CONTENTS
Monday 30 September 1991
Election of Chair
Retail Business Establishments Statute Law Amendment Act, 1991, Bill 115 / Loi de 1991 modifiant des lois en ce qui concerne les établissements de commerce de détail, projet de loi 115
STANDING COMMITTEE ON ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
Chair: Cooper, Mike (Kitchener-Wilmot NDP)
Vice-Chair: Morrow, Mark (Wentworth East NDP)
Carr, Gary (Oakville South PC)
Carter, Jenny (Peterborough NDP)
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)
Winninger, David (London South NDP)
Also taking part: Daigeler, Hans (Nepean L)
Clerk: Freedman, Lisa
Staff: Beecroft, Doug, Research Officer, Legislative Research Service
The committee met at 1531 in room 228.
ELECTION OF CHAIR
The Vice-Chair: Honourable members, it is my duty now to call upon you to elect a Chair.
Mr Fletcher: Mr Chair, it is my privilege to nominate Mr Mike Cooper as the Chair of this committee.
The Vice-Chair: Are there any further nominations?
Mr Sorbara: Can I just ask, as a point of information, sir, who the Premier decided should be the Chair of the committee? Who can speak to that?
The Vice-Chair: You do not have a point.
Mr Sorbara: I know it is not a point of order, it is a point of information.
The Vice-Chair: Any further nominations, please?
Mr Sorbara: I am just wondering in that regard, can we have about a half an hour of silence for Drummond White?
The Vice-Chair: Seeing no further nominations, I now declare nominations closed. Mike Cooper, will you stand?
Mr Cooper: I will.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much.
RETAIL BUSINESS ESTABLISHMENTS STATUTE LAW AMENDMENT ACT, 1991 / LOI DE 1991 MODIFIANT DES LOIS EN CE QUI CONCERNE LES ÉTABLISSEMENTS DE COMMERCE DE DÉTAIL
Resuming consideration of Bill 115, An Act to amend the Retail Business Holidays Act and the Employment Standards Act in respect of the opening of retail business establishments and employment in them.
Reprise de l'étude du projet de loi 115, Loi modifiant la Loi sur les jours fériés dans le commerce de détail et la Loi sur les normes d'emploi en ce qui concerne l'ouverture des établissements de commerce de détail et l'emploi dans ces établissements.
The Chair: Mr Morrow.
Mr Morrow: Thank you very much, Chair, and I want to congratulate you on that fine election; a job well done.
I have a motion that I would like to put forward right now, if you do not mind.
The Chair: Mr Morrow moves that the committee resume consideration of Bill 115, the Retail Business Establishments Statute Law Amendment Act, 1991, immediately.
Is there any discussion? Mr Sorbara?
Mr Sorbara: If you will bear with me for one moment, sir. I am just having a meeting with my caucus colleagues.
The Chair: While we are waiting, I would like to welcome Ms Carter and myself as new members of the committee.
Mr Sorbara: Thank you, Mr Chairman. I will begin simply by congratulating you on your accession to the chair of this committee. This committee has been perhaps one of the most difficult standing committees of the Legislature to sit on. I do not attribute that so much to the personalities that make up the committee as to the subject matter that the committee has had to deal with.
Having said that, I recall, sir, that you did preside over this committee for a week of the public hearings that we had on Bill 115, and my overall impression was that you were fair and reasonable in the way in which you conducted yourself and the committee proceedings. You allowed a degree of flexibility that ensured both that the witnesses before the committee had an opportunity to have their say, even when they were disagreeing rather aggressively with the government's position, and you also allowed, by and large, the opportunity for members of the committee, government members and opposition and third party members, to question individual witnesses.
That is not, as I said, a criticism of your predecessor, but we are glad to see that you are here. I am sure you can use the extra income that accrues to someone taking up your position, but I know for sure that you have not agreed to take on these hefty responsibilities simply because of the emolument that accrues to you for having taken the position. Having done that, sir, I welcome you as our permanent Chair and advise you that we have a great deal of work to do, not only on this bill. Unfortunately there is a very significant degree of work to do on this bill. It is not yet in the shape that we would like it to be.
I would like to welcome back those who join us regularly in the studio audience for the great Sunday shopping debate. There are faces that are familiar, faces that have been here with us for several weeks of public hearings before, and they are going to be with us for several weeks and months as we consider this bill clause by clause by clause.
I want to say a special welcome to a rather famous face in the audience. I see that the Solicitor General is here waiting to present his amendments. He would be well advised not only to review the amendments he is proposing to have moved before this committee, but to consider the amendments proposed by my colleagues in this party, the Liberal Party, the official opposition, and by the members of the third party, the Progressive Conservative Party, because I know they have amendments either to present or that have been presented and filed up to this point.
We are all gathered back here, those who oppose Sunday shopping and those who would like a more reasonable, more flexible approach to Sunday shopping, but as I look around the committee room, I only see seven members, including yourself, Mr Chairman, who would stand up and unequivocally support the government's bill as it now stands, or as it shall be amended by virtue of the amendments that the government is proposing to put forward.
Mr Fletcher: Do you want some more people?
Mr Sorbara: While my friend the member for Guelph interrupts again and suggests that there could be more people --
Ms Carter: All those church groups.
Mr Sorbara: My friend the member for Peterborough says, "All those church groups." I guess she was not paying attention during the public hearings either. The church groups certainly oppose Sunday shopping, but at the same time, by and large, they opposed your bill, which if you look at it from one perspective, is simply the good old Liberal option, the local option, the municipal option, written on different-coloured paper. It is the local option because the municipalities can do whatever they want, so long as they can force their views into the so-called tourism exemption. That is going to be real fair, I tell you, Mr Chairman; it is going to be real fair. It is going to be fair for those drugstores which are regrettably operating stores that are a couple of square feet over 7,500 square feet. They are going to stay closed. Those good Christian drugstores that are small enough to comply with the bill as it stands now are going to be able to stay open.
There is a lot that is wrong with this bill, Mr Chairman, and unfortunately what we have heard from the new Solicitor General, taking on yet another task as a cabinet minister, is that the government simply was not listening to the people during a month of public hearings. But I do not want to talk about that yet.
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I want to talk about the motion that has been moved by my friend Mr Morrow that we return immediately to clause-by-clause consideration of this bill. There were a number of us, not only here in the committee but in the studio audience, who were prepared to undertake this work on September 16. That was the agenda, that is what the House agreed to and that is what this committee agreed to. There are members from our party who cancelled holidays and made arrangements with families so they could be here to attend and undertake the work they were charged with.
Mrs Mathyssen: They had holidays? I did not have holidays.
Mr Sorbara: My friend from Middlesex says she did not have any holidays. If she did not have any holidays, it was not because she was doing what she should have been doing, and that is lobbying her government to bring some sense to this bill.
In any event, all of us came here on September 16 at 10 o'clock to proceed with clause-by-clause consideration of Bill 115. What did we hear? What did the government say? What did the government do? It did nothing except force poor Mr Morrow into moving probably the most embarrassing motion he will ever have to move on a committee such as this. Do you know why it was embarrassing? It was embarrassing because the government was shutting the whole thing down indefinitely, that is, we did not adjourn to a specific date, it was an indefinite adjournment, adjourned sine die as they say. He had to do that without any assistance from the poor, beleaguered Solicitor General who was simply without enough courage to show his face in the committee and explain to the members of this committee, the studio audience -- always with us on this debate -- and most important, the general public, who I believed then and I believe now had a right to know the government's position.
I remind you, the government is free to take any position it wants. It could take the position that the bill had some significant flaws and needed significant amendment and repair prior to proceeding. It would have been appropriate for the Solicitor General to muster up his courage, come before the committee and ask for the indulgence of the committee to direct a few remarks to this committee; simply to state a position. He could have said, "The bill is in significant need of repair and we are still discussing it." He could have said: "The bill only needs minor tinkering but we are not ready to proceed. We do not have the amendments that we want to put forward prepared as of yet, but we will be back to you soon."
He could have allowed himself to be questioned on the bill. He could have allowed himself to answer some questions about his personal reflectionson what the committee heard during a month of public hearings.
He could have come before this committee and simply told the truth, which is that at the time we were supposed to proceed with clause-by-clause consideration of Bill 115, there was a terrible little war going on in the government caucus and in cabinet, a little war over the question of Sunday shopping. You know what? It would not have surprised those of us who have sat in government caucuses. Anyone who was part of the Liberal caucus during the term of the last two parliaments will understand that these wars can break out in caucus. All the positions get represented in the caucus debate, including those who stand up, speak frankly and say: "For God's sake, why don't we get out of the business of trying to prevent people from buying toaster ovens on Sunday if they want to buy toaster ovens on Sunday? Why don't we just get off the backs of the storekeepers?"
I know, as sure as I know that today is September 30, that view was expressed by at least some government caucus members. In that war, there were others I am sure who stood up and said that --
Interjections.
The Chair: Order, please. Mr Sorbara has the floor.
Mr Morrow: Can he at least speak to the motion?
Mr Fletcher: He isn't. He is speaking to the bill.
Mr Sorbara: Just to respond to the interjections, I am not speaking to --
Interjections.
The Chair: Order, please.
Mr Sorbara: I am not speaking to the bill at all. I am speaking to the motion, I tell my friend, Mr Fletcher, which is a motion to rush back now to clause-by-clause consideration when two weeks ago you were prepared to postpone it indefinitely, and that was the motion. This motion follows on because of that motion. I think that speaking to what happened during that period and the reasons we are in this predicament we are in today is entirely relevant.
I was discussing what one can only imagine was going in the New Democratic Party caucus. I guess you were there, sir, you heard all the debate. I guess you knew that pretty soon you would have to preside over a public debate about what was being said privately in caucus. I suspect that some people in that caucus debate were arguing for even more stringent controls on Sunday shopping. Peter Kormos, the member for Welland-Thorold, is still a member of your caucus. God knows he is still a member.
Mr Poirier: For the moment.
Mr Sorbara: For the moment, as my friend from Prescott and Russell says, although he is about the only one who has stood up for integrity on a number of issues on the part of the government caucus. I am sure that Peter Kormos stood up in your caucus and said, "We promised a provincially enforced common pause day and what we have given the people is simply the municipal option, the Liberal municipal option, the Liberal local autonomy, the Liberal local choice by another name, called the tourism exemption."
He would have argued against it. He would have argued, as he did before this committee on September 16 when he asked permission to speak -- although he had been thrown off the committee presumably for wanting the government to keep true to what it said in opposition -- that the bill should have been tightened up, tight tourism criteria, most stores closed. I suspect there were those in the caucus who would have represented almost verbatim the views of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union. I see that Pearl MacKay is with us, and she devoted hours and days and weeks to being part of our audience.
Mr Poirier: And president of your fan club.
Mr Sorbara: Well, my friend from Prescott and Russell says, "and president of your fan club." I think not. We had our moments during the course of public hearings but that is not unusual, that is expected. But to her credit, she was here, she kept a steady stream of notes, going to government caucus members, advising them of the position of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union. That is good. That is fair. That is entirely appropriate. She has a view. That view was repeated to us in city after city where members of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union in lockstep came before the committee and set out the position.
The position, if I recall -- I have a copy here and I might read a brief during the course of the debate on this motion -- was that most stores should be closed, most businesses should be closed, most undertakings should be closed on Sunday and most workers should not have to work. Remember, her position and the position of the union is that it is not only retail stores that should be closed but most businesses should be closed and most workers should not be working, and her position comes as close to the position of Gerald Vanderzande as any two positions among the positions that we have heard in this committee throughout the course of public hearings.
I respect those views. I do not agree with them, but I respect them, and I can bet, without hesitation, that those views were represented in a little war that was going on in the NDP caucus and in the cabinet.
Do you know what else, Mr Chairman? I suspect that there were some arguments in the caucus for a greater degree of flexibility. I would say that would have been the reasonable argument. The argument would go something like this. I hear my friend from Middlesex or perhaps my friend from Peterborough standing up in the caucus and saying, "Look, we're in trouble on this, friends."
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Mrs Mathyssen: You are having another fantasy, Greg.
Mr Sorbara: If I am having a fantasy --
Mrs Mathyssen: Delusions of grandeur.
Mr Sorbara: No, they are not delusions of grandeur. They are just a little bit of anger that the government could not have exercised its responsibilities with a bit more integrity in this business. But in any event, the argument goes like this: The member for Guelph, say, Mr Fletcher, stands up and says: "You know what? I was there every day of the hearings and we are not winning the battle out there, friends. We're in trouble on this one. I see a sea change on this one. Most of the people want government to gradually recede from the business of regulating Sunday shopping."
Mr Fletcher: I will tell you what Mr Fletcher said in caucus, if you would like to hear.
Mr Sorbara: Mr Fletcher might have been saying in caucus, "Boy, some of those people actually make sense in their arguments." Mr Fletcher might have said in caucus something like this, "You know, the people from Dylex" --
The Chair: Order, please. Thank you for the speculation, Mr Sorbara, but to the motion.
Mr Sorbara: Yes, to the motion. I am trying to describe what I imagined was the debate in caucus that preceded the authorization of this motion. Remember, sir, that this motion does not arise from Mr Morrow, or even from this group of soldiers on this committee. This motion is authorized by Bob Rae, the priorities committee of cabinet and the Solicitor General. They gave the green light, "Okay, you can take it back now." Just like the motion that killed the bill for a while, it was authorized by the same band of anti-Sunday-shopping forces in the cabinet and in the caucus.
Anyway, there Mr Fletcher is arguing in caucus for a slightly more reasonable approach, an approach that says: "You know what? If we loosened up on this a little bit, if we allowed greater flexibility for businesses to stay open if they wanted, my goodness, we would get support from the people in the Beaches and from the shopkeepers in the Beaches. We would get support from municipalities all over the province, some of which are reeling under the effects of cross-border shopping."
Then someone else would stand up. Let's imagine that Ms Carter stood up. She did not spend much time with us --
Mr Morrow: Point of order, Mr Chairman: It is really nice that Mr Sorbara is speculating on what happens in an NDP caucus, but can we please return to the motion?
Mr Daigeler: I do not think that is a point of order, Mr Chairman.
The Chair: To the motion, Mr Sorbara.
Mr Sorbara: If I might help you out, sir, of this --
Mr Chiarelli: How is he off the motion, Mr Chairman? Are you a puppet for these guys or what?
The Chair: No. There is a little bit of speculation going on, and we are not talking about speculation; we are talking about a motion to resume debate.
Mr Sorbara: If you will just check with the clerk, sir, you will see that a motion to bring a matter back on to the order paper can give rise to the broadest kinds of debate. Historically, that has been the case. If you want authority for that, we can submit authorities to you, if you simply give us 24 hours' notice.
In any event, I will refrain from my speculation for a moment just to point out to you, sir, that on this motion there is going to be a great deal of debate. My friend from Prescott and Russell has some things to say about the motion. My friend from Ottawa West has some things to say about the motion. My friend from Nepean, as well, will want to speak to the motion. I think my friend from Oakville South, given his rather insightful question today in question period, is going to have something to say about the motion. I am going to be leaving the committee very shortly, so I am not going to be able to speak at length on the motion, but I hope to be able to return next week or the week after, as the debate on this motion continues, and to speak to it from time to time throughout the piece.
It may one day come about that we actually get to clause-by-clause. Maybe not. Who knows? Frankly, I would like to defer consideration of this bill and move right to the real business that we have at hand, and that is the business of hearing from a number of ministers on the advocacy bills and the natural death bills. I would love to do that, and if the government members wanted to put forth an amendment to move directly to that and put this matter aside for a while, that would be fine with me. Alternatively --
Mr Fletcher: You are all over the board.
The Chair: Mr Fletcher, Mr Sorbara has the floor.
Mr Sorbara: Alternatively, if the Solicitor General, who remains in the audience, simply wants to pick up his phone and give me a call and give the Progressive Conservative whip a call and suggest that he really wants to sit down and discuss the possibility of passing some substantive amendments, then we could get onto it more quickly as well. I point out to you, sir, that we have not heard from the Solicitor General as to what he thinks about the prospects of our motions or our amendments passing. Notwithstanding all of the nice words --
Mr Fletcher: These are bad.
Mr Sorbara: Mr Fletcher says my amendments are bad. If the Solicitor General, who is carrying this bill, wants to pick up the phone and say, "No way, José, to your amendments," that is fine. I can accept that as a position, but we would like to know. The trouble with this government -- this government that has really arisen out of the trade union movement where the idea of negotiation and bargaining in good faith is such an intregal part of what you say you believe in -- in my experience of a year and a month on a committee such as this, I have not seen one real desire to really negotiate something.
I was talking about the Dylex amendment. I imagine that someone in the NDP caucus probably expressed support for the Dylex amendment. What is the Dylex amendment? It is a pretty simple amendment. In short, notwithstanding that all stores are to be closed except those that come within the tourism exemption, which can stay open, during the period from Thanksgiving to Christmas the Dylex amendment would allow any store that chose to stay open to stay open. That is a reasonable amendment. There you have a real winner on your hands. Why? Because the Christmas season is the time where for most retailers it is a make-it-or-break-it situation.
In Quebec, where they have more or less closed Sunday, they have the Dylex amendment. They still have a common pause day, at least as the New Democratic Party government would describe and define a common pause day, but they allow for the Dylex amendment. They allow storekeepers unfettered discretion to stay open during that period.
Let's hear from the Solicitor General as to whether or not he supports it. Let him pick up the phone. Let him stand up now and just say yes or no to the Dylex amendment. Let's hear some emotion. Let's hear some response. Let's hear some real debate. Instead, what does the Solicitor General do? He stands up in question period and says, "We'll discuss all these things in clause-by-clause later on this afternoon."
Mr Fletcher: That's right.
Mr Sorbara: Poppycock. There is no discussion that is going to go on.
Mr Fletcher: That is the way it is supposed to be done, in clause-by-clause.
Interjections.
Mr Sorbara: Well, there are a few interjections over there from the members of the government caucus. In any event, sir, I oppose this motion at this time. I do not favour, frankly, that we return to clause-by-clause consideration of Bill 115, and my reasons are simple. This committee heard a month of submissions from the public on all aspects of Bill 115. The amendments that the government is proposing to move to this bill clearly indicate to me that the government was not listening; the government did not attend those public hearings; the government was sound asleep during those public hearings.
The members of the government party moved their lips and nodded their heads and received notes from Pearl MacKay whenever she sent them, but they were sound asleep. They did not hear what the people were saying, so I think we should just continue to adjourn public consideration of Bill 115 until such time as the government gives some indication that it wants in some way to respond to the democratic process that we undertook in considering this bill and the process that we put the public through in reviewing this bill through four weeks of public hearings. The government has not indicated that it will do that.
They embarrassed themselves, they embarrassed the committee, and they affronted the public two weeks ago when they refused to state any position. And now, to think that they could just come back with a press release Friday afternoon at 3:30. We all know what that is about. You do not want the press to cover it and you do not want anyone to know about it, so you put it out Friday afternoon at 3:30. We know that; we used to do that now and again.
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Mr Poirier: But not on a regular basis.
Mr Sorbara: But not on a regular basis. I say thank you to my friend the member for Prescott and Russell. In any event, we do not support this motion. We will want to debate it at length to try to convince the government members that it would be more opportune to proceed now directly to the advocacy bills, which was what we were supposed to do, by unanimous agreement, on the afternoon of September 16. These bills, which affect the frail, the disabled, the elderly and the infirm, ought to have priority now over this sham of a clause-by-clause consideration of Bill 115. So we are going to be voting against it, and we are going to be talking about it for quite some time.
Mr Morrow: I am not going to take a long time speaking, nor am I going to grandstand. I do want to say a few comments, though. I would like to take Mr Sorbara back to September 16, when he accused us of stonewalling and not getting these amendments through by Christmas so that the "poor merchants" on the street could deal with it. Now what is he saying? The complete opposite. Is it a normal flip-flop thing that is going on, or what is going on now?
We are sitting here with the Honourable Allan Pilkey, the Solicitor General, willing and ready to proceed now. So what is he telling us, that he does not want to proceed? My motion deals with the basic aspect of let's move, let's move on it now. We want to deal with it. We want to deal with it so the merchants in this province can have it in place and deal with it by Christmas.
Knowing that the honourable minister is extremely busy, can I have some consent that he can leave now? Obviously we probably will not be dealing with him today. Is that okay?
The Chair: Is there unanimous consent?
Mr Daigeler: It is not up to us to determine the schedule of the minister.
Mr Morrow: Is he going to be speaking today or not?
Mr Fletcher: Are you going to allow him to speak?
The Chair: It is up to the minister.
Mr Chiarelli: Is he here just to speak or is he also here to listen? If he is here to listen, then he can stay.
Mr Morrow: We just heard from Mr Sorbara that we would be dealing with my motion probably today and probably for a long time. Obviously that has nothing to do with clause-by-clause consideration.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Morrow. It is up to the minister whether he chooses to stay or leave at this moment. Continuing, Mr Morrow?
Mr Morrow: That is it.
Mr Carr: I will not be too long on the motion. Coming back to the Sunday shopping bill, I wish, as my friend Mr Morrow said, the realization that they wanted to get it dealt with was the real reason. I suspect, though, that one of the reasons is what happened last time when they chose not to proceed with it. The perception that the public has of this government, which I think is very clear -- I am trying to be as kind as I can -- is they do not know what the heck they are doing and they are flip-flopping from crisis to crisis to issue to issue. They want to tackle it; they do not want to tackle it. They might have the amendments ready; they are not ready. It goes before cabinet; cabinet says, "Wait a minute, we don't want to deal with that now."
My goodness, I am at the front here and I get a chance to see it every day. Whoever is quarterbacking this thing going through there -- the poor whip earns every bit of her pay trying to keep track of this government and its crew. It makes it very difficult for opposition parties. I have amendments that our friends in legislative research worked probably all weekend on, and I want to thank them for putting this together.
But as an opposition party, when you look at a piece of legislation like this, you say, okay, what would I do in an ideal situation if I were Solicitor General for a day? I think it is very clear that having absolutely no regulations would be better than what we have here. When I speak to the people in my region, a lot of them municipal officials, as we all do, I say: "What's the big issue out there? What are you hearing on Sunday shopping? Are people lined up to come in to Peel because they want to be open?"
In Halton region the municipal people are saying, "We get very few calls about it, if any." That is from the couple of councillors I spoke to. It is not a big issue in Halton. In fact, if they were to say, "Tomorrow you can open up in Halton," there would be probably a significant portion of the population that would say, "No, we're not going to open," although I think we have a little area in Bronte that does open right now.
When you talk to the municipal politicians, they say it is not a big issue. They are not banging down the doors in my area. Having heard that, I guess I would take a look at the amendments in this bill. Then you say: "Here is what the government has come in with. What can we do to make it better?" I had our friends at legislative research put together something based on what this government intends to do. You look at the amendments they are proposing to bring through and you listen to hearings all summer. You have a very clear idea, and I will be very clear.
What I would do if I were Solicitor General of the day is take this bill, throw it in the garbage can and not proceed with it at all and say: "The circumstances have changed, for whatever reason. We made a mistake on this. There are a lot of different views. Let's get on to more important issues."
To tell you how crazy it is in this province, over the last year or so we are looking at an increase in crime of about 37%, and for whatever reason we are going to have the Solicitor General -- the "top cop" I guess is what they call him affectionately -- who is going to be spending all afternoon dealing with something that probably we will not get to. Meanwhile you look out in my area where we have been touched by a couple of tragedies this summer with the deaths of two young girls. We had over 4,000 people out to the Take Back The Night protest. To get 4,000 people out --
Mr Winninger: That's relevant to Sunday shopping?
Mr Carr: I will show you where the relevance is. The relevance is that here is a standing committee of the Legislature; you get 4,000 people who are worried about what is happening out there, and what are we dealing with? We are dealing with Sunday shopping. I can tell you, if you asked every one of those 4,000 people --
Interjections.
The Chair: Order. Mr Carr has the floor.
Mr Carr: If you had asked those 4,000 people, "What should a committee of the Legislature be dealing with?" I tell you very clearly, it would not be Sunday shopping. Out of the 4,000 people, you would be lucky to find one who said that.
Mr Daigeler: On a point of order, Mr Chairman: I know the government members were not listening during the summer to what the public was saying, but if they would now at least listen to what the opposition is trying to say while they have the floor, that would be appreciated. I think it is part of our parliamentary system that one of the most important responsibilities and privileges the opposition has is to make its views known, especially at these meetings.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Daigeler.
Mr Carr: If the government was listening to the public, it would know very clearly that when it comes to what they expect from the standing committee on administration of justice, to have us looking at Sunday shopping -- then we are not, then we are, and then we are not -- if you looked at it as a business person coming from the outside and you said, "This is the way government operates," people would throw up their hands. It is so ridiculous, literally, that people can do nothing but laugh at the situation. Then we wonder why people look at this government and say they do not know what the heck they are doing.
For whatever reason, they brought this bill in to try to please both sides. It pleased nobody. With all due respect to David, he did not hear what was being said out there, but both sides of it, everybody from the United Food and Commercial Workers Union all the way through to the municipalities, said that this is a dumb bill, it is crazy and they do not know why the government is proceeding with it.
I thought I had seen all the craziness. I will get a chance to speak a little bit more at length when we get out to the government motion, because I thought I had seen it all until Friday afternoon, when I had a chance to look at a couple of the proposals on the government amendments.
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So now we are bringing it back on. We have a Solicitor General who now feels it is a priority. When we had this discussion before, they did not want to proceed. I think my friend Mr Sorbara is correct. If they had said at the time: "I'm sorry. We've got a lot of debate. We heard a lot of things that were out there and we really can't decide what needs to be done so we are going to take a little bit of time to reflect on it." Instead, they try to rush through with a couple of amendments which I think, as strange as it may seem, are going to make it even more ridiculous if any of them come through. I am not even sure if they are going to proceed with them now. I suspect they probably are but, knowing the changes that happen from a Friday afternoon to a Monday morning, I personally do not know what to expect of this government at any moment and at any given period of time.
I do not want to carry on too long on the point, other than to say that what the public is perceiving of this government gets reinforced every time you take action as you have done on this particular bill. It was a bad bill when it started out. You had members who went around the province, and I think, with all due respect, a couple of them who voiced opposition to it and said that, yeah, there were a few major flaws in it that they saw, and they spoke out. Most of them attempted, through questioning and otherwise, to convince the people coming before them that it was a good bill, when in fact the vast majority of the people, from the tons of paper and submissions that we had, said it was a poorly designed and badly flawed bill. I might add again, those were people on both sides of the issue.
As we go forward here and take a look at some of the government motions, I would like to say very clearly that this government has without a doubt reinforced what the public is saying. They do not know what is happening. I do not know how much of it we can put down to a change in solicitors general. I know the last Solicitor General, who originally had the responsibility for running with this ball, is probably the guy we should fault for this original one. As often happens in government, the next Solicitor General comes along and the ball is handed off to him, and you are already about 15 yards behind. It makes it very difficult to come back and try to prove something. Although having said that, I suppose he was in on the committee or on the cabinet decision when this terrible bill was brought forward and, as a municipal politician previously, should have been one who knew better than anybody else exactly what they were doing with this particular piece of legislation.
I understand a couple of the members behind me would like to speak on this, so I will leave it at that, other than the fact that this just reinforces what the people are saying about this government: "They don't know what the heck they are doing."
Mr Chiarelli: Mr Chairman, I, too, would like to congratulate you on your election as chairman of the committee. I am sure there will be exciting times over the next few months. I will be moving an amendment to Mr Morrow's motion, but before I do so, I want to say that I do not question the motives, the bona fides and the intentions of the Solicitor General or the government in trying to be decisive, in trying to come to grips with a very difficult issue. I think everyone will agree that the government side has probably come to the conclusion that it is a very difficult area to legislate, full of pitfalls and traps.
The amendment I am going to move is given so that we will not be getting into something that will cause us more difficulty as a province, and you as a government, later on. In that context, I want to move an amendment to Mr Morrow's motion by adding, "after January 1, 1992, in order to permit before that date further public hearings including the attendance as committee witnesses of the chairman of the Ontario Municipal Board and the deputy minister and minister for the Ministry of the Attorney General."
I indicated to the clerk that I would be moving that amendment, and I have provided a copy to her. I believe it is in order. I would like to talk about that particular amendment at some length. I know that "at some length" will give some people on the government side some concern, because, as I indicated, I can understand how and why you want to be decisive on this particular issue.
But by way of introduction and to show you what my thinking is -- and I believe my thinking represents a significant group of people. Whether it is a majority or a minority is irrelevant. I think the thoughts and the ideas have to be expressed and they have to be vetted in this committee. I would hope the government members would be patient and would give due consideration, although not necessarily agreement, because I do not think they will agree with it, but I think there may be some food for thought. I want to refer initially to the Solicitor General's press release of Friday, September 27, when he indicated, as Mr Sorbara said, late on Friday afternoon that amendments would be forthcoming and that they wanted to proceed with them with dispatch. I think the word is "immediately." I will refer to a few quotes from that and make a few comments by way of introduction.
The press release says basically: "We are making good on our long-standing commitment to provide common pause day legislation that protects the rights of retail workers and recognizes the unique requirement of the tourism industry." The previous Solicitor General made the same statement. This Solicitor General is making it again. The statements and the presentations of the previous Solicitor General were, I think, taken by the government side as being substantive and correct. The statement that is being made now by the Solicitor General, or that was made through his press release, I think is to be taken to mean that you finally have it right.
I am suggesting to you that, without some debate and discussion, perhaps you do not have it right, and we will be going into some of that detail as to why perhaps at this point you may not have it right. I also want to ask the question, after all these public hearings and many public submissions from honest, decent, well-meaning people, whether in fact these changes are reflective of the submissions that have been made over the course of the summer by the people of Ontario. I think we have to look at that particular issue, and unless and until we look at it, I do not think we are being fair with the people of Ontario if we are not responsive to their submissions.
Another comment that was made in the Solicitor General's press release of Friday was: "...an appeals mechanism through which tourism exemption bylaws could be challenged. This would be administered by the Ontario Municipal Board, which will be obliged to make its best efforts to conclude the appeal process within 90 days." At the present time, the Ontario Municipal Board has a 13-month backlog. Was the OMB consulted as to whether or not bureaucratically it could handle what certainly will be a significant influx of cases? Does it have sufficient budget? What budget implications are there for the Ministry of the Attorney General and the OMB?
I think we tried to get some answers to that through Mr Carr in the Legislature today, and of course we were told, "The committee is the place to discuss it." Well, we will be discussing it here, and we hope we will get proper answers here to that particular question.
We do know that the OMB is working on a policy of fast-tracking applications that deal with affordable housing. They are now told that they will be fast-tracking applications dealing with Sunday shopping. Is it realistic; is it practicable for the OMB to do that, and how much money will it cost? We do not have answers to that. I would hazard a guess that the Solicitor General does not have an answer to that and I would suggest that, unless and until he does, the Ministry of the Solicitor General is being irresponsible.
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The press release also states, "Mr Pilkey also stated that, at the request of chambers of commerce, there would be no reference to them in the final text of the regulation under the bill which sets out the exemption criteria." I can understand that the chambers of commerce are not happy to participate in the process. They did not volunteer to do it, they did not see that as their mandate and they simply want to opt out of it.
My question to the Solicitor General and to the members of this committee is, was the OMB asked? Are they willing? What does Mr Kruger say? Does he have the resources to do it? I will give some evidence from Mr Kruger, who attended a committee of this Legislature about eight or nine months ago. I would suggest, from the comments he made at that time, which are on record to a different committee in this building, that he is not the least bit anxious or willing, nor, the record shows, does he have the money to do so.
The press release goes on to say: "`Effective common pause day legislation is a priority for our government,' said Mr Pilkey. `I am proud to see our efforts, the work of the standing committee and the participation of so many Ontarians achieve such admirable results. Public consultation has played a vital part in the development of Bill 115 and our partnership with the people of Ontario.'"
Again, we heard Mr Carr saying quite clearly in the Legislature -- and he attended many of the hearings -- that the people who support a common pause day did not like this legislation and the people who supported open Sundays did not like this legislation. Mr Sorbara, several days ago, when the motion was originally made to defer this clause-by-clause indefinitely, pointed out that our researcher for this committee, Susan Swift, has done an analysis, and the summary of submissions indicates that by and large people rejected the government's bill.
To relate it to my motion that perhaps additional public hearings might be necessary, I think that if in fact the amendments which are proposed do not address the strong objections of the majority of people who came before this committee, then perhaps some people should have an opportunity to reappear.
What has been the initial public reaction, and why do I think we need some new public hearings, maybe limited, but why do we need some public hearings? If we look at the September 29 Toronto Sun, the headline is: "Furore at NDP Sunday Law Changes." I am just going to quote it for the record:
"Metro merchants are furious with proposed NDP amendments to Ontario's Sunday shopping laws. If the suggested legislation is passed, the minimum fine for staying open on Sunday will be raised to $5,000. And the NDP wants to give residents the power to overturn tourist area exemptions.
"`If that's the case, I'll see to it that all of Chinatown gets closed when their status comes up for renewal,' said Spadina Avenue furrier Paul Magder, who has faced 700 Sunday opening-related charges. `I'll make sure Chinatown stays shut until I am allowed to open on Sundays.'
"Magder says his shop was around long before the Chinese merchants were in place. But an injunction means he can't claim the same exemption they can. `Listen to how happy the Buffalo shop owners will be with these changes,' he said. `The Conservatives made a bad law, the Liberals made it worse, but the NDP are the ultimate.'
"Martin Herzog, owner of Tunes record shop, who has more than $10,000 in fines outstanding, says the higher penalties won't make a difference to him. `No matter how high the bill gets, I have no intention of paying. When I read that one person could overturn (an exemption from Sunday shopping) for an entire community, I thought, that can't be right.'"
The Solicitor General says he is helping the tourism industry. If we refer to a Toronto Star article, and I am quoting what the Solicitor General told the Toronto Star, "`We are making good on our long-standing commitment to provide common pause day legislation that protects the rights of retail workers and recognizes the unique requirements of the tourism industry,' Pilkey said in a news release."
What is it going to do for the tourism industry? If one person in a community 50 miles, 100 miles away or at the other end of the province files an objection in the municipality to a particular tourism bylaw, what will that mean to the tourism operators, the overwhelming majority of whom are small business people, many mom-and-pop operations, who depend on this -- small business people trying hard to making a living and contribute to the economy and contribute to their community? They will need lawyers. They will need to wait at minimum 13 months before the OMB with the backlog -- and it will probably be significantly longer than that. So what does it do for the tourism industry? If anything, it makes it worse. I think we should look at that and we should be asking some tourism operators about the effect of these particular amendments on their businesses and on the application process.
I mentioned earlier some contributions John Kruger made to the standing committee on government agencies. He, of course, is the chairman of the OMB. He appeared before the standing committee on government agencies on Tuesday, January 22, 1991. He was there with Anna Fraser, who is a member of the board, and also with the vice-chairman of the board. There is quite an extensive amount of evidence which Mr Kruger gave to that particular committee dealing with the OMB, but there are some very significant comments he made with respect to the backlogs and the process that is confronting the board at this time and which no doubt will be very significantly exacerbated by reason of the proposed amendments of the Solicitor General.
I am going to quote from what John Kruger said to that committee about eight or nine months ago, and I would ask the committee members to be patient, because I am going to go through his evidence with some deliberation and in some detail to indicate that it probably would be advisable, under the circumstances of the proposed amendments, that Mr Kruger attend here as a witness, in view of the fact that he is going to be carrying a very big load if these amendments are passed.
Quoting page A-61 from Tuesday 22 January Hansard from the standing committee on government agencies, this is Mr Kruger speaking:
"When I became the chairman of the board, the first thing that we called for was a consultant's report. We saw that there were difficulties. This was recognized by the board and that produced this report. It was done by an outside consulting firm, the Coopers and Lybrand group, and it took a look at every single thing the board did.
"There were some criticisms of that. They said: `Some of the methods and procedures you've got, you've got a terrible backlog. You've got to change some of your procedures and the way of the past. You have to change some of these things.' They also highlighted that the backlog was not going to go away and in fact it was going to get worse.
"It takes 18 months to train a member of the board. They have to be trained and they have to understand rules of practice and procedure and so forth. Being a lawyer is of some help, but if you do not have skilled municipal experience, it is not much of a help. So it takes 18 months to get them on stream, and within the next two years we are going to have six members retire. One member retired on 31 December" -- that is 1990 -- "and has not been replaced. I have another member who will retire in June whose time is up. I have another member who retires in September of this year. I have another member who will probably retire in June because the 90-and-out has the pensions. I have a member who will retire early in 1992 and I have one other member who is ill and we are not too sure if that member is not wanting to retire towards the end of this year.
"We have suggested to the government that we want to increase our complement of 30 so that we can get these people trained and then within two years we will be back to 30. We are going to lose, on average, 16 years' experience in these members, which is quite a blow to the board. In total, if I add up the experience that they have had in adjudicative work, it is some 97 years, so we are very concerned about that as we go forward. That has caused a backlog, not just the members alone but the weight of the pressures that are upon the board."
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He is saying that the OMB is already under tremendous pressure. They have already been told they have to fast-track affordable housing applications. Now they are being told, the minister has indicated, that they have to fast-track, within 90 days, all applications dealing with Sunday shopping.
I am going on to read additional quotes from Mr Kruger. "Some of these figures might not have turned up in your review. On average, we receive some 6,000 requests for appeals in a given year." Has the Solicitor General or anybody on the government side made any assessment or prediction of the number of appeals that will be generated as a result of the proposed amendments? It is a serious question, and if there is no realistic answer to that question, the government will have serious problems. They will give serious problems in a chain reaction to all the other matters that are presently backlogged before the OMB.
I am quoting again from Mr Kruger: "I took some figures off as of 31 December to give you an idea. There seems to be some thought out there that in a time of recession the board's workload goes down. The board's workload is stabilizing and is not going down." Then he goes on to say, later on: "The backlog presently exists. It takes 13 months to get a hearing before the board and that is increasing. In this time, what has happened, although the numbers of appeals have stabilized, is that the appeals are getting longer There is hardly an appeal where the environment does not now enter into it. We are hearing that even on consents. For example, we have in the system at the moment 1,713 assessment appeals. That involves some 37,000 complaints. So the workload on the board is enormous and we have to find better ways of handling this internally and administratively. We have to look at things like alternative dispute resolution, we have to look at things like mediation and all of these methods, rather than just put on more members. That is what we are going to attempt to do."
I want to refer to the issue of alternative dispute resolution. Mr Kruger refers to it in the context of the backlog of appeals presently before the board and he talks about a 13-month backlog. In this government the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing. I am trying to indicate that it would appear as though the Solicitor General is coming forward with these amendments without costing the additional OMB expenses and without costing the court expenses for additional court hearings which would be permitted. It has not in any sense looked at the whole issue of alternative dispute resolution as a method for expediting matters which are before the OMB. As Mr Kruger says, we must look at mediation and alternative forms of dispute resolution.
The Ministry of the Attorney General is sitting on a report of this very committee. The standing committee on administration of justice, reporting in June 1990, made recommendations for alternative dispute resolution, a very comprehensive report. Recommendation 3 indicates: "The committee recommends that the government review present and future legislation and that it build in ADR procedures where they would lead to a less costly and more expeditious resolution of disputes that could arise under the statute. The committee further recommends that ADR techniques be put at the disposal of agencies, boards and commissions in the ways proposed by the Macaulay report."
To summarize what Mr Kruger is saying, there is a 13-month delay and they cannot stay on top of the number of appeals they have. And we are going to dump all of these Sunday shopping appeals in their lap. He is saying, "Let's look at an alternative dispute resolution means of dealing with it."
This committee's own recommendation from a year ago is saying, "Let's speed up procedures by using new legislation to aid alternative dispute resolution." I see the Ministry of the Solicitor General trying to do a quick fix on the politics of this particular issue by saying, "We'll answer somebody's concerns by giving him a right of appeal," but it has done no legitimate study or assessment as to what that means in the system and what it will cost. Nor has it even looked at modern 1990 ways of dealing with this type of dispute.
It has a golden opportunity here where it is creating a lot of disputes, where it has a massive involvement by the public, all these groups which are interested in Sunday shopping. They are being told, "Go to court or go to the OMB," which is as good as going to court. The chairman of the OMB said nine months ago: "This is the wrong way to go. Use alternative dispute resolution, use new ways to resolve these problems in communities and for groups which have an interest in issues."
I give the Ministry of the Attorney General and the Solicitor General failing grades for trying to use a quick fix and not looking at modern ways of solving this problem. Even given acceptability of the principle of this government, of what it is trying to do with this legislation, it is going at it in a terrible way, it is doing it in an old-fashioned way, it is doing it using techniques that were valid in the 1950s and the 1960s. It has not even assessed a proper process for resolving these. "Ah, the OMB is there. We'll dump them on to the OMB." What is the chairman of the OMB doing and saying? He is saying, "We can't handle it." By moving my amendment to this motion, I am saying: "Let's get the chairman of the OMB here. He's on the hot seat. Let him come in and say, `Yes, we can handle it,' or `No, we can't,' or `Yes, we can handle it if you give us the money.'" Put a pricetag on it.
We have the Treasurer standing up in the House in a couple of days. He is going to be telling the people of Ontario what drastic cuts and sacrifices they are going to have to make because of the crunch of the recession, and at the same time he is saying to the courts and the Ministry of the Attorney General and the OMB: "We're going to dump costs on you. We don't even know what the costs are. Come and see us next year. Maybe we'll have 5,000 appeals."
Maybe there are special interest groups -- I think you can guess which they are -- that will put appeals in on virtually every application to open up Sunday shopping for tourism exemption. You are going to have every application for tourism exemption that will be going before the OMB. I am asking you on behalf of the people of Ontario, on behalf of my constituents, who are taxpayers, do you have a pricetag? I am saying to the Solicitor General and the Ministry of the Solicitor General: Until you put a pricetag on it, I will argue and debate this legislation until the cows come home, because you are giving us bad, bad government. You are trying to do a quick political fix, and it is unacceptable in this day and age.
You have to look at serious ways of accommodating your concerns without totally exacerbating the process and without pitting one part of the community against the other part of the community. You will be inviting people to go to court and inviting them to go to the OMB, when this committee itself is recommending a friendlier, better way to deal with this type of dispute -- alternative dispute resolution, mediation. Work it out with common sense, where you are not breaking everybody's pocketbooks and you are not pitting one group in the community against other parts of the community. I think the whole rationale behind these amendments is terrible. It is ill thought out and it is intended to be a quick fix.
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I want to refer again to some additional quotes of the chairman of the OMB. This is, as I mentioned before, the standing committee on government agencies. "The board has an enormous workload in front of it, very controversial, and I will just go through some of them." He lists some of the very difficult and complicated types of cases to indicate why the backlog has been developing.
He goes on to say, "The board has in front of it -- all this was outlined in the consultant's report, which said, `It's not going to get any better, so you have to get your members on, you have to get them trained and you have to improve some of the ways you do business.'" What has the government done to give the OMB any assistance? You are dumping 1,000, 2,000, 3,000 -- do you know how many cases you are dumping on the OMB? If you do not know that, how can you possibly bring forward this legislation without further hearings and without further evidence? It is impossible. Of course they have no idea. It has been totally, absolutely, inconceivably irresponsible.
Mr Kruger goes on: "The state of the board is that we are making our best efforts. Our members are working very hard. Their productivity per member is increasing, but it is just the reality. Our hearings are getting longer and longer in numbers of days. What a lot of people do not realize is that anything that touches land use gets into socioeconomic questions, for instance, when Mr Farnan, the minister, announced he was going to have group homes rather than incarcerate people. Fine idea; nothing wrong with it. I shuddered, because every group home hearing -- you can imagine what it is like in a community. If it is 12 days of hearings, it is two days of evidence and 10 days of emotion. One of the members sitting here can tell you all about that in Sault Ste Marie, where we have just been through that."
If he is saying that about group homes, what will he say about Sunday shopping with the religious connotations, the labour connotations, the small business connotations, the viability of community connotations? He is saying here that on a group home issue, "If it is 12 days of hearings, it is two days of evidence and 10 days of emotion." What are you dumping on to the people of Ontario by dumping Sunday shopping, every single case, on to the OMB or into the courts without even considering modern-day alternative dispute resolution, which this committee has unanimously recommended and all parties have recommended? This government is leading the province in the wrong direction, the totally wrong direction.
Just by way of additional comment, this was a question by one of the committee members. Mr McGuinty: "Mr Kruger, do I take it from what you said this morning it is a fair assessment that the backlog that exists right now is unacceptable?"
Mr Kruger: "That is quite correct. The standard within the board that we would like to achieve, and we did achieve it back in about 1985, when we had 36 members, is approximately 90 days." They are now at 13 months.
One of the other members of the OMB, Ms Fraser, answering a question from Mr McGuinty, said the following -- I think this is very, very critical to my amendment which requests additional evidence and additional study with respect to the OMB:
"Mr McGuinty, there are some points that I would like to draw to your attention. I know when I joined the board and was considering the matter of the backlog and I started thinking about it, my own analysis was that in the circumstances it would have been more surprising if there were not a backlog than if there were, for a number of reasons. This is the analysis that I have come up with, and I have to emphasize this is a personal one. There are an increased number of acts" -- that is, statutes -- "that the Ontario Municipal Board is responsible for and that can generate appeals to the board. If you look at the number of acts over the years that we are responsible for, and you can see them outlined in each annual OMB report, you will see the numbers growing. I think it is 121 acts now."
So over the years, governments have been dumping more and more on to the OMB. Now you are dumping Sunday shopping on to the OMB and you have not presented any research to show that this is a practical and reasonable thing to do.
I think you have come to the conclusion, and you might be quite correct, that a certain number of people in Ontario society should have a crack at these bylaws and this legislation in communities across the province. They should have their say in a forum that can be adjudicated. But by jumping in cold turkey, without any research, dumping it on to the OMB, you are making a very serious problem for this province, for the Treasurer, for the people who are going to be in an adversarial system, where they ought not to be. I will say once again that you had the opportunity and you still have the opportunity to create the recommendation of the justice committee to work in an appropriate forum of alternative dispute resolution.
That recommendation of this committee of May or June last year flows out of a very comprehensive study of boards, agencies and commissions called the Macaulay report, Directions: Review of Ontario's Regulatory Agencies -- Overview. You have the best research you possibly could have in the Macaulay report and the ADR report, which was reported to the Legislature last year, to look at a reasonable, friendly way for groups to deal with Sunday shopping, and without considering it at this time, I believe this committee and the government are blowing it.
I will have more to say on this particular point later, probably after this motion is defeated and we deal with the main motion again, but I want to make a couple of additional comments in conclusion. I was approached in my constituency office a number of months ago by a small, sole-proprietor contractor who purchased a small property and required a minor variance through the committee of adjustment in the Ottawa area. He was quite concerned because there was what appeared to be a frivolous objection filed by a home owner. An appeal was filed to the OMB. I guess it is Mr Daigeler's constituent; he wrote to a few of us.
But the contractor was very active in dealing with Mr Kruger at the OMB and he really questioned the backlog that existed at the OMB. Mr Kruger, the good and responsive bureaucrat that he is, personally dealt with this particular issue, even on this small matter. He wrote to Mr Ledgerwood, who is an Ontario land economist and quite experienced in planning matters. I just want to quote one of the things that Kruger said to him in his letter of February 12, 1991: "At the present time the appeal process is experiencing delays, not so much because of the process itself, but because of the current case backlog that the board is faced with and is addressing. Without the backlog, the board could schedule hearings in a much shorter period of time, which would resolve, to a large extent, the type of problems you describe."
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I am asking a very simple question of the Ministry of the Solicitor General and the Ministry of the Attorney General: What will the amendments do to the backlog at the OMB? There is a very easy answer. The answer is, "If it's going to increase the workload, we'll expand the number of members and we will expand the bureaucracy and we will have a separate set of people dealing with Sunday shopping issues that come before the OMB." But I am asking the Ministry of the Attorney General to tell the people of Ontario what that will cost.
The cost might be worth it, to give people a say, to give people a court of last resort to make their point on Sunday shopping. It might be a reasonable cost to have on behalf of these people who want these appeals across the province. But I am saying to you on the government side and I am saying to the members of this committee, if you cannot present this committee with a cost or a projection of the number of appeals that will go to the OMB, you are being irresponsible to the people of Ontario. You will pay the price in this committee, you will pay the price in the Legislature, and you will pay the price by the vast majority of people who are going to be burdened by the OMB being backlogged.
The complaints are coming forward at the present time from people who are appealing minor variances, making assessment appeals, from the people who want to get affordable housing on stream, who want to fast-track affordable housing. How can you fast-track affordable housing when you are going to fast-track Sunday shopping appeals in a 90-day period? It is a simple question. It cries for an answer. I do not think you have an answer to that particular question.
I know that Peter North has been a strong advocate of opening up Sunday shopping for the tourism industry. I want to know how Peter North is going to answer his caucus colleagues and cabinet colleagues when he is inundated by these tourism operators, saying: "Thank you very much for giving me an exemption. The starting point is a 13-month delay, and then after that we have an appeal. Thank you very much. Peter, incidentally, are you going to give us grants to cover our costs to hire lawyers, to promote our tourism exemption before the Ontario Municipal Board? Hey, forget about the OMB. I might even be able to go to the OMB without a lawyer. But my God, I am a tourism operator from Prescott and Russell and I've got some guy from Niagara Falls who is taking me to court. He's got a right to take me to court. Peter, look, I've got a bed and breakfast. My gross is only $50,000 a year. Will you give me a $5,000 grant to fight this in court to promote my case?"
What in hell are you guys doing? It is insanity. If you want to give people a court to discuss the Sunday shopping issue, give them something that is practical. Give them an alternative dispute process; give them something that makes sense. You guys are heading for folly, and do you know what is going to happen? The people of Ontario are going to find out how irresponsible and how foolish you are being by introducing amendments that are bureaucratically, politically insane. You are going to be pitting every section of the community against it: the people who advocate a common pause day, the church groups going before the OMB, every single matter of Sunday shopping before every municipality, arguing against the tourism people. What kind of community are you going to develop?
The reason I am moving this amendment is so that we can open it up and have Kruger come in, we can have the Attorney General's office come in and they can answer the questions. They can allay our fears. If they can say, "Member for Ottawa West, there is no problem; we can handle these at the Ontario Municipal Board," fine, it is the way to deal with the issue. But if they come in and say they cannot handle it or it is going to cost $5 million a year, maybe that $5 million should be spent setting up a proper system of alternative dispute resolution so that our people and our groups, who are all well-meaning in our communities, can deal with this issue in a system that is not adversarial. You are dumping our well-meaning special interest groups into an adversarial system, where they will be fighting ad nauseam. It is irresponsible of the government to do that.
Mr Chairman, I thank you for giving me this time. I thank the committee members for permitting me to debate this particular amendment without interruption. It is an exceptional thing for them to do, I might add. I would encourage debate. I would encourage the members of the committee and the Ministry of the Attorney General and the Ministry of the Solicitor General to take my comments seriously. I think there are serious problems and I would encourage members of this committee to debate my motion to amend very fully.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Chiarelli. Mr Daigeler, on the amendment.
Mr Daigeler: Thank you very much for giving me the floor. I will not be quite as temperamental as my colleague here, the member for Ottawa West. He has that special flair. I guess he trained in other parts of the world and obviously in the court system as well. I will try to be cool and collected, but nevertheless I can certainly understand why Mr Chiarelli would feel the way he does. This is a very serious matter that is before us.
Knowing the financial situation of the province and knowing the concerns my constituents have -- and, I am sure, your own, Mr Chairman -- in terms of the taxes we are raising and that we have to raise, I think any government action that will put forward what may well be very unnecessary regulations has to be looked at extremely carefully. So I can certainly see why my colleague speaks very forcefully and very convincingly about this matter.
Let me start, first of all, with regard to my own comments. I too wish to congratulate you. I understand you have been chosen, to use a somewhat neutral term, to chair this committee. I had the pleasure of being a substitute member over the summer when the hearings were on, and the few sessions you chaired went on with peace and a lot less acrimony than we had before, although I must say I think the regular chairperson perhaps learned from your own chairing and perhaps from some of the comments that were made by the opposition members. I think the rest of the hearings went on a lot more smoothly than the beginning seemed to indicate. So congratulations, Mr Chairman. I am sure you are going to do well.
Even though I was just a substitute over the summer, I tremendously enjoyed travelling the province and hearing from the different people and I certainly would have liked to come to the amendments' discussion. In fact, I was sitting in the plane about two weeks ago when this committee was scheduled to look at the amendments. I certainly had reserved a whole week to be here in Toronto to listen to what the government had taken from the hearing process, what the other opposition party had taken from the hearing process and also, of course, to put forward amendments from our own party.
So I went to the airport. I got up at 5:30 in the morning and went to the airport, trying to fly out at 7 o'clock. Of course what happened was that we were in the middle of a federal public service strike and I was sitting in the airport and I was not able to fly out because they would not let me into Toronto. As it is, I understand the committee did in fact sit that day. Then, of course, I heard that rather than continue with the amendments, the government said it was not ready and it needed some more time to think about its response to the public hearings.
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I thought that was fine and good. Who can blame them for perhaps trying to make very sure whatever they are proposing is in the best interests of the province and reflects, at least to a fair degree, what we heard over the summer? So I for one was giving the benefit of the doubt to the government and was willing to sit back and let some of the other important issues be discussed by the committee before we would get back to the Sunday shopping legislation.
But quite to my surprise I read over the weekend, and it was already pointed out, that the timing of the introduction of these amendments was rather questionable. Instead of putting them forward during the week when the House was in session, when some response could be given, they were put forward on a Friday afternoon. Nevertheless they did get coverage, so if anybody tried to hide what was being put forward by putting it out on a Friday afternoon I do not think that worked.
I was very surprised when I heard the main amendments that were being put forward by the minister because, quite frankly, they were not at all reflecting what we heard over the summer. Now we did have, to be fair, two sides. We had some people, although I think they were in the minority, who said: "This legislation ought to be made tougher. There should be fewer opportunities for stores to open." That view, I think, was particularly taken by union representatives, by certain church groups, by a few municipalities. But many, many people of course, and especially from the business sector and communities that have had experience with Sunday opening, came and said: "Either drop this legislation altogether and leave the situation the way it is, in other words maintain the Liberal legislation in place, or whatever you bring in, certainly don't make it more complicated. Certainly ensure that we're not going to have more bureaucracy. We already have lots of bureaucracy."
What do we see now? What is coming in from the ministry? It is precisely the opposite. It is another way of making the whole thing extremely complex and, as my colleague has just indicated at great length, it is going to add costs, manpower and womanpower, certainly to the municipal board, which is already overburdened, and to the court system as well. I do want to talk about that a little bit later because my colleague from Ottawa West addressed mostly the Ontario Municipal Board situation, but there is of course that other amendment in here as well whereby any interested person can make an application to the Ontario Court to order that a retail business establishment close on a holiday to ensure compliance with this act. That again places a tremendous burden on a system that is already extremely overloaded, and I will be speaking to that a little bit later.
One of the points the parliamentary assistant made over the summer, time and time again -- it must have been at least --
Mr Carr: A hundred and fifty times.
Mr Daigeler: And he is just repeating it now. I remember that so well. In fact it is ringing in my ears. He did it with a lot of charm, I must say, and it sounded very convincing: "We're listening." It is about all he could say because he knew as well as we did that, while the parliamentary assistant was listening -- and I must give him credit for being with us most of the time and for in fact listening to the witnesses -- I think either his communication to his minister did not work or the minister himself did not listen to the parliamentary assistant because suddenly what we are seeing are amendments that are not what I heard, are not what we heard as a committee, and are making the whole matter a bureaucratic nightmare. I think the government was putting forward the idea that, "Yes, we have to have," and that was the main idea it put forward, "a common pause day in the province." The Solicitor General, both the previous one and the new one, now came before the committee and they said, "That's the main purpose of this bill. We want to maintain the integrity of a common pause day."
But really these amendments are again just shifting the burden to another bureaucracy. They are making the whole system simply more cumbersome and much more elaborate and costly and doing nothing to really achieve the purpose that the government set for itself.
Mr Chiarelli: And adversarial.
Mr Daigeler: And it is making, as my colleague is saying, the whole thing extremely adversarial. I would have hoped that the parliamentary assistant would have had more impact with his own minister. I suspect, quite frankly, that another member of the government caucus, the member for Welland-Thorold, who came on as a member of the committee some time during the meetings, all of a sudden put the twist either on the Premier or on the minister and said: "Listen, you let me down already on the car insurance and if you don't do what I want on this Sunday shopping bill I'm going to give you a really hard time. Either I'm going to start to sit as an independent or I'm going to raise a lot of hell in the House, because I went around campaigning last year, and that's why I got elected, that we, the NDP government, were going to make sure there is going to be a common pause day and all the workers are going to be protected. Therefore, this bill which is before us right now does not do that, and I want it strengthened, and I want to have real meat in this legislation."
I guess that is probably what happened, that the member for Welland-Thorold spoke to the Premier and to the minister and said, "Here's what I want," and that is probably why the government had to rethink its position, postpone the discussion of the amendments and now come in with what can only be described as a bureaucratic nightmare. I guess we will hear that later on whether what is being put forward satisfies Mr Kormos, but certainly it does not satisfy us in any way, shape or form because it does not reflect at all what we heard. In fact, the opposite was what we heard. What we heard was, "Make the thing easy to deal with from an administrative point of view. Make a decision, but make it easy to administer."
I think that is what we are hearing in the province, everywhere, on every item. The last thing we need is more administration, more bureaucracy and more bureaucrats. Every time they increase administration and bureaucracy, obviously you get more bureaucrats. You have to have more staff, and I do not think it is fair to increase regulation and increase laws and requirements and dump it all on the civil service without providing them the resources that are needed. So yes, as the member for Ottawa West said, there is a cost associated with that, and we would like to hear what that is. Therefore, I certainly support the amendment that is being put forward. We would like to hear from the chairman of the Ontario Municipal Board, what he estimates the cost of these regulations is going to be, and also what in his view is the likelihood that the OMB can deal with this in any case.
The member for Ottawa West made reference to a number of presentations that were made with regard to the present functioning of the OMB, and I would just like to make a further remark and quote another document. This was a document that was presented by Frank Reid, a councillor in my city of Nepean; in fact, he is running for chairman of the Ottawa-Carleton region.
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At a forum the Ottawa-Carleton Homebuilders' Association had on September 3, Mr Reid spoke about his experience as a municipal politician with the OMB. Here is what he had to say, and I would like to indicate that Mr Reid has been on our council for, I would say, at least 10 years if not longer, both as a local councillor first and then as a local councillor and regional councillor in the Ottawa-Carleton area. He has a lot of experience. He knows what he is talking about, and I think any municipal politician would come to the same conclusion after a very short while serving on council, and here is what he says: "The OMB role must be redefined and restricted, because it is not working. Since the late seventies, an appeal to the board has gone from three months to 16 months, with the exception of appeals to affordable housing which the current government is fast-tracking -- " Fast-tracking to what? Listen to this: " -- to six months." If you are talking about fast-tracking, we are going from 16 months to six months.
Mr Chiarelli: They want to fast-track in 90 days. It is a joke.
Mr Daigeler: Exactly. Really, when we are talking about the OMB, it already has an extremely full agenda and I am sure it will say, "Sorry, but we cannot cope with what we already have on our plate." Or they are going to say, "Well, if you insist on giving this to us, okay, give us that much more staff. Give us this many more members on the OMB and we will look into it, but we should let you know that is what it is going to cost you, and then we can make a decision on it."
I think it is only fair and proper that we should have this information before the committee before we discuss any kind of amendments. I also feel that what is being put forward by the government -- and I think this is very important as well -- is a very significant change to what we have presented to the public this summer. Therefore, I do agree with the member for Ottawa West that we should reopen the public hearing process, at least for a short while, to give the public an opportunity to comment on this, because it goes so much against what they said to us, and these amendments that have been put forward are certainly not at all what the government was putting before them when we had the public hearings.
I think it would only be fair to again give the public a chance to say what they think about these appeals to the OMB and also the right for any individual to go to court. As I indicated, I did want to speak a little bit about that appeal option to the Ontario Court (General Division).
We all know -- and we spoke about it at tremendous length in the last session -- how clogged the Ontario justice system is at the present time. We know how much it costs and what the Attorney General did to try to free up that system a little bit. We have very serious cases and, in fact, people in my own riding have written to me and have been terribly upset at some of the cases that, at least in the first instance, were being thrown out because the waiting period was too long.
There was a case in my riding where five teenagers were killed in a very unfortunate accident. The driver was charged, and on the first hearing it was thrown out of court because it had taken too long to reach the system. As it happens, the case was appealed by the crown and I think the decision was then made by the Court of Appeal that the case should go ahead. I am just using this as an example of how many very serious cases are being thrown out or looked at again, and have to reach the appeal court even before they are looked into properly because the system is so clogged.
Instead of freeing up the system -- and I cannot understand this for the life of me -- on the one hand the Attorney General is appointing more judges and saying he wants the system speeded up, freed up, and on the other hand he is adding more work, and really quite unnecessary work, to the court system. Either the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing and the Attorney General is not talking to the Solicitor General, or they are totally confused.
It makes very little sense to me. If it does make sense, I am certainly prepared to be enlightened. I am always ready to learn more. If there is a good reason and a good explanation as to why this would make sense, I am prepared to change my mind and say, "Okay, you have a point, but let's hear from the Attorney General and from the people who are involved currently in the court system and the justice system as to whether they feel they are currently prepared to accept these responsibilities." Also, what would it cost? What are the implications in terms of staff, in terms of dollars that are associated with this kind of an amendment to the current bill?
When we have a court system that is already under tremendous strain and is unable, or able only with great difficulty, to look into very serious criminal charges and other charges that people feel very strongly about, when they are not able to deal with those issues in good time, you are asking them to look into appeals made by any particular person if someone opens a store. I do not think that makes any sense. If there is any sense to it, let someone come before the committee and explain it to me. I am certainly willing to hear that.
Finally, I would like to refer again to the Ontario Municipal Board and how long it took to look at a case in the Ottawa-Carleton area. You are all familiar with the Palladium and the decision to bring the Senators back to Ottawa. Even though that was given top priority by the OMB -- and we in Ottawa were thankful for that -- it still took at least two months of hearings, and all the energies of the OMB were directed towards solving that problem. I am sure many other concerns, equally urgent, had to be pushed aside for the time being. What is going to happen to all these applications with regard to tourism exemptions if cases like the Palladium occur again at the OMB? I am sure they will, because there are always cases that are of very great importance to a particular municipality. The municipal board will have to make a decision and say, "We can only deal with so much."
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I certainly agree with the amendment to the motion, that we should do two things. First, we should hear from the officials of both the OMB and the Attorney General's office as to whether they could possibly cope with these kinds of amendments that are being proposed, if they are implemented. Second, we should again listen to the public and hear from them what they have to say about these proposals, whether they think it makes any sense and whether that is really what they wanted; whether they were for the general principle of the legislation that was being put forward or whether they think this makes sense if they were against the general principle that was being put forward by the legislation.
On that, Mr Chairman, I certainly would indicate that I will support the amendment that is being put forward by the member for Ottawa West. I am sure some of my colleagues will still want to address the same point.
The Chair: Mr Morrow, on the amendment.
Mr Morrow: I would only speak to the amendment, naturally. I want to refer to an article in the Toronto Star of September 14, 1991, "NDP Infighting Blamed for Stall on Shopping Law." The way I look at the amendment and the original motion, this headline should now read, "Liberals Blamed for Stall on Shopping Law."
I want to go to the Toronto Star again, September 17, 1991, "Sunday Law Delay Called Risk to Stores," an interesting title compared to what is going on here today. There are a few excerpts I am going to read from here, if you do not mind. "Liberal MPP Greg Sorbara (York Centre) warned yesterday the New Democrats are in such disarray they won't pass a new law until the new year." It seems to me that is what this amendment wants to do, if I am correct. Also, "`As we head into the most important shopping season of the year, the government has failed to provide direction to retailers, workers and consumers,' Sorbara said." It seems to me we want to give direction, we want to move to clause by clause. "Christmas 1991 is going to make or break a hell of a lot of retailers out there," Mr Poirier said. Funny, we want to resolve this by Christmas.
As I just keep moving on, we will go to the Toronto Sun, "NDP Stalls on Sunday Shopping Law." It seems to me the Liberals are now stalling on the Sunday shopping law.
Mr Chiarelli: What law are you talking about? You have a new law.
Mr Morrow: Now I move to CHCH TV. Greg Sorbara: "Well, it's the most dramatic stalling tactic that I've ever seen thus far. The unfortunate part is it leaves the entire province in great uncertainty as to where the government is going. This is very difficult for retailers. It's difficult for people who are trying to organize their workforce and the workers, particularly the Sunday rush."
Who is obviously out to stall here? Uncertainty is a bad thing obviously, if we do it. Are you telling me now uncertainty is a good thing if you do it? That does not make a heck of a lot of sense, does it?
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Morrow. Mr Carr.
Mr Chiarelli: Next time answer my questions.
Mr Fletcher: Next time ask them.
Mr Chiarelli: You have no answers.
Mr Fletcher: You have no questions.
Interjection: What are your questions?
Mr Morrow: No questions, no answers.
The Chair: Order, please. Mr Poirier has the floor.
Mr Poirier: I understand what my good friend Mr Morrow has just mentioned. I was one of the persons who was very upset on that Monday morning, September 16, when I heard that resolution. He could also have quoted me in the media saying, "Come on, guys, pull up your little sockies and get to work." Quite true, but in all perspective, at the time when we were very pressed to bring this forward in time for Christmas, we did not have the type of amendments that were put forward last Friday by the government on this subject. Obviously it throws a whole different light on what is proposed to be done.
I am upset that we have to stop -- more than slow down, we have to stop -- and get feedback from some very important people based on this new evidence of these government-proposed amendments that were brought forward last Friday. If I had known that on September 16, even though we were very upset, that we will not have this in time for Christmas -- I cannot believe what I am hearing.
I had a rough day on Friday. I was not working on Friday. I had to bring my father into a nursing home because he has Alzheimer's now. It was a very upsetting day for me. After having brought in my father, realizing that he is never going to come back to the farm for the rest of his life, I got a whole bunch of telephone calls from the media asking for my comments on these proposed amendments.
By the way, like I said, I thought you guys might be different from the horrible Tories and Liberals and do things differently, but I guess not. You come forward with these amendments at the end of a Friday. Okay, fair enough. Let's give you the benefit of the doubt. You bring them at the end of the day on Friday. The media phones me and I say: "Let me know. I am at the farm right now. I don't have these up my nose, so read them to me. What do they want to do?" Then they start mentioning that. "Oh, my God, are you sure, guys? You want to read that to me again, please? I think I hear something, but I can't believe this." They did, and I gave them my comments. Now when I see the amendment that my colleague the member for Ottawa West wants to bring forward, we do not have much of a choice.
I have been a member here for close to seven years. You people are newer members. You may not have the joy, the pleasure of dealing with some of your constituents' dossiers in front of the OMB. You can retire with dignity dealing with dossiers in front of the OMB. As my friend the member for Nepean said, how many other important dossiers in front of OMB were delayed by that one Palladium dossier for Ottawa-Carleton.
What do you propose to do? On the one hand, the Attorney General is spinning his little tires trying to accelerate, to free up the courts. On the other hand, the Solicitor General, with all his goodwill to give every citizen of Ontario the right to put his or her finger in the plum pie on this issue, is going to tie them up like crazy, whether the courts themselves or the OMB. My God, when you have been here seven years, you will realize they do not put racing stripes and the GTO appellation on the OMB's functioning, with all due respect. Now you add this task to the OMB. If I were the chair of the OMB, if I were some of the people sitting on the tribunals of the OMB, I would have been having a bird last Friday.
Your Treasurer says he wants to cut back on some of the costs of government, and you are tying some incredible resource time and money constraints on to the OMB because of this. Somewhere across Ontario a whole bunch of Ontarians, for whatever reason, any interested party anywhere on any topic pertaining to this, will say: "Hey, I have a right to put my finger in the dike. Stop this flow here. No, don't you dare do this." My goodness, if I were the chair of the OMB, or if I were sitting in the Attorney General's office, I would be saying: "Oh, my God, here we go. The lottery has come forward." I can just see it, vigilante committees going around with their little red books on Bill 115, as amended, coming forward, checking for everything, bringing this forward to the OMB, just tying up the OMB like hell, not for months but for years to come.
If I were a lawyer, my goodness, what a bonanza you would be giving me every time you come forward and bring Bill 115 or the proposed amendments to Bill 115. I would want to write you a thank-you letter. You would be assuring my livelihood for the next couple of years. My goodness, I almost feel like leaving the House, going to law school and starting a lawyer's practice. My God, what a bonanza.
Mr Chiarelli: A payoff to the lawyers for no-fault.
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Mr Poirier: It is sure great compensation for that. You are giving on a silver platter some great opportunities for people to bog down, tie down, add to costs, to the complexity and to the bureaucracy of the entire principle of something you told us would be simple in Bill 115. I definitely do not see it as a simple bill, and it is even a heck of a lot worse now.
I understand where you are coming from with these proposed amendments. Obviously certain groups and certain individuals wanted this through the summer. They wanted to have their fingers in the plum pie and say, "I want to be able to put the brakes to all of this, because I don't trust municipalities. I don't trust other interest groups to be able to decide for me on this, so as an individual I want to be able to put the whole thing in stop motion."
Congratulations, you have done it, but who are your advisers in this dossier? They are definitely not realists. They have never worked as MPPs and had to deal with the OMB with dossiers from their own constituents. They have never had to face off with their very irate constituents who have had to wait months and months. I had to deal with one this morning in front of the OMB who has waited two years. Obviously your advisers have never had the pleasure of dealing with this type of dossier.
This is like a lottery. You are making a lottery for a lot of people to make money on this. As my friend the member for Ottawa West mentioned, if I were a business person in Prescott and Russell and somebody somewhere in Sault Ste Marie, Thunder Bay or Niagara Falls came up in front of the OMB and said, "I don't like what Poirier is trying to do with his business and the way he's trying to operate this business on a Sunday or on a holiday," I would be rather upset.
If somebody from my community came forward and showed an objection I could live with that, but to have somebody all the way from across Ontario because he or she might have some beliefs different from mine coming forward and putting a stop to what I am trying to do bona fide with respect to Bill 115, the way I would perceive it, nice thought. Who has ever thought of this for these kinds of amendments? I do not understand that.
We cannot go on with the bill with these amendments. I want to hear what this is going to do, and I think you would want to hear also. When somebody non-political from the OMB or the Attorney General's office will tell you what your proposed amendments are going to do to the mess, would you listen? Would you be able to put that on the scale and consider the incredible boondoggle you will be putting forward with these proposed amendments?
Mr Fletcher: You were there for five years and you did not listen to anything, so why are you asking me?
Mr Poirier: Whenever a government comes forward with a proposed bill, I guess you will understand that at best, in good faith, no matter which party is in there, you will have to make some compromises. I do not think this is much of a compromise. I was there throughout the summer and, as is usual in a lot of public hearings, no matter what the bill or who is in government, you hear a whole gamut of opinions all the way from the left to the right by passing through the centre.
This is an incredible nightmare. I guess somebody in there must have a political death-wish to bring out these types of amendments, because it is going to bog it down. It is going to be in front of the courts -- it is in front now of the OMB -- for years and years.
By amending the motion my friend is actually doing the government friends a favour, to show the difference between what you perceived or maybe have not perceived is going to happen with your proposed amendments, and what the reality will bring you, the incredible boondoggle of a mess, the administrative quagmire your proposed amendments are going to do to the functioning of this government.
If I were the Treasurer I would be going snake because you would be adding a heck of a lot of costs, unless the Treasurer says, "I'm sorry, dear friends of the OMB, I can't give you the extra money for the extra resources you'll need to deal with this." I am going to support strongly the amendment of my friend the member for Ottawa West and I regret that, because I was pushing you people to bring in a bill earlier to discuss it clause by clause. But with these amendments I cannot push for that right now because the business people are going to be very worried about this. Even though my good friend from Guelph says there have been other Christmases before and there will be other Christmases afterwards, this coming Christmas season, the holiday season of 1991, is definitely going to be a make-it or break-it season for a lot of Ontario businesses, small, medium or large. Because of the wacky nature of your proposed amendments, with all due respect, what are the people going to be able to do in time for Christmas and the holiday season? We have to discuss that. We have to bring this forward so we can listen to them and so you can understand and see the incredible mess you are coming forward with.
The Chair: Mr Carr, to the amendment.
Mr Carr: As I look at this amendment that was moved, I will be supporting it. On Friday when I, like everyone else, saw the press release announcing it, I had almost the same thoughts as Mr Poirier. I looked at it and wondered who is going to take responsibility for this, if it had been designed by anybody in the Solicitor General's office. I think most of them are filing out, whoever has the responsibility for this, taking it to the OMB. I think ultimately it probably comes from the cabinet's lack of decision. If I did not know better I would have thought they were joking when they actually brought this in, because essentially it goes to the very nature of the credibility of this government.
I heard Ed Philip in the riding of Oakville last week where he said, "We're going to be listening to business, we care about what business thinks, and in spite of what's been said about us being antibusiness we're going to attempt to listen to the people." Then they turned around and brought something in -- it was interesting. Some of you may remember I asked the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology in question period last week whether he was going to implement some of the recommendations of the Ontario Chamber of Commerce and he said: "They would be in. When this strategy comes out you're going to see that we listened to them." Then you look at it and see in a bill like this that they did not listen to any of the recommendations.
For those of you who did not sit on the committee, most of the hearings -- the other ones who did will remember the proposals of the chambers almost verbatim as we went around -- nothing in these amendments speaks to what those people of the chambers said. As you can well imagine, there was a great deal of debate, but the Ontario chamber and the various chambers that came around laid out very clearly what they wanted to see. If I can paraphrase a lot of them, the biggest fact is that they said: "We don't need any more regulation. Let the free market decide. Those who want to open, great. If they don't, they don't have to."
So what did we do? Not only did we take a bad bill they were criticizing and put more regulations into it, we added another level that is just going to make it so that if somebody wants to stay open and gets the approval from the particular municipality, then any individual will be able to take it to the OMB. I know the members opposite will say the process is going to be fast, but the public is a lot smarter. First, they realize that if you are going to add more people to handle it, maybe those costs should be better spent in other areas. When I sit and reflect on last year when they threw the $750 million into the antirecession program and then one year later we are talking about making an equal amount of cuts, it is nothing but a shell game. You give on the one hand to try to get some publicity to say that you are doing something, and then a year later you do not cut that $750 million you have spent; you cut it from other areas, and it may be through hospitals or through Community and Social Services.
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Today I had a group from my riding talking to the Minister of Education about funding for a school with a very high ethnic population. There were some very practical solutions about how we are going to attempt to have some of the support services for some of the people in the school who cannot speak English and are having to leave their children, and about some children who do not even understand English yet. It was interesting to see that she talked about some of the resources. As she said, there are limited resources out there.
Yet at the very time we talk about that, this government tries to defend itself and say: "Don't worry, the OMB -- this is going to be fast-tracked," as if the public actually believes -- whether it is new people who are added or the same people spending time on this -- that it does not somehow take away from some of the other responsibilities that are backed up. At a time in our history when we are running deficits and talking about where we are going to allocate resources, and they say that outside of taxes the number one concern is the regulatory process, they come in and do the very thing that is going to add a delay, regulations or red tape for business.
We have in this province a Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology who stood up in Oakville and said, "We're listening," and stood up in the House last week and said, "We're listening," but the proposal the Ontario chamber put forward that addressed some of these issues, I can tell you he was not listening there. One of two things is happening. Either Mr Philip is going around and championing this and losing the battle at the cabinet table -- which probably is the case, because there are many conflicting debates around the cabinet table, as my friend Mrs Carter will know, having spent some time in there; there are people debating on various issues. But here we have a ministry that is probably the most significant over the next little while as we try to get our industry back in shape, and none of the recommendations of the Ontario chamber were listened to one little bit with this. That is why people get a little cynical and sceptical with the process. They took out the part about the chambers. I think everybody admits that was a mistake and a bit of an oversight.
These things will happen when a bill is made, although it was interesting to see that they talked about speaking with business and how they wanted to work with them. Then, the first time the chamber saw that particular piece of legislation, lo and behold, they were put in there without any consultation.
The process is very simple. The resources that are going to have to be put into the OMB to handle this will be either in increasing the staff to handle it -- which would be a cost that probably would serve better to clear up the existing backlog before we jump into something else. As I mentioned today, all these ideas sound great when they are championed around the table, just like the Rent Review Hearings Board sounded like a great idea: We will just have somebody who will oversee, as a dispute mechanism. But the fact of the matter is that within a short time the cost goes up to about $40 million a year and we are looking at a backlog situation of somewhere in the neighbourhood of 1,000 cases dealing with that. What starts out as a very rational proposal saying, "We'll just set up this board to oversee it and if there are any mistakes made in the amount of increases, they'll be able to catch it," the fact of the matter now is that a lot of people are not even going before it because the process is taking so long that they are completely fed up. Then we wonder why people get a little cynical and sceptical about government and the process.
We all know they are extremely sceptical about government and how they operate, and it is not the fault of anybody working there. If you are sitting on the OMB, you are probably working extremely hard just to end up each month farther and farther behind. The more cases you hear, the more time is spent. Each day that passes you get farther and farther behind. You would think the government would take a look at it with a little common sense and say: "We can't add to that. Maybe there's something we can do. If we're going to spend X amount, maybe we should reduce the amount of the existing backlog that is there for many worthwhile cases that are before the OMB."
Then we have the other proposal that is being looked at, where we are going to have any individual being able to take it before the courts at a time when the public is saying, if you are going to put resources there, that whatever amount you put into it, whether it be civil or criminal, the amount that is spent, whether it is $100 or $100 million, could possibly be used to deal with the more pressing problem, which is the fact that well over 35,000 cases are being thrown out. As we often hear, we put tremendous programs together to talk about drinking and driving, spend literally millions of dollars on that; and then at the other end of it, instead of clamping down on some of the offenders, as a result of the backlog those people are walking free.
The public sits there and looks at it. They shake their heads and say: "You people must be crazy. On the one hand you're talking about making it tougher and cutting down, you've got the Reduce Impaired Driving Everywhere programs, and then all of a sudden at the other end, you have to spring them free because they didn't have the resources." So whatever amount is going to be spent on the courts to assist that, whether it be $100 or $100 million, could best be plowed into dealing with the existing court backlog that is there.
I think it really comes down to one fundamental principle. As you know -- and I have said this many times -- as we were travelling around, the various municipalities said, "We are going to have Sunday shopping in our municipality." The Windsors and the Thunder Bays and the Kingstons all said that. At the end of the day, I think what the government is trying to do is say: "Well, we put all these safeguards in place. Sunday shopping is there. We realize we made a commitment for a common pause day but now we can blame the OMB because they okayed it, and we can now blame the municipality because they initiated it."
In my mind it is nothing but a case of being able to pass the buck off to somebody else so that four years from now when somebody comes up to Mr Rae on the campaign trail and says to him, "Mr Rae, you said you'd have a common pause day. I live in Windsor, Ontario and I don't have a common pause day on Sunday," he is going to be able to say, "Well, there it is. It is not my fault. The council in Windsor first of all passed the bylaw and then the OMB agreed to it. See, it's not my fault. I am off the hook."
All these resources are going to be plowed into it for only one reason: to allow the Premier of this province to get off the hook on a commitment that he made. I think, again, if the people of this province heard from the Premier: "Well, we made a mistake when we made that particular promise. Things have changed. We have heard from the people," whatever -- instead, they play these little games, I will call them, with the public to try and make it appear, at the end of the day, that it was not their fault. "We did everything we could." The speech has been trumpeted. The press releases that come out continually say, "We're sticking to our guns on the common pause day," in spite of the fact when we went around the province, everybody was saying it is not going to happen.
Nothing has changed. This government has not been any different. My friend Gord Mills sat almost daily and said, "We're listening." When I saw what came through, indeed they were not listening to the vast, significant portion who came before the committee. It was interesting, as I spent some time meeting with various business groups -- and I am meeting with people in business and labour as a result of my new responsibility as industry, trade and tech critic -- most of them are saying: "We don't have the time to go before committees because in the vast majority of cases, the government of the day is going to do what it wants. They don't listen to the committees."
That included a lot of them who were going to appear before the standing committee on finance and economic affairs, the ones who were going to appear on Sunday shopping. They say: "Governments are going to do whatever they want anyway. Look at that; we have a proposal from the Ontario chamber and they don't implement anything that was written as a result of some of those great presentations that were made by people who gave up time away from their small businesses" -- and, I suspect, if the truth was known, gave up a lot of income to come before the committee and speak. Then nothing gets done with regard to what they say. I think that is why people out there are a little bit cynical and sceptical. We continually reinforce that. We have a situation now where we bring in the amendments that have nothing to do with the public input of the day. We are going to clog the system, the courts and the OMB.
I think what the member wants to do with this particular resolution is say: "Okay, fine. We've been burned by governments of all political stripes, at all levels. So I personally want to hear from the people on the OMB and the people from the Ministry of the Attorney General, who are very familiar with the court system, just to see exactly what we are looking at."
When it comes to projections for deficits and where the spending is going to be and everything else, we can always have the economists and accountants come in and tell us what it is going to cost. I would like to know what these particular changes and amendments are going to cost.
What is it going to be in terms of time? I think everybody realizes that regardless of how many municipalities decide to enact legislation to open, in fact every one of those will be taken to the OMB. Any municipality will have at least one individual who will be able to say, "It wasn't interpreted properly," so there we go. Ultimately, what has happened even with our court situation is that we bend over backwards to try to have so much sober second thought on it that the whole system gets broken down and nobody, but nobody, gets served by it.
Some of the things I will be talking about when we do get to it will be with regard to having some of the legislation in regulation. I have talked at length about that. I would like to see the regulations put into the bill. We will be talking about changes of some of the square footage. As you will remember, even the folks who got together from Loblaws and came in with the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, even though they agreed and said, "We'd like to stay closed," they also said, "But if this bill goes through, we want to make sure that 7,500-foot restriction is removed so that we will at least be on a level playing field with some of the other people," whether they be grocery stores or other people who might be competing with them.
I guess my feeling is that if this did not fundamentally change it, then I would not be supporting this motion, but I think this bill does. I guess, Mr Chair, I look for your guidance.
Mr Carr: We have to adjourn now for a vote in the House.
Mr Chiarelli: Can I just make one brief point beforehand? I would request the clerk to ask for Instant Hansard as early as possible tomorrow. Is that possible?
The Chair: Duly noted, Mr Chiarelli.
Mr Carr: I am very enamoured of the non-response.
The Chair: Mr Carr has moved adjournment.
Mr Morrow: On a point of order, please, Mr Chairman: This is not an obvious, real point of order but, because all the House leaders have agreed that the opposition parties have to have time to caucus on these amendments, can we adjourn until a week tomorrow?
The Chair: That is not a point of order, Mr Morrow.
Mr Morrow: While you adjourned, I was trying to get in. Can we have unanimous consent to do that, please? Can we have unanimous consent to that, please, so both opposition parties can caucus?
The Chair: Do we have unanimous consent not to meet until a week from Monday?
Mr Chiarelli: Not unanimous consent; only if they agree that they will caucus it again too.
The Chair: No unanimous consent? We are adjourned until tomorrow at 3:30.
The committee adjourned at 1753.