CONTENTS
Monday 11 December 1995
Subcommittee report
STANDING COMMITTEE ON ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
Chair / Président: Martiniuk, Gerry (Cambridge PC)
Vice-Chair / Vice-Président: Johnson, Ron (Brantford PC)
Boyd, Marion (London Centre / -Centre ND)
Chiarelli, Robert (Ottawa West / -Ouest L)
Conway, Sean G. (Renfrew North / -Nord L)
*Doyle, Ed (Wentworth East / -Est PC)
Guzzo, Garry J. (Ottawa-Rideau PC)
Hampton, Howard (Rainy River ND)
*Hudak, Tim (Niagara South / -Sud PC)
*Johnson, Ron (Brantford PC)
Klees, Frank (York-Mackenzie PC)
*Leadston, Gary L. (Kitchener-Wilmot PC)
*Martiniuk, Gerry (Cambridge PC)
*Parker, John L. (York East / -Est PC)
*Ramsay, David (Timiskaming L)
*Tilson, David (Dufferin-Peel PC)
*In attendance / présents
Substitutions present / Membres remplaçants présents:
Marchese, Rosario (Fort York) for Mrs Boyd
Clerk / Greffière: Bryce, Donna
Staff / Personnel: McNaught, Andrew, research officer, Legislative Research Service
The committee met at 1536 in room 228.
SUBCOMMITTEE REPORT
The Chair (Mr Gerry Martiniuk): The first order of business is the report of the subcommittee for the standing committee on administration of justice. You should all have a copy of that report, and for the purpose of Hansard I will read it into the record:
"Your subcommittee met on December 4, 1995, with respect to the consideration of Bill 19, Advocacy, Consent and Substitute Decisions Statute Law Amendment Act, 1995, and recommended the following:
"1. The Chair will request the House leaders to authorize the committee to sit for four weeks during the recess; public hearings to start on January 15, 1996.
"2. The committee will meet for four weeks divided as follows: one week of public hearings in Thunder Bay, Ottawa, London and Windsor; two weeks of public hearings in Toronto and one week of clause-by-clause consideration of the bill in Toronto.
"3. Staff from the ministries of Attorney General, Health and Citizenship, Culture and Recreation will be requested to provide a briefing to the committee for three hours on the first day of public hearings in Toronto.
"4. The Minister of Health will be invited to make a statement to the committee. The opposition critics will also have the opportunity to make a statement.
"5. The committee will advertise in newspapers in the areas in which public hearings are to be held, as identified by the subcommittee.
"6. The time slots for witnesses will be 30 minutes. However, should there be more witnesses than can be accommodated in Thunder Bay, Ottawa, London and Windsor, the time slots will be 20 minutes.
"7. The clerk is authorized to arrange the scheduling of witnesses and the daily itinerary of the committee as discussed by the subcommittee.
"For the purpose of Bill 19 and any other matter that may be referred to the committee over the winter recess, the Chair and the clerk, in consultation with the subcommittee, shall have the authority to make all arrangements necessary for the orderly consideration of such matters."
Could I have a mover for the report? Mr Leadston? It has been moved. Is there any discussion?
Mr Rosario Marchese (Fort York): On the issue of the time that we might allow the Ministry of Health to brief the committee, my experience is that three hours is a long time. I'm not quite sure what some of the Liberal members might have said. I'm not sure whether they proposed that as well. But I would think an hour would be more than sufficient for that purpose and that we should leave the additional time for deputations, as opposed to giving the Minister of Health three hours to do that. I'm not sure whether there's support for this, but I would move that instead of three hours we allow for one hour of debriefing from the ministry. I would move that as a friendly amendment.
Mr Ed Doyle (Wentworth East): That's not the way I understood it.
Mr Marchese: If the three hours is not there, then what do we mean?
Mr Doyle: It says, "Staff from the ministries of Attorney General, Health and Citizenship, Culture and Recreation will be requested to provide a briefing to the committee for three hours." It's more than one group, as I read it anyway. There are a number of groups there for a three-hour period, as I understand it. Am I misunderstanding it?
Clerk of the Committee (Ms Donna Bryce): That's correct.
The Chair: It's more than one ministry. It's three ministries.
Mr Marchese: I understand. I still think if the three ministries come together and they're doing a presentation together, the one hour is sufficient. Is it your sense, Mr Ramsay, that you need more time or that we would need more time?
Mr David Ramsay (Timiskaming): No.
Mr Marchese: If that's the case, then I move that we provide one hour to hear from the various ministers.
The Chair: The subcommittee report, by the way, is a meeting, just so you're aware, of Mr Ramsay, Mrs Boyd and Mr Tilson and that was their recommendation. But we have a motion to amend the subcommittee report to the committee, in particular item 3. The amendment is to delete the requirement of three hours?
Mr Marchese: Yes, and allow for one hour from the various ministries.
Mr Ramsay: May I just get a point of clarification? When you asked me, did we need more time, didn't you ask me more time than the three hours?
Mr Marchese: No. Sorry. I was proposing one hour, and did you feel that somehow we needed all three hours?
Mr Ramsay: Oh. That's different. We did agree in subcommittee on the three hours. We had quite a bit of debate on that. I guess we're talking four weeks altogether of hearings, so we said three hours since there are three bills and different ministries.
Mr Gary L. Leadston (Kitchener-Wilmot): I'm not in disagreement with what is being proposed, but why not give us the flexibility and the leeway and provide a briefing to the committee for up to three hours? If we're 40 minutes or we're an hour and 10 minutes, if we go an hour and 10, they may be the most salient points in the last 10 minutes but the motion says, "one hour." So why not "up to three hours"?
Mr Doyle: They can take 20 minutes.
Mr Leadston: They can take 20 minutes.
Mr Marchese: I appreciate the point, and under normal circumstances that would be all right. But my experience is if you give people the "Up to," it means that ministries organize themselves for three hours essentially. They might not, but I think we could probably get the essential information we need from the ministries in that one hour. If you stretch it, you just allow them to say a lot more than what I think we need.
Mr Leadston: Can we clarify with the ministries and say that we will allot them 20 minutes each? That's a total of 60 minutes.
Mr David Tilson (Dufferin-Peel): Mr Marchese, this matter was debated for a considerable period of time in subcommittee. Minister Wilson has expressed an interest to come and speak to the committee. I doubt if Minister Mushinski or Minister Harnick will, but Minister Wilson has indicated an interest.
Normally, with any of the committees you and I have attended on, the ministers come and address the committees and there's an opportunity for members of the committee, if they wish, to ask questions of the ministers. As well, normally on committees that you and I have sat on, staff from a particular ministry -- in this particular case there happen to be three ministries -- have been given an opportunity to explain the rationale for the proposed changes.
As you know, there are some substantial changes, many of which you indicated when you were speaking in the House, particularly to the Advocacy Commission, and areas that you personally have expressed an interest in as a member in the House. Originally when I as a member of the government was requesting time, the request was for substantially more than three hours, and it was on the usual good persuasion of Mr Ramsay and Ms Boyd that I agreed to lower that time to three hours, as a member of the subcommittee representing the government.
I can tell you that you're changing tradition in this place when you suggest one hour. Most committee members want to be informed what the particular ministry -- or in this case ministries -- is doing, and I think it's mandatory that not only the committee members but members of the public have an opportunity to hear from those faceless bureaucrats in the background as to their explanation and rationale for the changes.
Mr Ron Johnson (Brantford): I was going to actually speak somewhat in the same tone as Mr Tilson with respect to Mr Marchese. I think a lot of it too is I know as a member I want to be able to, when listening to delegations and at the same time in terms of my questioning, have a very detailed background briefing from ministry staff, and I'm not convinced that we can get that in one hour.
I think a lot of it is really incumbent upon us as members to learn a lot of this stuff as well, but to be able to ask questions of ministry staff is very important. I don't know that I'm completely comfortable with the one-hour time frame. I think three hours is the minimum I would require as a member to make the kind of informed decisions that I want to make.
The Chair: We're going to call the vote on the amendment -- I'm sorry, I don't want to cut you off.
Mr Marchese: No. I think we've had enough on this.
The Chair: We're voting on the amendment to alter and amend the subcommittee report to reduce the amount of time to be heard from possibly three ministers from three hours to one hour.
All those in favour of the amendment? Recorded: Mr Marchese.
All those against the amendment? The amendment fails.
We are now dealing with the subcommittee report, and we have a motion on the floor by Mr Leadston.
Mr Leadston: I'm not sure whether it was a grammatical error, but you referred to an item 6 reading, "However, should there be more witnesses than" -- on my copy it says "may" and you said "shall." Does yours read "shall"?
The Chair: No, mine says "may." Did I say "shall"? Freudian slip. Sorry, Mr Leadston.
Is there any further discussion with regard to the subcommittee report?
All those in favour of the report? Carried.
Mr Ramsay: Do we have any more updates with regard to timing of the sitting of this committee?
The Chair: No, we do not. The question was directed. The House leaders had requested that we sit in the month of February, but because of extenuating circumstances, we have requested to start on January 15 rather than February 2 or 3. We do not know that yet, and we will let you know. That's all we can do at this moment.
Mr Ron Johnson: Being new to the process I'm not sure exactly how this works -- it does indicate one week of public hearings in Thunder Bay, Ottawa, London and Windsor. Now is that the first week of public hearings that we do the travel? Is that decided?
The Chair: The subcommittee will decide that.
Mr Ron Johnson: Oh, that hasn't been decided yet. Okay.
Mr Marchese: Do you have a suggestion?
Mr Ron Johnson: Quite frankly, it doesn't make a big deal of difference. Just for scheduling purposes.
The Chair: If there's no other business, we will adjourn this meeting at the call of the Chair.
The committee adjourned at 1550.