determined, you could then --
Ms Feldman: You know he is laid off because the moneys would stop coming in from Radio-Canada. So you would make an inquiry, or the program would try to make an inquiry, as to why money had stopped flowing at that point in time.
Mr Sorbara: Okay. All of that takes time.
Mr Fletcher: The problem, though, and this is one of the problems with the person who changes employment frequently -- how would we know where he is at, or where she is at, after that?
Mr Sorbara: That is right.
Ms Feldman: That is where, either under the new legislation -- we are assuming the new bill is proclaimed -- we have the ability outside of a court proceeding now to request financial statements to be completed under, I think, section 3j of the present bill. That will be very useful in these types of situations where there is a hop-about person and to assist with trace-and-locate functions. So we would not necessarily have to use court resources or legal resources to start the default hearings process.
Mr Sorbara: But in any event, you track the guy down.
Ms Feldman: Right.
Mr Sorbara: He is working for a Remax agency and what happens in respect of the automatic deduction order?
Ms Feldman: With respect to the automatic deduction order, still with the definition of "income source," as it stands now, assuming as in most cases that the commissions are irregularly paid, it still would not capture automatic deduction vis-à-vis the real estate commission.
Mr Sorbara: So commission salespeople are now out. Note that --
Ms Feldman: For commission salespeople, there are other means of enforcement that are more appropriate; and more time can be spent because automatic deduction is on the regular payment.
Mr Sorbara: I am sorry to have to do this, but the government did not come out and do this. We now find that government of Canada employees, now out; commission salespeople, now out, because it is not a regular payment, it is not a periodic payment at regular intervals. Okay, so under this circumstance -- and by the way, a lot of these guys work like this, hopping around, a lot of enforcement problems. Please get yourself more money from the Attorney General. They often work in situations where they do not qualify. Even though we thought the net was huge, now we are finding major holes in the net: government of Canada employees, commission salespeople. Okay, now what happens?
Ms Feldman: With the real estate situation, then there would be perhaps the financial statement, perhaps seizure and sale. The commissions do make their way into bank accounts. Garnishments last six years, so a lump sum garnishment to a bank can have a long effect. The problem is that once the payor is served with that garnishment, then they might withdraw the funds.
Mr Sorbara: I appreciate all of that, but you are describing now to me mechanisms that already exist under the bill and that would already apply to this fellow. What we are trying to do is consider the clause-by-clause impact of this new bill and how it will change things. You know where I am coming from. I have to make the case that this net is not as big as we thought it was, and here we have commission salespeople who are not included and I understand why.
Ms Feldman: The converse of that is that if the payments were irregular and support deductible, whereas the majority of support orders themselves are monthly or more frequent, then you are always playing catch-up on a particular file. You are always without knowing when moneys are going to be paid, when it is much more appropriate to proceed by way of default hearings or seizure or an outstanding garnishment. You are always trying to make support deduction work. We feel that it is a wonderful mechanism if there is some sort of complement between the periodicity of the support order being enforced and the income source payments being made, because it frees up the program's time to do the alternate enforcement with respect to your very hard situation that does happen sometimes, although not quite to the tone of the example given, the hop-about person and self-employed individuals and people who have contracting arrangements, etc. After the real estate, he worked at McDonald's and at that stage, support deduction does apply.
Mr Sorbara: How did you find out that he is working at McDonald's?
Ms Feldman: I cannot say how we found out, I really cannot. I would say it probably was with trace-and-locate.
Mr Sorbara: Suffice it to say that he might be working at McDonald's for four or five months before you even know that he is there, realistically?
Ms Feldman: Yes, and maybe after four to five months, if it was found out at that stage that a default hearing was an appropriate method chosen by the program to be practical to enforce, then it would be very hard for any court to find that he had valid reasons to pay nothing during the course of that employment.
Mr Sorbara: But I have a problem. He is working at McDonald's. You found that out because finally his wife saw him behind the counter at McDonald's and she phoned you and said, "That SOB is working at McDonald's," okay?
Ms Feldman: Yes.
Mr Sorbara: Now, you have an automatic deduction order that has him working at Radio-Canada. Are you authorized under this act to scratch out "Radio-Canada" and write in "McDonald's"?
Ms Feldman: Yes.
Mr Sorbara: You can do that of your own accord?
Ms Feldman: New notices can be sent to any income source that comes to the director's attention.
Mr Sorbara: Do you have to verify that? What happens if her eyesight was bad and she just thought he was there? What do you do in order to make sure that you know that you have the right employee and the right guy? Do you send out an investigation team?
Ms Feldman: No, not necessarily.
Mr Sorbara: You do not?
Ms Fe1dman: No, the enforcement mechanism is taken and if the person, the garnishee and, in this case, the income source indicates that person is not working here, then they will advise.
The Chair: Have we left McDonald's now?
Mr Sorbara: No, we are not finished with McDonald's, we are still there. Now remember, we have a support order for $500 per month and the fact is, at McDonald's you are making about $300 per month. Well, let's say you are making $550 per month. What happens?
Ms Feldman: The support deduction order and all enforcement takes its life from the support order, so this is a problem that goes well beyond Bill 17. If there has been a change in circumstances, then that person has to do what is necessary to get either an interim variation or a final variation on the terms of the support order.
Mr Sorbara: Who makes that determination? We have our fellow making $550 a month at McDonald's and there is a support order -- that is one of the documents in your office -- for $500 per month. You have just got word that he is working at McDonald's. You do not do much investigation, but you scribble it out. "Radio-Canada" is gone, "McDonald's" is in and you send it to McDonald's.
Ms Feldman: Under the act, the maximum payment that can be deducted is 50% of the net amount that an income source owes to a payor.
Mr Sorbara: That is 50% of the net amount that he is earning?
Ms Feldman: Right. So in your example there will be accrued arrears on a continual basis. There will be a shortfall if that payor does nothing to vary. For instance, if he feels or she feels for some reason the variation is temporary and things will get better and times will change, so there is no reason to go to court for a variation, there will be a continual accrual of the shortfall between what we are getting if he does not voluntarily make the payments.
Mr Sorbara: But you do not know how much he is making. You just send out notice of an income deduction order for $500 per month.
Ms Feldman: It is no different than garnishment now.
Mr Sorbara: No, but under this bill, with all due respect, it is different.
Ms Feldman: Garnishments and support deduction notices will both, I think, indicate the same thing, which is that the income source or garnishee is liable to pay the amount set out in the order or 50% of the net amount, whichever is less, unless there is an order to the contrary by the court for whatever reason.
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Mr Sorbara: There is a difficult little wrinkle here because the spouse, the beneficiary of the support order, has phoned you and said: "He's working at McDonald's. He's working at the McDonald's there on Yonge Street just south of Wellesley," but that is all she tells you. Now, you and I know and the other people in this room know that McDonald's are all franchises. Does your office go out and go down to that McDonald's and try and find out who the owner is and search title to that business and do a partnership search and all that stuff?
Ms Feldman: The office will do what is practical to enforce. What will happen as a matter of practice in my own experience is -- for instance, Shoppers Drug Mart is a franchise operation as well. If they are named, without naming the subsidiary or the franchisee --
Mr Sorbara: It is an independent business.
Ms Feldman: -- on the garnishment, we will hear about it quite quickly. I think most income sources or garnishees would go to great length to advise the director that the wrong entity --
Mr Sorbara: Oh, no. I am sure about that. There is no doubt about that. But this woman phones you and says, "I have found him. He's working at McDonald's on Yonge Street just south of Wellesley. I saw him in there and he's behind the counter and he's serving hamburgers. You should get that automatic deduction order working and get it out there." As a practical matter, does your office go out and do the investigation to search out the owner of that business, or do you say to her, "Ma'am, get yourself a lawyer and find out who owns that franchise, where the legal address of the business is, so that we can serve the support order"? How does that work?
Ms Feldman: I think it is very rare to ask a creditor to get her lawyer. Yes, we want any information that the creditor might have at any particular time. No, she is generally not sent out to seek out that information.
Mr Sorbara: Who does?
Ms Feldman: If it is practical at the particular moment, while that case is being dealt with, for the enforcement office or for somebody to grab lunch at Yonge and Wellesley at the McDonald's, then they might do so with a hidden agenda of looking up the licences on the wall. Yes, Personal Property Security Act searches are done and corporate searches are done from time to time, but the bottom line is, depending on that particular agent and the director's internal policy, that the director does what is practical to enforce.
It might be, in some instances, that the garnishment goes out and a response is awaited and there is another three-week delay before the income source comes back, or the garnishee has said, "I'm not the proper garnishee," and then some more investigation has to take place. It really depends on the case-by-case.
Mr Sorbara: The long and the short of it is, it could amount to quite a bit of detective work or at least legal work of the type that lawyers like the parliamentary assistant to the Attorney General and myself and others do. That is, some client brings you in a name. It is McDonald's. It is on Wellesley. You say, "Oh, well, that doesn't really help, but I'm going to have to search that out or I'm going to have to do some work to find out who 345678 Ontario Inc is," because that happens to be the business, and, "The shareholders, my God, who the hell are they?" But there is a lot of work to do there, is there not?
Ms Feldman: In that situation, yes.
Mr Sorbara: Yes. Before the automatic deduction order -- just as if you were going to garnish, you would have to do that same sort of work.
Ms Feldman: In your situation where the support deduction was inoperable at the first instance, there is more work than if the support deduction was working at the first instance and then the duty to inform kicked in and that freed up all those cases and put them to the side. The government hopes that the program has that much more time to turn to the example that you gave us.
Mr Sorbara: Okay, what happened after McDonald's?
Mr Mills: He won the lottery.
Mr Sorbara: Oh yes. That is right. Gord is right. He won the lottery, $50,000.
Ms Feldman: Again, it depends how the information comes to the program. As you said, he drank the money away. Whether he drank all of it away, part of it away, or --
Mr Sorbara: You would have an opportunity, would you not, to attach that money if it were in a bank account --
Ms Feldman: Sure.
Mr Sorbara: -- if you went through the appropriate legal proceedings, particularly the arrears which had piled up now for a year?
Ms Feldman: Absolutely.
Mr Sorbara: Right. But there is no periodic source of income to attach to get money that is not in arrears.
Ms Feldman: Unless the lottery was paid out by way of annuity.
Mr Sorbara: We do not do that here. Some people do it if they win-
Interjection.
Mr Sorbara: Wintario does?
Ms Feldman: I do not know which lottery companies actually do pay by annuity, but I have seen advertisements indicating that there is an election to be made by people who win the lottery to have money paid out over the course of-
Mr Sorbara: Not in the province of Ontario, no. There are no lottery companies, anyway, in Ontario. It is just one big government running the whole show.
Ms Feldman: Although, if it is paid to the bank and it were invested and wherever it is invested pays out in the form of an annuity or a periodic payment, then that becomes the income source, wherever the money is being paid out.
Mr Sorbara: But in our example he won the lottery. He immediately quits his job at McDonald's. Now, McDonald's has to advise you that he no longer works there, is that right?
Ms Feldman: And so does the payor, too.
Mr Sorbara: But the payor is a defaulter and not likely to do that.
The Chair: There is a necessary assumption that the payor is a defaulter, is that right?
Mr Sorbara: Yes, that is part of the story.
Mr Kwinter: If you did not have the garnishing you would not have any hope of getting it anyway.
Mr Sorbara: With the money in the bank you can attach for arrears but you cannot use an automatic deduction order to get at that money at the bank periodically.
Ms Feldman: Unless it is paid out somehow on periodic basis, no.
Mr Sorbara: Okay. We have him now going up to the bush and working as an independent contractor cutting down trees. Can he be attached with an automatic deduction order here?
Ms Feldman: Probably not. It really depends how he set up his independent contracting business. But practically, if he is defaulting, then he will not become the income source for himself.
Mr Sorbara: That is right. So -- and I tell my friends on the committee -- there are increasingly individuals who set themselves up as independent contractors because they do not want this headache and that headache, and government is coming down so hard on employers in all sorts of ways. They set themselves up as independent contractors. Guess what? This net has another hole in it: independent contractors. You can just see this guy saying, "I'm going to get into a business where they are not going to get at my income, because I object to that," notwithstanding that he or she was slightly touched by that advertising campaign of the Attorney General.
Ms Feldman: But support deduction is not appropriate for that sort of situation, that kind of wilfulness where they actually manipulate or structure their income to not be in a position to be support-deducted. Default hearings are very appropriate mechanisms for those types of problems.
Mr Sorbara: The point that I was trying to make earlier is that there are a lot of cases where we should just leave people alone and let payments be made because they are good, honest and upstanding, and they believe that they have an obligation to continue supporting the spouse. For the others, we should have default payments.
So the independent contractor in the bush, that is a hole in this net, we agree. The worker-
Mr Johnson: He gets hurt.
Interjection.
Mr Sorbara: No, You did not agree. But our witness here agreed that an independent contractor is not caught here in this net. He is not an income source because you cannot be your own income source by the very definition. It takes two people.
Ms Feldman: I am sorry. I agreed that support deduction does not catch that. I did not agree that it is a hole in the net. My point is that it is not meant to catch that particular situation. Alternate and more appropriate enforcement mechanisms that can be done are meant to catch that situation and to free up the program's time in order to get at that situation.
Mr Sorbara: Well, that is another way of saying that there is a hole in this net of income source. I am just giving you situations in the real world, the way in which people actually work. Although, when you read this definition you think, "My God, they've just captured everyone," we found that the independent contractor, the commission salesperson and the federal employee are not yet caught.
Now our friend, this fellow, has an accident in the bush, seriously damages his leg and receives workers' compensation. What happens there?
Ms Feldman: I think some more thought would have to be given to that particular scenario, because while the government would intend that workers' compensation benefits be caught within support deduction, also, under the Workers' Compensation Act, section 50 provides for something called a diversion, which is very similar to a garnishment, and it has just been amended recently to provide for garnishment.
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Mr Sorbara: Bill 162. I was its author.
Ms Feldman: So I would have to give that more consideration.
Mr Sorbara: We would like to hear about that. By the way, Mr Chairman, can we just note that? We will want to hear about that and how, practically speaking, we are going to deal with the workers' compensation problem.
The Chair: As a point of clarification, if he was an independent contractor he would not be eligible for workers' compensation, would he?
Mr Sorbara: No, an independent contractor can make payments to the workers' compensation system and cover him/herself.
But we want to know whether SCOE does. Now in this committee a while back we talked about -- you remember privacy and confidentiality? Guess what? The workers' compensation system has a data bank. Guess what? SCOE has a data bank. Are we going to allow these two computers to talk to one another and say, "Hey, I got one of your guys on my payroll?" Are we going to allow that?
Ms Pilcow: I missed that question.
Mr Sorbara: Oh, I am sorry. I will repeat it then. In this committee a while back, what was it we were talking about?
Interjection: Freedom of information.
Mr Sorbara: Freedom of information. Why were they here? Do you remember, Dianne? Lisa will tell us.
Mr Mills: We were talking about exchange of data and the new health cards.
Mr Sorbara: Yes, but what matter was before us? Lisa, can you help us out here? This committee was discussing freedom of information and the protection of privacy. I am sure it was a bill of some sort, was it not?
The Chair: That came up with the other -- was it the legislative committee?
Mr Mills: I am sure it came up with the new health cards. The surgeon lady was asking about it -- Margaret.
Mr Sorbara: Oh, I am terribly sorry. I was sitting in on another committee. My apologies both to the clerk and the Chair and to everyone else. It was the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, that is what it was. When we heard submissions on the municipal freedom of information act and the review thereof -- it is all coming back to me now. It is the standing committee on the Legislative Assembly and they are charged to periodically review the provincial freedom of information act and there were submissions made in that regard. The big issue there is protection of privacy.
The Chair: The clerk reminds me that our researcher, Ms Swift, did write a background memo on privacy and freedom of information in regard to Bill 17 which you have before you, so in regard to that particular aspect of the bill, feel free to consult that research paper.
Mr Sorbara: It was an excellent research paper and I complimented Ms Swift on it when she wrote it and I will again now for the record.
My point is this: Before that committee we heard concerns about the invasion of our privacy, and one of the issues that is going to be confronting government is this: We have all these data banks that have information about the personal lives of individuals in the province of Ontario. For example, we have a list of all the defaulters on student loans. That information is notionally available and theoretically available. There is a computer that has the names of all of the people who receive workers' compensation. Presumably, one day you guys will get a computer, will you not? Yes, get yourselves one, you need it badly. You will get a computer and all the names of people who are in default or who owe under SCOE will be there on the computer. The big issue in privacy law is now whether governments are going to allow these computers literally to talk to one another and share information; so in our example there is no way for SCOE to automatically know that this guy who is an independent contractor, and is in default, has hurt himself and is now drawing workers' compensation benefits. But if the government allows these computers to talk to one another, SCOE will find out soon enough. Will you not?
Mr Wessenger: Could I just make a comment on the existing legislation? Subsection 6(1) says, "The director may, for the purposes of enforcing a support or custody order,
"(a) obtain from any person or public body information that is shown on a record in the person's or body's possession or control..."
So that indicates we have the power right now under the existing act.
Mr Sorbara: I say to my friend the parliamentary assistant to the Attorney General, that law is subject to the provisions of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act and would have to not only go through that loophole but that act as well. I say to him as well that the New Democratic Party, as a matter of policy, has traditionally been a great defender of issues relating to privacy. They have also wanted all information to be available to the public, but it is not inconsistent. Protect people's privacy. I want to know from the people at SCOE, are you going to seek to have access one day to WCB computers to get information about how many of your defaulters are drawing benefits? Yes?
Ms Feldman: I would say yes, I would like to think of it.
Mr Sorbara: Will you agree at least to give some consideration to issues related to protection of privacy?
Mr Wessenger: It is really not in the context of this bill, because it is really in the context of the other legislation. If the other legislation overrides this legislation, then obviously this is --
Mr Sorbara: You will abide?
Mr Wessenger: That is right. That is correct. Obviously that is the case.
Mr Sorbara: Now, our guy here is drawing workers' compensation, but you are going to get back to us as to whether or not workers' compensation benefits come within an income source here. Is that right? Okay. So now there are three and a half holes in this net.
So he gets out of the bush. He is back on his feet. The leg is working all right. He is getting a permanent partial disability pension; he is getting a little money from the federal government; he gets a job. Having gotten the job, he has worked for a few months, qualified for unemployment insurance, and now he is on unemployment insurance. That is another hole, is it not? Federal, difficult.
Ms Feldman: Right now that is something that is not support-deductible. It is under the Family Orders and Agreements Enforcement Assistance Act, a piece of federal legislation, that garnishment can take place, and UlCs are garnishable through that federal piece of legislation.
Mr Sorbara: In times of recession, lots of people are drawing unemployment insurance, and this definition of income source has a pretty big hole in it, would you not think?
Finally, he decides that he does not like unemployment insurance any more, gets a job, but his employer is an out-of-province employer. Although he works in the province of Ontario, the cheque comes from Winnipeg, Manitoba, the heart and soul of this great Canadian nation.
Ms Feldman: Support deduction is only available in the province. Perhaps one day it might be available in other provinces as well, but what we would be thinking of doing -- and I am not sure if it is available in Quebec or which particular provinces it is available in -- is issuing an extra-provincial garnishment, which is another mode of enforcement.
Mr Sorbara: Right. So if you work out of the province, it does not come within this income source. If you work in the province but the employer is out of province, it does not apply. You cannot send them out of the province.
Ms Feldman: I am not sure, really. If it is only the payroll office that is out of province, I am not sure of the answer to that particular question.
Mr Sorbara: Find that out. Mr Chairman, I am ready now to vote on the amendment.
Mr Mills: I have really been trying to be most attentive during this discussion, and I must admit that, from time to time, I must be getting a little bit older, but I drifted off to my childhood and Abbott and Costello, and I have got to wonder who is on first base at different times.
Nevertheless, I enjoyed a wonderful, charming fairy story about our friend who traversed to all kinds of different jobs. My question is more succinct. What I would like to know is: How far and how intense is the ministry along the way with its discussions with the federal government about putting this into place? I hear you say that possibly we are going to do this before we even get to the amendments. So it must be pretty close to some sort of agreement, and I would like to know how close that agreement is, and then we could dispense with the hypothetical problems that we have with the people who are in the military, who work for Radio-Canada, etc.
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Mr Wessenger: I am advised that we are awaiting a reply from a person in the Ministry of Justice. It is likely to be back this week, is it? Back on Monday of this coming --
Mr Mills: Would that then tell me that all the preliminary discussions are completed and it has come to a yes or no, or are we some time down the road?
Mr Wessenger: I think we are dealing at, shall we say, the bureaucratic level. The bureaucratic level has no problem and we can assume that the recommendation would go for the decision. That is all I think I can say at this stage. We do not know whether it is going to have to go beyond the bureaucratic level to the political level.
Mr Mills: In your political opinion, is it promising?
Mr Wessenger: I do not see why the federal government would have any objection to this type of approach. It ought to be in line with their philosophical, ideological positions.
Mr Mills: To vote on this amendment, I think it would help to know that it is promising.
The Chair: Okay, any further discussion on this point?
Mr Sorbara: I think we should congratulate, first of all, the parliamentary assistant to the Attorney General for taking us through the example. Just to note once again that it is a very comprehensive definition, but it leaves out a lot of people. If you go to the chart that I referred to earlier on in my remarks, and you see all those people that defaulted, so many of them lived lives like the one I described.
Mr Fletcher: That was my point. There are so many people like that.
Mr Sorbara: Well, I would defer to Mr Fletcher if he wants to comment on this thing for a few minutes.
Mr Fletcher: I was just wondering, what happens if this fellow goes skydiving and gets caught in the crosswind and has his bankroll on him and it blows across an international boundary. Do they still collect on that?
The Chair: Would you seriously like an answer to that particular question?
Mr Fletcher: No, thanks.
Mr Wessenger: I could not be serious with that.
The Chair: Any further discussion?
Mr Sorbara: Mr Chairman?
The Chair: I thought you had said that you were finished, Mr Sorbara?
Mr Sorbara: I said we might be ready to vote.
Interjections.
Mr Sorbara: I am being harangued by the director of the support and custody enforcement branch of the Ministry of the Attorney General.
The Chair: Okay. Anything further? Any further discussion?
Mr Sorbara: I note for the record that my colleague, Mr Elston, is back, and he might want to say something additional on this thing, but we are really talking about this amendment, are we not?
The Chair: Yes, we were.
Mr Sorbara: The amendment to the definition of "income source." We had not yet got a resolution of the problem that Mr Elston raised, that Mr Kwinter raised, that Mrs Cunningham would have raised, had she been --
Interjection.
Mr Sorbara: We have been doing something else, actually. That is to say, should we or should we not leave the words "at regular intervals" in this; or should we or should we not put the words "at regular intervals" into this definition? I say no. I say the government members of this committee should simply rise up and say, "Murray Elston made a very good point." These periodic claimants should not have to be paid at regular intervals, and they should just tell the government what to do. That is what you were elected to do. Had you been chosen to sit in cabinet, you would have been the government, but you were not chosen. So you are in the Legislature now, and we are legislators, so you can tell them how you want this bill. You cannot tell them that you are not going to have the bill, because you have already agreed in principle to support this thing, all three parties. So do it. I mean, actually take up courage and think about what Elston said and defeat this amendment. Let's keep the definition the way it is.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Sorbara.
Mr Sorbara: No, I am not done yet.
The Chair: Oh, I am sorry.
Mr Sorbara: The reason why we should do that is because it makes this definition of "income source" slightly more expansive. It does not fill all the holes that I identified. Sharon, you were not here, you missed it, but federal employees-
Ms S. Murdock: I will read it. You do not have to repeat it. I will read Hansard.
Mr Sorbara: Do you promise? Federal employees are not covered. Commission salespeople are not covered. Independent contractors are not covered. We do not know yet whether, if you are getting your money from the Workers' Compensation Board, you are covered. You are going to get back to us on that.
Interjection: No, it is irregular.
Mr Sorbara: Yes, and anything that is irregular is not covered, and that includes most of us much of the time. So there are some very significant holes in this definition. I say that as a committee we could flex a little bit of muscle and say to the government: "Look, you want to add in the words `at regular intervals.' We have read -- there it is right here on page the purpose for the amendment. We think that is a nice rationale, but we do not agree with you. We agree with our Liberal colleague Mr Elston. So we are going to defeat that little amendment and we are going to do so on the basis that we have been elected by the people in our ridings and our constituencies to express somewhat independently our points of view on the laws that come before the Legislature."
So I know that my friend Mrs Cunningham and my friend Mr Carr agree with that position, at least I think they do. And I am hoping that at least one or two of the government members will agree with us. I do not have anything more to say, but it looks like Mrs Cunningham does so we might have to continue this debate tomorrow.
Mrs Cunningham: I do have a question and it is a very direct one. If in fact the words "at regular intervals" were left out -- I hope I have got this right -- would we then, given the example that we have listened to with care, be able to include the independent employee or at least the commission salesperson? Would that assist us? We spent an hour going through examples of people who could be out because they are not paid at regular intervals.
The Chair: You underestimate Mr Sorbara. I think it was more than an hour.
Mrs Cunningham: Well, whatever it was, Mr Chairman, I think one of the problems in what we have ahead of us, which I shall speak to after you answer my question, is that there are examples that are useful. I think we went through one this afternoon and, admit it or not, a lot of us learned something from the example.
One thing I think I learned, and I may be wrong, is that if we do not have the words "at regular intervals" in there, then two of the examples that Mr Sorbara used were independent employees who then could be caught if we did not leave "at regular intervals" in -- "independent" meaning self-employed -- and commission salespersons because they are not always paid at regular intervals.
Mr Sorbara: That is right, they are paid periodically but they are not paid at regular intervals.
Mrs Cunningham: Which are two examples. With respect to what is happening here, we listened to some input from witnesses. We, in an effort -- and I raised it right off the top -- to answer the question, put in the words "at regular intervals." Now we have gone through what it really means, could we improve this legislation by getting to more people? Two examples we went through for the last two hours; I did not sit here for no reason. If we leave "at regular intervals" out -- I want to know.
Mr Wessenger: First of all, the independent contractor or the commission salesperson, if they receive their payments on a regular basis they would be covered by this definition. What you are concerned about is the one that receives it, say, maybe once every three months, or like a real estate agent only receives it when they actually make a sale. Obviously, if you took out "at regular intervals" you would slightly widen the net and I think that is fair to say you would slightly widen the net.
Mr Sorbara: Repair the net.
Mr Wessenger: Repair it. But the difficulty is, in widening that net you are then making it more difficult to administer because, when you have regular-interval payments, and when there is an interruption of that payment, then SCOE immediately knows there is default, the enforcing branch knows there is default and they can make the necessary inquiries and take the necessary steps. If you have this broader group included you would be making inquiries and taking steps in many instances where there was no default and that would greatly increase the workload of the branch. It would detract from the time they need to spend on their more difficult cases and you would not know -- I will let staff add something here too.
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Ms Pilcow: One of the other difficulties is that while the income source is not remitting, the payor then has the obligation to remit and you would never know, if the payments were irregular, who was the one you were supposed to enforce against. If you get paid after three months and then the income source pays again after five, all of those intervening payments are to be made by the payor. How does the program know, then, who is not remitting at what time? Unless it is regular, it is not something that can be administered by support deductions. That is the very kind of payment that you get by default hearings, by seizure and sale and by the other enforcement remedies.
Ms S. Murdock: Just on that point too, because it would be at regular intervals, the trigger then for notification to the branch that default has occurred would be -- and then the other ones can be brought in through the regular court system. I see it as a trigger, sort of like a tickler system in your office that you need to send your bill out. Well, in this instance, they need to make a payment.
Interjection.
The Chair: Mr Kwinter first.
Mr Kwinter: I think the problem that we have is that we may be tackling the wrong problem. The parliamentary assistant said that it widens the net. It widens the net for those that are included; it also widens the net for those who can be excluded because you then have the ability -- if it says regular payments -- to structure it so that you can determine that it is irregular and as a result not be caught.
The other concern that I have is that the motivation of this particular section seems to be to make it easier for SCOE to function as opposed to making it easier to get more money for the people who want the money, which is what I thought the whole purpose of this bill is. That is a concern that I have, that they are saying, "Oh, my God, if we have to do this it is going to make it more difficult for us to administer." But that really is not the problem. The government has to decide whether they are going to provide the resources to make this efficient, but what they are really doing is saying: "Do not confuse us with the problems out there. We have our own problems and we have got to make this thing run in our office. We have to make sure that our offices are doing their workload and everything else, and it does not matter whether we are getting any money for these people or not." That is a concern that I have.
Mrs Cunningham: Just to go back to one of the statements that was made, that it is more difficult for the administration of the office, and I think that is what you just said. But you also said the reason that you are concerned about that, is that you want the people in the office, the administrators, to go after the more difficult -- they want more time for the more difficult cases. Is that what you said?
Mr Wessenger: Which are more appropriately dealt with in a way other than support deductions. The feeling is that the irregular payment is better dealt with, for instance, by a garnishee function, or a default --
Mr Sorbara: Motion to adjourn, Mr Chair --
Mr Elston: On that point we heard lots of people testifying about the cost of going through the courts to enforce support orders --
The Chair: We have a motion to adjourn?
Mr Sorbara: After Mr Elston --
The Chair: You introduced the motion to adjourn. I do not think a discussion should occur after the motion is --
Interjections.
The Chair: Motion to adjourn. All in favour of the motion?
Mr Mills: Are we not going to deal with this issue after all this while it is fresh in our minds?
Mr Wessenger: We agreed that we would deal with this clause. If everybody agrees to deal with this clause today, then we adjourn.
Interjections.
The Chair: I believe we have to vote on the motion. All those in favour of the motion to adjourn? Opposed? Motion defeated. Mr Elston.
Mr Elston: Where was I when I was interrupted by all that --
The Chair: We do want to hear you, even more than your own colleagues.
Mr Elston: I think I was talking a little bit about the enforcement. I was in full flight and now I have been fully put off the whole thing, but I just wanted to repeat a couple of things that I had heard before and that I had raised.
Mr Kwinter: You were talking about administration.
Mr Elston: The administration? Okay, the administration. If we follow your logic on this amendment, which is that one of the reasons for the amendment is that it makes it easier to administer because you do not have to pursue people that make irregular payments and all that, and that you enforce the irregular payment under a garnishee, it becomes quite expensive to go back to court all the time and make these applications. I guess I was just saying, before I was cut off by the motion, that we heard a number of people making presentations to us, saying: "If we always have to go back to court and chase these people, it is not effective. It costs us money or it costs legal aid money and you do not get one cent more." You get default hearings in situations where the judge will not enforce an order to throw the person in jail for default of payment or making fines, for instance, if they are in contempt; and they are just saying that it was not an effective way of dealing with the issue.
What we have been saying up to this point is that we want to make it easier to do the enforcement and for SCOE to spend all the time that it can on the tough enforcement cases so that we end up not having to pay money in pursuit of people, but we end up getting the money from the person who owes the payment and giving it to the person who is a dependant, and to their children.
I just wanted to make it clear that as long as you are going to rely on that old system, you have not advanced the yardsticks one iota for those people who have difficulty in enforcing those orders. They will still be people in need. The children will still be children in need of assistance and you will not have moved one iota in favour of child-poverty elimination.
The more we talk in the terms that we have been talking about the need to take the pressure off SCOE to administer irregularities in the payment structures, the more I think you turn this bill into a bill of a nature that I described before, namely, one that will be managed and controlled by the well-to-do and one that will be catching the people who have little, if any, economic power.
Those people who have very little control over their economic lives will be subject, most often, to these amounts being taken off their paycheque, while people who have economic power will be able to manipulate the system in a way which I do not think you had wanted, Mr Parliamentary Assistant, nor did your caucus.
I am concerned that that is the result. I am concerned that, because this bill speaks more to ease of administration, you will be promoting the continuation of the status quo which was one of the things that the Attorney General said in his opening remarks he could not countenance. If that is what you are going to do, I guess that is what we will do. But for many people who are without economic power in this province, it is status quo and it will remain that way; and I am afraid that you have forced those people who could not get payments before to go back to the expensive route of litigation and expensive costs of paying third parties when the money really is supposed to come to the person in need of support and his or her children.
Mr Wessenger: If I might comment, first of all, the important procedures is --
The Chair: Pardon me, Mr Wessenger. Is it with the unanimous consent of the committee that the discussions continue? No. The committee is then adjourned. The clerk reminds me that in the previous vote -- with deference to Mr Elston who Mr Sorbara was wishing to allow to speak -- Mr Sorbara reminded us that it was after 5 o'clock. We then have to adjourn until 10 o'clock, not having unanimous consent to continue.
The committee adjourned at 1710.