CONTENTS
Wednesday 21 August 1996
Alcohol, Gaming and Charity Funding Public Interest Act, 1996, Bill 75, Mr Sterling /
Loi de 1996 régissant les alcools, les jeux et le financement des organismes de bienfaisance
dans l'intérêt public, projet de loi 75, M. Sterling
STANDING COMMITTEE ON ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
Chair / Président: Mr Gerry Martiniuk (Cambridge PC)
Vice-Chair / Vice-Président: Mr Ron Johnson (Brantford PC)
Mrs Marion Boyd (London Centre / -Centre ND)
Mr Robert Chiarelli (Ottawa West / -Ouest L)
Mr Sean G. Conway (Renfrew North / -Nord L)
Mr Ed Doyle (Wentworth East / -Est PC)
*Mr Garry J. Guzzo (Ottawa-Rideau PC)
Mr Howard Hampton (Rainy River ND)
Mr Tim Hudak (Niagara South / -Sud PC)
*Mr Ron Johnson (Brantford PC)
Mr Frank Klees (York-Mackenzie PC)
Mr Gary L. Leadston (Kitchener-Wilmot PC)
*Mr Gerry Martiniuk (Cambridge PC)
*Mr John L. Parker (York East / -Est PC)
*Mr David Ramsay (Timiskaming L)
Mr David Tilson (Dufferin-Peel PC)
*In attendance / présents
Substitutions present / Membres remplaçants présents:
Mr Bruce Crozier (Essex South / -Sud L) for Mr Chiarelli
Mr Jim Flaherty (Durham Centre / -Centre PC) for Mr Tilson
Mr Douglas B. Ford (Etobicoke-Humber PC) for Mr Leadston
Mr Bert Johnson (Perth PC) for Mr Hudak
Mr Gerard Kennedy (York South / -Sud L) for Mr Conway
Mr Peter Kormos (Welland-Thorold ND) for Mr Hampton
Mr R. Gary Stewart (Peterborough PC) for Mr Klees
Mr Toni Skarica (Wentworth North / - Nord PC) for Mr Doyle
Also taking part / Autres participants et participantes:
Mr Rob Harper, senior policy adviser, Ministry of Consumer and Commercial Relations
Ms Teri Kirk, legal director, legal services branch, Ministry of Consumer and Commercial Relations
Clerk / Greffière: Ms Donna Bryce
Staff / Personnel: Mr Christopher Wernham, legislative counsel
J-1375
The committee met at 1005 in room 228.
ALCOHOL, GAMING AND CHARITY FUNDING PUBLIC INTEREST ACT, 1996 / LOI DE 1996 RÉGISSANT LES ALCOOLS, LES JEUX ET LE FINANCEMENT DES ORGANISMES DE BIENFAISANCE DANS L'INTÉRÊT PUBLIC
Consideration of Bill 75, An Act to regulate alcohol and gaming in the public interest, to fund charities through the responsible management of video lotteries and to amend certain statutes related to liquor and gaming / Projet de loi 75, Loi réglementant les alcools et les jeux dans l'intérêt public, prévoyant le financement des organismes de bienfaisance grâce à la gestion responsable des loteries vidéo et modifiant des lois en ce qui a trait aux alcools et aux jeux.
The Chair (Mr Gerry Martiniuk): Good morning, ladies and gentlemen and members of the committee. These are the hearings of the administration of justice committee's consideration of Bill 75. The committee has set aside two days for clause-by-clause consideration of the bill. We will be sitting today till 12 o'clock and then resuming our sitting at 1:30, and we will start again tomorrow at 10 o'clock in the morning.
I believe it is agreed that we will follow the numerical order in the bill, even though the schedule is really contained in part I, section 1, which traditionally would be usually done at the end of the bill. We're going to do it in numerical order this time as a matter of convenience.
Any questions, comments or amendments to the bill? If so, which sections? We are starting with section 1.
Mr Peter Kormos (Welland-Thorold): Chair, as a preliminary matter, as you know, Norm Sterling, then Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations, here before this committee on the first day of its hearings three weeks ago, attempted to responded to questions -- not very articulately or effectively -- but attempted to respond to questions and I give him credit for that. But it appears that in the interim, if we're to believe what the press says, Norm Sterling is no longer the minister responsible for this proposal, for this endeavour, and that indeed the minister is now one David Tsubouchi.
Over the course of three weeks, we've learned a great deal. We've learned indeed of the concerns about high levels of addictiveness of these machines. We've learned of concerns about the government engaging in a mere cash grab. We've learned of concerns about the relationship between organized crime and the purchase and supply of video gambling equipment, most recently as yesterday when, in a brief submitted by the clerk of the city of Sudbury, we were permitted to read a report prepared by one Tim Kelly from the criminal intelligence unit of the Fredericton Police Force who related information confirming what indeed has been feared by more than a few of us.
In view of that and in view of the fact that there's been a change in ministerial leadership, and understanding of course that a minister, being in cabinet, controls the course of these types of proposals, in this case Bill 75; and also in view of the fact, I take note, that the meetings of the standing committee on social development, which has been considering Bill 76, so-called environmental protection legislation, have been cancelled indefinitely as a result of that minister being replaced by, as it is now, Norm Sterling -- clearly Norm Sterling has the insight to be aware that he has to be briefed on what's happening with respect to Bill 76 before he can participate effectively or meaningfully or give leadership to his parliamentary assistant in that new role -- in this instance I am submitting and I move that this committee suspend its hearings.
I made a motion yesterday because of what Professor Alan Young said about the illegality of this scheme, his strong fears that the whole scheme may run afoul of the Criminal Code of Canada and its sections that control illegal gambling, illegal gaming, illegal slots. Professor Young, as you know, authored a submission that was presented to this committee in Ottawa. I note that somebody called Ab Campion, who's a spin doctor, a media person, a communications person in the minister's office of the Ministry of Consumer and Commercial Relations, responded in a CP article of this morning saying --
The Chair: Excuse me, Mr Kormos --
Mr Kormos: One moment, sir. I'm making --
The Chair: Excuse me. Perhaps you and Mr Crozier or anyone else could assist me. I understand you are moving an adjournment and I had understood that there was no discussion or debate permitted on a motion for adjournment.
Mr Kormos: No, did I say "adjournment," Chair?
The Chair: You certainly did. You asked that the hearings be suspended. As far as I'm concerned, that's an adjournment sine die, Mr Kormos.
Mr Kormos: Oh, please. Listen carefully --
The Chair: Well, let's deal with that: Are you permitted to debate on the adjournment?
Mr Kormos: Let's deal with the proposition that all Ab Campion could say is, "Well, we think we won't breach the Criminal Code." What a candid lack of certainty. The ministry has clearly failed to respond to any of the concerns that have been raised during the course of the last three weeks, ranging from the illegality of the scheme is a contravention of the Criminal Code, through to the invitation to organized crime to become partners with this government in this scheme.
We have a new minister. The last minister was barely capable of responding in any meaningful way to questions put to him. The new minister, one can only suspect, had been devoting his efforts and energies to running, however poorly, the Ministry of Community and Social Services. In view of the fact that the meetings of the standing committee on social development have been cancelled until further notice so that Norm Sterling, the new Minister of Environment -- I know he'll receive able assistance from his staff who have had to do double time. I mean, his senior staff have been split. Ms McGregor, without any increase in pay, has been serving two masters. She has been serving the minister's lapdog, Mr Flaherty, on this committee and at the same time has been helping Mr Sterling adjust to his new role.
I submit it's essential that this committee follow the precedent established by the standing committee on social development, that this committee suspend its consideration of this bill clause by clause until such time as the new minister can appear before this committee to respond to questions and to indicate whether or not that new minister is in a position to be the helmsman, if you will, for this pathetic partnership with organized crime and this pathetic victimization of the poor in this province.
The Chair: As I understand it -- let me state it fairly -- Mr Kormos has moved that this committee suspend consideration of Bill 75 until Minister Tsubouchi can appear in front of this committee.
Mr Kormos: You did your best, Chair.
The Chair: Okay, well, please give it as concisely as --
Mr Kormos: You did your best.
The Chair: Did I misstate something?
Mr Kormos: You did your best. That's reasonably good.
The Chair: Is there any debate on that before I put the question on the motion?
Mr Bruce Crozier (Essex South): I'll be reasonably brief. I support the member in his motion to suspend the further consideration of Bill 75. As I recall, and I'm paraphrasing, the Premier said with his changes in cabinet this past week that he wanted to further set the direction of his government. If a minister is to have any credibility at all in his or her portfolio, I think they should be given the opportunity to address important issues that will involve their ministry. As each of us knows, having been around this province over the last three weeks, this is a very important issue, notwithstanding the reorganization that this covers, but some of the subject matter such as the video lottery terminals.
I would think Minister Tsubouchi would be anxious to address this committee, to be given the opportunity to either confirm that he supports the essence of Bill 75 or perhaps there are some parts of Bill 75 that he does not support. It's important enough that we start the whole process by having the minister appear before us. Therefore, I can see no reason why the government wouldn't want to have its new minister appear before us and to also advise us of his feelings on this issue. For that reason I would support this motion to suspend any further deliberations.
The Chair: Is there any further debate on the matter before I put the question?
Mr Kormos: Before you put the question, of course, each caucus is entitled to a recess of up to 15 minutes when that caucus is not complete at the committee hearing. I'm requesting a recess upon you putting the question to that effect.
The Chair: I'm sorry, you have to speak into the microphone a little closer.
Mr Kormos: I'm talking to you, Chair.
The Chair: I know. I can't hear you. I literally cannot hear you.
Mr Kormos: Chair, as you know undoubtedly, having read the rules, each caucus is entitled as of right to request for a recess if that caucus is not completely represented, if all the members are not present when the question is called. I'm putting to you now that upon you calling the question, I'm requesting that recess.
The Chair: Is your request now that we have a 15- or 20-minute recess?
Mr Kormos: You've got it, Chair.
The Chair: Which one?
Mr Kormos: Twenty minutes.
The Chair: Twenty minutes, and that's before any vote or further deliberation.
Mr Kormos: Upon your calling the question.
The Chair: We are recessed for 20 minutes. We will reconvene at 20 to 11.
The committee recessed from 1017 to 1037.
The Chair: The question has been put on Mr Kormos's motion before the committee that we suspend consideration of the bill until the new minister appears in front of this committee, or words to that effect.
Mr Kormos: Recorded vote, please.
Ayes
Crozier, Kennedy, Kormos, Ramsay.
Nays
Flaherty, Ford, Guzzo, Bert Johnson, Ron Johnson, Parker, Skarica, Stewart.
The Chair: The motion fails.
We are now considering section 1 of Bill 75. I asked the question earlier whether there are any comments or amendments to section 1.
Mr Kormos: I want to start making it clear from the very onset, just in case anybody didn't get the drift over the course of the last three weeks specifically, since this proposal was first introduced by way of first reading, that I have no support for this legislation. Indeed, my opposition to this proposal, to this scheme has been reinforced over the course of the last three weeks by things that we've heard from people across this province.
I know that certain interests have a strong interest in seeing this bill passed, in seeing a slot machine regime established here in Ontario. I understand that. I also understand that the great deal of money that's going to be syphoned, vacuumed, picked from the pockets of Ontarians is such that the price of poker has gone up, if you will, a great deal, clearly notwithstanding the large proceeds that we've discovered come not just from the Ontario Lottery Corp's 6/49 all the way down to bingo and keno; we've become increasingly aware that things like charity bingos reap large revenues for the participants in terms of the charities.
In Fort Erie, one of the operators of Delta Bingo told us about the incredible profits that industry itself enjoys, at least with Delta. Clearly that ranges all the way from Delta, with million-dollar profits, and that's what Mr Cameron spoke of, down to a woman we spoke to in Sudbury yesterday who talked about operating a competitive bingo, the second bingo operation in her community, a mere three days a week, and appearing to be less motivated by the profits than by her interest, as she spoke of them, in supporting charities. The merger contained right away, obviously, a commission. We're starting to talk about the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario; we precede section 2. We don't even get to vote on section 2 before we're called upon to vote on section 1. But strong interests.
We learned about -- and the people who didn't should have been paying closer attention -- the great entry point this constitutes for organized crime. We learned of the corruption of communities and of individuals that will be affected, I'm convinced, by this legislation. The Chair persists in suggesting that when OPSEU was here speaking to this committee, they weren't addressing the bill. I find that an interesting proposition, because they were very much addressing the bill; they were talking very much about this merger, about this prelude to the privatization of alcohol and gaming and its regulation. I'm opposed to section 1 simply because it's symbolic of the balance of the bill. I'll be speaking more specifically on respective sections as we go through them, but I'm going to be voting against section 1 and I'll also be asking for a recorded vote, please, Chair.
The Chair: Is there any further debate? We're dealing with section 1 and not the schedule. We will follow with the schedule, so you'll have an opportunity to debate the particulars of the schedule referred to in section 1. If there's no further debate, I shall put the question.
Shall part I, section 1, be adopted?
All those in favour?
Clerk of the Committee (Ms Donna Bryce): Mr Flaherty, Mr --
Mr Bert Johnson (Perth): On a point of order, Mr Chair: There has not been a request for a recorded vote.
Clerk of the Committee: Yes, there has.
Mr Bert Johnson: No, he said that he will. He has not.
Clerk of the Committee: He has requested it.
Mr Kormos: Now I'm sure you've got my vote for that Speaker's position.
Ayes
Flaherty, Ford, Guzzo, Bert Johnson, Ron Johnson, Parker, Skarica, Stewart.
Nays
Crozier, Kennedy, Kormos, Ramsay.
The Chair: Section 1 is adopted.
We are now dealing with the schedule attached to section 1.
Are there any amendments or comments in relation to the schedule attached to section 1?
Mr David Ramsay (Timiskaming): I'd just like to make a point of order if I could at this time. I just want to bring to the attention of all the members that our clerk has passed to all the members of the committee the statistics from the finance branch of the finance ministry of Alberta in regard to gaming revenues. You see that before you, and contrary to several government members yesterday stating that the revenues from the pull tickets, commonly called the Nevada tickets, in Alberta have not declined, the statistics speak for themselves from the Ministry of Finance in Alberta. I ask you to look at those. The revenues from the pull tickets had declined.
The Chair: I don't think that is a proper point of order.
Mr Ramsay: You can't dispute the facts, can you?
The Chair: However, you can debate. I'll ask the question and of course debate will be permitted in regard to section 1 of the schedule.
Mr Ron Johnson (Brantford): Casinos caused them to drop. Read the study.
The Chair: Shall section --
Mr Crozier: Mr Chair, I do have a point of order in that when we were in Kenora, the Chair at that time, Mr Johnson, more or less admonished me for saying that such a thing was not a point of order, but he said you have to hear the person out before you can determine whether it's a point of order. So my point of order is that I think you should have heard the member out, if Mr Johnson ruled correctly in Kenora.
The Chair: I was not present for Mr Johnson's ruling; however, I heard enough of Mr Ramsay's point of order that I felt I was in a position to make a decision that it was not a proper point of order.
Mr Crozier: If it'll make you feel better, Chair, I feel better with your ruling than I did with Mr Johnson's.
The Chair: I don't know whether to thank you, Mr Crozier, or not.
Mr Flaherty and then Mr Kormos.
Mr Jim Flaherty (Durham Centre): Are you still dealing with subsection (1) of the schedule?
The Chair: Yes, we are.
Mr Flaherty: All right. I'll wait till subsection (2).
Mr Kormos: Seeing as how Norm Sterling isn't the minister any more, if indeed he ever was, and Dave Tsubouchi is not here -- he's being reprogrammed; he got hung up on the 69-cent tuna and is probably now thinking about 69-cent payouts on dollar bets on the slots -- I trust that Mr Flaherty is here to respond to questions. I would ask him, then, when we're speaking of "minister" as the minister responsible for the administration of this act, if Mr Flaherty could please explain to the committee, in view of the fact that the commission is going to be a non-share capital corporation, a government agency, the level of responsibility that a minister will have for the administration of the act. Exactly what role will the minister have in the Alcohol and Gaming Commission's fulfilment of its responsibilities?
The Chair: I have a question. Mr Flaherty, you referred to subsection (1) of the schedule. To me, it is section 1 of the schedule.
Mr Flaherty: Section 1. Sorry.
The Chair: Okay. I thought maybe --
Mr Kormos: He's practising politics rather than practising law.
The Chair: I just wanted to clarify that so we're speaking on the same terms. Is there any other debate in regard to section 1 of the schedule?
Mr Kormos: I'm putting a question to Mr Flaherty, and whether he's going to respond to it or not I suppose depends upon whether the Chair is going to -- he's sitting there with the minions and I wonder whether he's going to respond. I asked him to outline for us the role of the minister in the administration of the act in view of the corporation. I'd like some elaboration on that, please, before we deal with this.
The Chair: As I understand the committee procedure, it is proper to address questions to the parliamentary assistant who is dealing with the bill, has carriage of it. Whether he chooses to answer is up to him.
Mr Flaherty: The role of the minister is as defined in the bill.
The Chair: I hope that satisfies you, Mr Kormos.
Mr Kormos: I'll never be satisfied. It reminds me of an old Rolling Stones song, Chair. Mr Flaherty should come clean in terms of the policy goals anticipated by the creation of this new commission. We heard during the course of hearings concern expressed about the way personalities were shuffled around in respective commissions; we've heard fears from within the LLBO, who have anticipated this type of merger for some time. Exactly what end is being pursued? Because we know this is an intermediary step and we know that the ministry, in the development of this policy, has a vision about how things are going to be in their view, let's say some time down the road. Could the parliamentary assistant please elaborate on that?
The Chair: Mr Flaherty, you have the floor.
Mr Flaherty: I think the minister, when he appeared on the first day of the hearings, made clear the intention of the bill.
Mr Crozier: The old minister.
The Chair: All members of the committee should have received the final summary of submissions prepared by Andrew McNaught, our researcher.
Is there any further debate in regard to the adoption of section 1 of the schedule?
Mr Kormos: Mr Chair, prior to calling the question, I am advising -- Mr Flaherty is clearly intent on being as non-responsive as possible. I'll be seeking a recess that I'm entitled to upon you calling the question to give other members of this caucus an opportunity to attend for the vote on section 1, and if Mr Flaherty is going to play his games, by God, he ain't seen nothing yet.
The Chair: Shall section 1 of the schedule carry?
Mr Kormos: I move for a recess.
The Chair: Mr Kormos has requested a 20-minute recess, which he is entitled to. Therefore we shall reconvene at 11:15 sharp. Thank you. We are recessed.
The committee recessed from 1050 to 1111.
The Chair: The question has been put that section 1 of the schedule carry.
Mr Kormos: Recorded vote, Chair.
Ayes
Flaherty, Ford, Bert Johnson, Ron Johnson, Parker, Skarica, Stewart.
Nays
Crozier, Kennedy, Kormos, Ramsay.
The Chair: Section 1 is carried.
We are proceeding to section 2 of the schedule and we have a proposed amendment by the government.
Mr Flaherty: I move that the French version of subsection 2(1) of the schedule to the bill be amended by striking out "Liquor"in the fourth line and substituting "Alcohol."
The Chair: Do you wish to comment on it before we proceed with debate?
Mr Flaherty: It makes the section consistent with the short title of the act and the name of the new commission.
Mr Kormos: I understand the interest in making the French-language version, of course, a direct translation of the English version. One has to wonder how this error could have occurred. One can only suspect that here we have a bill drafted so hastily because of the urgency that this government feels about getting slot machines out there. Mind you, not with any interest in funding charities or helping Mr Seiling earn his paycheque as a so-called lobbyist for the hotel-motel association; because they need the revenues.
But it illustrates, it highlights and again it's something that warrants being addressed by the minister, David Tsubouchi, who of course hasn't made his presence known to this committee since his elevation from Minister of Community and Social Services to Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations. We're left with his surrogate, Mr Flaherty. I understand that he's here, he's paid the big money. He picks up an extra 12 grand or so a year as a parliamentary assistant in addition to his $78,000 a year salary, which means that he, like other PAs, is put out there to take the heat, take the flak. They're sort of like lightning rods; they're heat sinks.
You know what a heat sink is in electronic components? They're like the fins on the radiator of a motorcycle or a small air-cooled engine. They're designed to draw the heat away from sensitive electrical components, transistors and diodes and so on, which in theory will last forever but for the heat.
I find it interesting because this amendment does not address the only fault in this bill. As we go through it, I am going to be drawing your attention and Mr Flaherty's attention to a number of grievous drafting errors in the bill, the sort of ones that skilled lawyers like you and Mr Flaherty and Mr Guzzo and Mr Parker drive dump trucks through in court. Not because their clients are innocent, but because -- and of course Mr Skarica. These are the sort of drafting errors that make people like Mr Skarica tremble in their boots because here they've got a solid case. Mr Skarica used to be a very competent lawyer and was, until he resigned, a very competent crown attorney -- extremely competent.
Mr Garry J. Guzzo (Ottawa-Rideau): He still is. Be careful now; he still is.
Mr Kormos: He's the sort of guy who used to tremble when police would go out and thoroughly investigate matters. Now, mind you, they're hard-pressed to do that because this government chooses not to fund police or policing. But when the crown attorney would prepare a case and then some little pettifogger from the small country, the back country, would come up with a drafting error in legislation and his or her client would take a walk, the crown would be left embarrassed.
Trust me, this is not the only error. This is simply a modest error in translation. Trust me, there's a plethora of obscenities in this bill that warrant, quite frankly, it being taken back by Mr Flaherty. Well, Mr Tsubouchi's a lawyer too. Mr Tsubouchi would understand that. I'm confident that had Mr Tsubouchi, who I'm told was a very competent lawyer in his own right, read this legislation, he'd be the one sending Mr Flaherty, as his minion, to ask for a suspension of the hearings.
In any event, I do want to question Mr Flaherty. I would love to question Mr Tsubouchi, but he's not going to accommodate us. The government wants to keep him under wraps, and I understand why too. Boy, even after being briefed in his last ministry he fumbled that ball, and he'd be sent in here without ever having been briefed and, I suspect, in his own right personally would probably in his heart oppose the spirit and the intent of this legislation because I know him to be a sincere person.
This focuses attention on the fact that it's the Alcohol and Gaming Regulation and Public Protection Act. I understand that here we are, we have the Liquor Licence Board of Ontario, we have the Liquor Control Board of Ontario. I wonder because, again, Mr Flaherty was evasive, to say the least, silent in my earlier question to him about where this bill is intended to lead us. Please, even this government doesn't pass or present pieces of legislation like this without having an end goal that goes beyond the mere face of the legislation.
I would ask this of Mr Flaherty: Because it is my suspicion that the Alcohol and Gaming Regulation and Public Protection Act -- a misnomer in its own right -- is designed to accommodate the privatization of spirits and wine in this province and hand it over to an independent body, because clearly this is all-inclusive -- beer, liquor, wine -- and there was a purposeful change from the word "liquor" to "alcohol," could Mr Flaherty please supply us with some sort of rationalization for that, exactly what is the intent? Clearly there's a message getting out there, being presented by virtue of identifying here in this instance alcohol. Would Mr Flaherty please respond to that?
1120
Mr Flaherty: With respect to the specific amendment we're debating now, the amendment is to correct the naming in English in the French section. The English section refers, of course, to the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario. In the French translation, it was in error specified as the Liquor and Gaming Commission of Ontario. That's a drafting error. In this imperfect world in which we live, which Mr Kormos shares with us, I'm sure he realizes that we're some days less perfect than we are on other days. It's a mistake. If there are other errors that you've come across, Mr Kormos, in the printed legislation, I hope you do point them out so that they can be corrected as we proceed, both in the English and French versions of the bill.
Where is the bill intended to lead us? With respect to alcohol, as you know and as Minister Sterling mentioned, I believe, on the first day of the hearings, there has been a concern expressed by a number of people in the province over a number of years with respect to the conflict in the LCBO, the Liquor Control Board of Ontario, being both a vendor and regulator of the vending of alcohol in the province. I don't know whether you share that concern, but it is a concern that's been expressed by many, that one body would attempt to perform both functions. This legislation attempts to address that issue.
Where is the bill intended to lead us? As you know from the hearings we've been through the last three weeks, the goal of the government is to regulate and control alcohol and gaming in the province. There are the provisions with respect to creating the single Alcohol and Gaming Commission. There are the provisions with respect to the establishment of permanent charity gaming halls because of the tremendous difficulty in attempting to regulate 9,000 days of roving Monte Carlo casinos in the province, which is what has developed.
There is the legalization of video lotteries, first at racetracks and permanent charity gaming halls, on a phased basis with severe penalties and taking into account the experiences that eight of the other Canadian provinces have had, both good and ill, with respect to how they went about legalizing video lotteries and an attempt to address the reality of a substantial number of illegal so-called grey machines in the province of Ontario.
That's the control purpose with respect to Bill 75 in so far as video lotteries are concerned. We've had further discussions on that, and I know that you do not share, perhaps, the views I've expressed in their entirety, but that is the direction the bill takes us with respect to the measured control of alcohol and gaming in the province.
Mr Kormos: I'll defer to Mr Crozier; it's only fair.
The Chair: We'll come back to you, Mr Kormos, if you wish.
Mr Crozier: To either the parliamentary assistant or, through him, to staff, under "Definitions," it does not define the word "alcohol." I have some comments to make, but I think it would be preferable if someone could give me a definition of "alcohol." Anybody got a dictionary?
Mr Flaherty: I understand that the definition is in the Liquor Licence Act.
Mr Crozier: It would be helpful if I could just have that.
Mr Flaherty: If you give us a moment, perhaps we can locate it.
Mr Rob Harper: If you look at tab 3 of the binder, if you have the binder that was provided to you by the clerk, I believe under that tab on the first green page there's a copy of the Liquor Licence Act. On the first page of the text of that act, it defines the word "alcohol" for the purposes of the Liquor Licence Act.
Ms Teri Kirk: Perhaps we can just read the definition. That may be easiest for members.
Mr Crozier: Yes, that would be helpful. Thank you.
The Chair: We'd appreciate that.
Ms Kirk: "`Alcohol' means a product of fermentation or distillation of grains, fruits or other agricultural products, and includes synthetic ethyl alcohol." Of course, there's an equivalent definition in French.
Mr Crozier: Since that definition then is contained in the act and that act will still be in effect, perhaps that's sufficient. It's just that I recall several times during the hearings, one I think was from the distillers' association and the other I just can't recall to mind exactly, there was the suggestion that the words "ethyl alcohol" be used and/or I have a suggestion that perhaps it be "beverage alcohol," because particularly when it's in the name of a commission, not everyone would understand by just simply the term "alcohol" --
Mr Kormos: Especially alcohol becoming fuel.
Mr Crozier: Yes, as an alternative fuel. They might think that somehow or other they're regulating fuel in some way. As a matter of fact, it might interest you, Chair, and others, that aside from water, gasoline is the cheapest liquid we have. I think then people shouldn't confuse alcohol with what might go into our cars, what it might cost because, as all of us know, the Pepsi we have supplied to the committee is more expensive than gasoline by almost two times. We all complain about gasoline prices from time to time and how high they are, perhaps if we had to burn Pepsi in our cars, it would really be expensive.
Chair, I would like the government to entertain the suggestion that when we get to the title that it be "An Act to regulate ethyl alcohol..." in both the long and short titles. I think that would be better understood by the public, particularly when these titles are going to be before the public at all times.
The Chair: Mr Flaherty, do you wish to answer that now or at some later time?
Mr Flaherty: I think the member has raised a point that is of some interest, a specific point. Ethyl alcohol is only part of the definition of alcohol in the Liquor Control Act. The use of the word "alcohol" is an attempt at plain language. Alcohol is defined in the legislation; the word "beverage" is not.
Mr Crozier: When you said about the attempt at plain language -- but we have spent a lot of time on this committee over the past three weeks with semantics. Each time we used plain language, which was slot machines, you were very careful to point out to us that a video lottery terminal is not a slot machine. So I think when you talk, Mr Flaherty, about plain language, that's what I'm trying to get to, because, oh gosh, there were a lot of interjections, there were points of order made that these slot machines that we're talking about are in fact something else, when the public, in plain language, knows that by any other name it's a slot machine. Same as we could, I suppose, use in the legislation the term "booze," because everybody knows what booze is. Booze is beer, wine, liquor, liqueurs, all kinds of things. So if we really want to use plain language, which should be our intent, maybe we should change alcohol to booze, but I don't want to go quite that far.
Mr Kormos: I think Mr Crozier's observations are very astute. He comes from a part of the province where he's far better positioned to speak to the growing potential industry of the creation of alcohol as a fuel and its importance to the agricultural industry. I trust that's in part what Mr Crozier was speaking to when he wanted to see a distinction here of beverage alcohol. That's why he made reference to the cost of gasoline and relative costs of various fuels and liquids and distinguished gasoline as a fuel from Pepsi-Cola as a beverage. I understand what he was saying and I'm not sure that the other committee members are as sensitive to what he was saying as I've been.
I think in view of the fact that the alcohol industry that's emerging -- am I correct, Mr Crozier, in large part in southwestern Ontario?
Mr Crozier: Yes.
1130
Mr Kormos: This government certainly hasn't shown any sensitivity to the alcohol industry that's developing there. I don't think it has been mentioned. No, that's unfair, I think Noble Villeneuve has mentioned it once in the year that he's been Minister of Agriculture. I think it makes it all the more imperative that the government rethink its references in this bill and identify clearly that this is about regulating beverage alcohol and not other forms of alcohol, which I'm convinced are going to become very prevalent in our society, and rightly so, because it's important to the agricultural industry, it's important environmentally, of course, because it's a renewable fuel source as compared to petroleum-based, non-renewable fuel sources, and I'm told -- again Mr Crozier may want to assist us in this regard -- a far cleaner-burning product than petroleum-based fuels.
I have been down in southwestern Ontario and seen the pumps where you can get 10%, 20%, whatever the ratio is, of non-beverage alcohol in your gasoline, in your petroleum-based fuel. So subject to whatever else Mr Crozier might have to say on that, I think this government would be well advised to -- I recall the submissions and the concerns raised by the beverage alcohol industry. They're saying: "Please distinguish us. We know there's going to be a growing development of alcohol production" -- they say they want to be responsible; I don't quite agree with them in that regard -- "and we want to be identified as the beverage alcohol industry in distinction to others."
Those are my concerns at this point. I don't know whether the parliamentary assistant wants to address them. Obviously I'd be pleased to accommodate the parliamentary assistant with an adjournment of this process until the fall, until the House resumes, to permit them to rework this bill as should have been done in the first place.
Mr Gerard Kennedy (York South): I share my colleague's concern with the rush in drafting this bill. I think it is apparent throughout the bill that this hasn't been thought through. The most important provisions are not spelled out.
This definition, I think, raises serious questions. If you look at the act where alcohol is defined, there is a clear definition of "liquor" as the type of alcohol that's consumed. "`Liquor' means spirits, wine and beer or any combination thereof and includes any alcohol in a form appropriate for human consumption as a beverage, alone or in combination with any other matter," clearly what this bill wants to regulate, if we are to understand the government. In fact, if you look at the French translation of that word, it is "l'alcool." Or the word which is used presently, the word which the government proposes to substitute, is "éthanol" in French, clearly including all agricultural alcohol products.
I think it is an error on the part of the government to propose this and perhaps has to do with the semantics of having a liquor and gambling act. Is that the reason why the government prefers to have a more sanitized word called "alcohol"? Clearly, if you look at the choice of definitions from the Liquor Licence Act, "liquor" is the more appropriate word to use and the definition that we're advised, unless there is some message or meaning that we're not being made aware of on the government's part in terms of why they would want to introduce this ambiguity in the titling of the act and of the commission. If it's not going to have responsibility for synthetic ethyl alcohol, then surely it should be titled the liquor and gambling commission. I look forward to the parliamentary assistant's response on this matter.
Mr Flaherty: If I may, synthetic ethyl alcohol is potable.
Interjection: If it's potable.
Mr Flaherty: If it's potable. The definition of "alcohol" in the legislation is broader than the definition of "liquor," and the Alcohol and Gaming Commission would have jurisdiction over the broader definition which is there. I don't share the member's concern which I gather is that somehow the definition of "alcohol" in the legislation is ambiguous in some way.
Mr Kennedy: If I can clarify then, the wording which is proposed in the amendment from the government side actually refers to changing the words in French: «Est créée une personne morale sans capital-actions appelée Commission des alcools et des jeux de l'Ontario en français.» Will that be changed to «Commission des éthanols et des jeux de l'Ontario en français»? Can we please know that that more precise word is what the government is recommending at this time, the word "éthanol," which is in the definition of "alcohol," the equivalent word given under the Liquor Licence Act. Is that what you are recommending?
Mr Flaherty: The present amendment is, in the French version of the act, to correct the English word "Liquor" to "Alcohol." That was the drafting error. It's not to change the French version.
Mr Crozier: I don't know whether Mr Kennedy wants to discuss that further --
Mr Kennedy: That's fine.
Mr Crozier: -- but the parliamentary assistant said it's the broader term of "alcohol," and that's what's bothered me at the outset, the broad term of "alcohol." There's methyl alcohol, ethyl alcohol; there may be 10, 20 or 30 other kinds of alcohol. That's been my whole point, that we don't want the broader sense of "alcohol" in this bill; we want the specific alcohol named in this bill. In fact, if this hasn't been done in the past, if there is other legislation that this should be clarified in, I think now is the time to deal with it too.
For the parliamentary assistant to say, "Well, the reason for this amendment is to simply change a word," I suggest it goes far beyond that. There's no point in changing a word if that word isn't the appropriate word. If it should be changed beyond that, I think this is the time to do it, not to simply say, "Well, we want to treat alcohol in the broader sense," because it gets back into all these other kinds of alcohol then. In fact, some people drink other kinds of alcohol, so you want to be absolutely sure as to what beverage alcohol is and make sure which one you're regulating they are drinking. If they want to drink gasoline, we don't want to regulate that in this bill.
Mr Kennedy: To the parliamentary assistant, it seems very clear that the government is in contradiction here. You can't use the definitions interchangeably. The French definition of "alcohol" being used is the one which is declared in the act to mean liquor. Does the government intend for this to be liquor as defined in the Liquor Licence Act or does it intend it to be alcohol? If it intends for it to be alcohol, it should use the French word for that, as defined in the act, "éthanol," and be consistent. Clearly the government cannot have it both ways. We cannot have the reference to the legal definitions and then change them for the French and English versions. I really would like the government to tell us why this contradiction exists and why they want to persist with it.
Ms Kirk: My name is Teri Kirk, director of legal services with the Ministry of Consumer and Commercial Relations. I would like to respond to your question and indicate that the French and English versions are compatible and consistent.
There may be some confusion because «alcools...français» is a translation of the word "liquor" and not "alcohol," and they sit side by side in the French and English versions. That may be where the confusion arises, Mr Kennedy. But the definition of "alcohol" is in English, and the French equivalent of that is "éthanol"; «éthanol», c'est le mot pour «alcohol.»
"Liquor" then is defined in English; «alcools...en français» is the equivalent. Perhaps that clarifies it.
Mr Kennedy: It only clarifies my point, with respect, because you're using the word "alcool" for the French version and you're using the word "alcohol" in the English version, whereas in the Liquor Licence Act definitions those aren't seen as compatible: "éthanol" is used for alcohol, as you just clarified for me.
Ms Kirk: I'm sorry. I'm really not understanding, except that these definitions have existed for numerous years in the Liquor Licence Act and they have not given rise to confusion.
Mr Kennedy: I'm referring to section 1 of the Liquor Licence Act.
Ms Kirk: Right. So am I.
Mr Kennedy: It shows the equivalent word for "éthanol," that "éthanol" means alcohol.
Ms Kirk: No. With respect, that's not accurate. There is no definition of "ethyl alcohol" in the English version, therefore there is no French equivalent. There is a definition of "alcohol" in English in the act and there is a definition of "liquor" in the act. Both those words are also therefore defined in French, as they must be. The word for "alcohol," the French equivalent for "alcohol" in French is "éthanol," and that is defined. The French equivalent for the word "liquor" is "alcool," and that is also defined in the act. So there has been no confusion and it very much follows legislative drafting tenets.
1140
Mr Kennedy: Could we be clear then? It is the choice of the government not to use the word "éthanol" for the reason that it is less precise, that it doesn't reflect what you mean by the word "alcohol"?
Ms Kirk: There is no such word as "ethanol" in English. It is "ethyl alcohol," and the French equivalent is "éthanol." The government is moving now a motion on the French definition section. It refers now in Bill 75 -- and we're no longer looking at the Liquor Licence Act; we're now turning to Bill 75. The government is moving a motion on the French definition to ensure that the name of the commission is referred to as the "Alcohol and Gaming Commission," not as the "Liquor" --
Mr Kennedy: On the titling, as opposed to a definition. It's a titling of the commission that we're looking at.
Ms Kirk: No, it's using the word "Alcohol" consistently in the title of Bill 75 and in the name of the commission. There was one typographical error in Bill 75 which the government is, through this motion, seeking to correct by ensuring that the word "Liquor," in all instances, is removed and the word "Alcohol" is removed in the title of the act and in the name of the commission.
Mr Kennedy: I understand the effort and I can also understand some of the government's reluctance to use the word "liquor," but "liquor" is clearly -- at least we had the parliamentary assistant address vaguely the idea that somehow this commission would also deal with alcohol that includes synthetic alcohol or other agricultural products which appear in the broader definition of "alcohol." What we don't understand, though, is why the English definition for "liquor" is not used, which would seem to be more appropriate, and which is matched here in the French version by the word "alcool." That is not at all clear. I appreciate your effort to clarify, but the government intent is nowhere near clear in that contradiction.
Mr Kormos: I'm very concerned by this because, among other things, there's a lack of specificity. There is also, as I say, this umbrellaing of the act.
I note that in French there is a distinction between beverage alcohol and non-beverage alcohol. The term "alcool industriel" is a term for non-beverage alcohol, literally "industrial spirits," but obviously distinguishing.
I'm prepared to concede, because "alcool" is the traditional direct translation of "liquor." I believe that's what legislative counsel is telling us. But I suspect -- and I would ask whether there's been any reference to the commission in Quebec, the commission on French language, to determine whether there has been a more precise distinction, because obviously the word "alcool" as "liquor" predates historically the phenomenon of alcohol as anything other than a beverage. It's not a neologism; it's a long-standing word which relates to beverage alcohol. I'm interested in whether the language commission has provided a distinction parallel to "alcool industriel" to similarly distinguish "beverage alcohol," which is what I believe Mr Kennedy is speaking to, from alcohol in that broadest reference. I don't know whether there has been a referral made to the language commission in Quebec.
Ms Kirk: I can assure you, Mr Kormos, that when legislative counsel were drafting Bill 75 and these definitions were before them, it did provide an opportunity to ensure that French translations continued to be up-to-date and current and that the translation of "liquor" continues to be "alcool" and that continues to be contemporary and accurate.
Mr Kennedy: The translation of "liquor" or the translation of "alcohol"?
Ms Kirk: The translation of "liquor," as I've now said on a number of occasions, is "alcool."
Mr Kennedy: But the English version is "alcohol."
Ms Kirk: No. That's not accurate, Mr Kennedy.
Mr Kennedy: No, the English version for the purposes of this bill is the Alcohol and Gaming Commission.
Ms Kirk: I think, with all due respect, you continue to be confused on this point. I'll say it one more time and I'm not sure I can be any more clear on it, Mr Kennedy.
Mr Kennedy: I appreciate your assistance.
Ms Kirk: There is the word "alcohol" in English, and the definition of "alcool" in French is not the definition of "alcohol" in English. I think that is the root of your confusion.
Mr Kennedy: I agree with you on that point. I agree with you completely on that point.
Ms Kirk: There are two words defined in English and two words defined in French, so it's really very straightforward. The English words that are defined in English are "alcohol" and "liquor." Their French equivalents are "éthanol" and "alcool."
Mr Kennedy: Yes, and why do you not agree that if we're using "alcohol" in English, we should use the equivalent French word?
Ms Kirk: Yes, and we have indeed. The Liquor Licence Act does that do that and the legislative counsel have chosen the word "éthanol" as the French equivalent of the word "alcohol."
Mr Kennedy: No. In the act in front of us, why don't we use "éthanol"? We should use "éthanol" if we mean "alcohol." Is that not correct?
Ms Kirk: The act does do that, Mr Kennedy. I'm not sure I can respond any more clearly to your question.
Mr Kennedy: Then I would ask respectfully -- Mr Chair, I would really like to ensure that we're getting the correct language here. This is a technical point. We have a definition in the Liquor Licence Act that suggests what word you would use if you wanted to call it the Alcohol and Gaming Commission, and we have a different definition being proposed here. Do we have the resources in this committee that would allow us to --
The Chair: Mr Kennedy and Mr Kormos and Mr Crozier, we have legislative counsel whom this committee relies on. I know we have a number of lawyers on here but I don't think this is a legal debating society. We have an opinion from legislative counsel that this is a proper --
Interjection.
The Chair: I'm sorry. The legislative counsel at one time has reviewed this bill.
Mr Kennedy: Could we hear from legislative counsel on this point? Is this difference substantive? Is there a difference in meaning?
Mr Christopher Wernham: No, I don't think so. I think the thrust here is to be descriptive, to be plain language, and I'm sure that --
Mr Kennedy: Could I be very clear then? This is a choice of titling; it's not a question of definition. Is that correct when you say "descriptive"? This is the government choosing not to call this the Liquor and Gaming Commission?
Mr Wernham: I think, and I may be wrong on this, the attempt here is to choose a title which is easily understandable and recognizable.
Mr Kennedy: For our purposes here, we will have -- as has been already mentioned, there's been ongoing discussion. If there is no legal implication, it comes down to our wanting to know what the government means in terms of its choice in titling, and that means, to be precise, it should have chosen either one or the other. Consistency between the French and English versions is what we're looking at. Are you saying there's no legal implication?
Mr Wernham: My view would be that there would be no legal implications as a result of this choice.
Mr Kennedy: So it rests with the government to explain why it would choose different words for this? It's their choice; it doesn't have a legal force in terms of the bill itself? Would that be correct?
Mr Wernham: Yes, I think so.
The Chair: I believe the government, through its counsel, has attempted to answer that question, and if you don't agree with it, I assume you'll be voting against the amendment.
Is there further discussion in regard to the proposed amendment to section 2?
Mr Kormos: Prior to calling the question, I want to indicate --
The Chair: I haven't called the question.
Mr Kormos: That's why I said "prior to," because I knew you hadn't called it. You get all excited about these little things. You think somebody's trying to pick your pocket. We're just trying to be straightforward here, and candid. Prior to calling the question, I want to indicate to you that upon calling the question, I am requesting a recess as provided for by the rules.
The Chair: At the proper, appropriate moment, I suggest you could do that, Mr Kormos, and I will recognize that.
Mr Kormos: I will give you notice that upon calling the question --
The Chair: You don't have to give me notice for it. I will pause at the appropriate moment.
Mr Kormos: I'm trying to make things fair for you, Chair. I know you're under pressure.
The Chair: Thank you. I'm under no pressure at all, Mr Kormos.
Mr Kormos: God bless you.
The Chair: Is there any further discussion in regard to the amendment to section 2, French version? If not, I will call the question.
Mr Kormos: I request a recess as per the rules.
The Chair: We have a recess requested by Mr Kormos. The lunch break is approaching. It's only five minutes, and therefore we will adjourn to 1:30 and have the question at that time.
The committee recessed from 1150 to 1328.
The Chair: I call the meeting to order. We're dealing with the question of the amendment moved by Mr Flaherty to section 2. All those in favour?
Mr Kormos: Quorum, Chair.
The Chair: Point well taken, Mr Kormos. We will recess until we have a quorum.
The committee recessed from 1329 to 1331.
The Chair: I call the meeting to order. Mr Kormos, you'll be pleased we have a quorum present.
Mr Kormos: Thank you, sir. Recorded vote, please.
Ayes
Flaherty, Ford, Guzzo, Bert Johnson, Parker, Skarica.
Nays
Crozier, Kormos.
The Chair: The amendment is carried.
I will take it, Mr Kormos, that you want a recorded vote unless you tell me differently, just for convenience.
Mr Kormos: Thank you, Chair. I appreciate that.
The Chair: We are now dealing with section 2 of the schedule, as amended. Shall it carry?
Mr Kormos: Chair, we have to debate on section 2.
The Chair: I was just putting the question and then we have the debate. Are there any discussions or further amendments to section 2, as amended?
Mr Kormos: I indicated that there were going to be some concerns expressed once again about the draftsmanship. I refer the members of the committee and the parliamentary assistant to subsection (4), which indicates, "The members shall be appointed at pleasure for a term, not exceeding three years, designated by the Lieutenant Governor in Council, and may be reappointed."
In the French version it speaks about the term or the mandate -- "mandat" -- being renewable and it doesn't speak to the need for there being -- because obviously when you speak about being reappointed as compared to a term merely being renewable, you have a scenario where in one instance one would assume there's some sort of process to go through -- in particular, I'm thinking of the boards, agencies and commissions, the ABC committee. For a renewable term, I submit to you that they are two different things.
I indicated earlier that we'd be raising these. I'd ask for and appreciate some direction from counsel in this if it is merely a matter of once again as we dealt with -- remember, last time we were doing this we were talking about the semantics and the difficulties of translation. But is "renewable" tantamount to "may be reappointed," which implies process, appointed once and then appointed twice, as compared to merely renewing? In English there's certainly a distinction, it seems to me.
Mr Flaherty: Perhaps legislative counsel could help on that point.
Mr Wernham: We have in our office experts who advise other drafters like myself on the equivalency between the English and French versions. My best advice is that these expressions are equivalent in the two languages.
Mr Kormos: I appreciate that. You're referring to these lexicons that give us guidance in terms of translation.
Mr Wernham: Yes.
Mr Kormos: I acknowledge your authority in that regard.
I would like to ask Mr Flaherty, seeing as how Mr Tsubouchi isn't here, notwithstanding that he's the minister -- is he the minister in charge? We don't know. The section here that we're being asked to approve states that "there shall be at least five" members of the board. Surely the ministry, in its eagerness to see this implemented, has some idea of exactly how many members of the board there are going to be. Could he explain that to us and the rationale for that?
Mr Flaherty: The decision about how many persons will be appointed as members of the board will be up to the Lieutenant Governor in Council, as Bill 75 provides, and I cannot assist further than that.
Mr Kormos: Obviously, the parliamentary assistant having clearly indicated that this is a go -- we've made reference a number of times now to his comments, which were reported in among other places the Buffalo News, to the effect that it's a go, it's a simple matter of how quickly these machines are going to be there -- and certainly the commitment in that quote was to the racetrack industry, I'm asking Mr Flaherty now whether or not there have been any solicitations by the ministry of candidates for appointments to this board.
Mr Flaherty: I don't know. In response, if I may assist further with respect to your previous question, the LLBO board currently has 12 members and the gaming commission board currently has six, I'm told.
Mr Kormos: Is it contemplated that appointments to this board will be done in a model similar to other appointments such that they are screened by the appropriate committee?
Mr Flaherty: I'm told that's in the discretion of the Lieutenant Governor in Council.
Mr Kormos: That's the cabinet. Again, it really was a peculiar process because it's the boards, agencies, commissions manual which outlines the mandates of respective boards, agencies, commissions and then also has an outline of the type of skills that are required of people to participate on those boards. I'm sure that Mr Flaherty is aware of what I'm speaking -- the sort of backgrounds, the sort of interests obviously reflecting a desire to have people participating on that board or commission or within that agency in a role which allows them to utilize their skills, background, interests. Do we have that type of description available yet for this proposed board?
Mr Flaherty: I'm sorry; I was distracted for a moment. The question related to the procedure for appointing the members of the board and whether it's going to go before the committee or not?
1340
Mr Kormos: No, that was the last one. I appreciate that, sir. I'll repeat the question. As the parliamentary assistant knows, for each agency, board and commission that is published in the catalogue of ABCs there is of course a description of the duties and by and large a description of the types of roles that are expected of people so as to indicate what types of people and what particular backgrounds or interests or skills or talents or training or education or previous experience might be inclined to be considered more readily for appointment to that. I'm asking the parliamentary assistant what type of job description and qualification description has been prepared yet for this board, agency or commission.
Mr Flaherty: I'm not aware of any.
Mr Kormos: Not aware of any.
Mr Flaherty: That has been prepared so I can discuss it with you because I'm not aware of any.
Mr Kormos: Chair, does the ministry anticipate simply accessing the pool of applicants that its appointment secretariat has or will the ministry be actively seeking out individuals -- I'm not saying in any way, shape or form that it's not appropriate -- in a head-hunter's style?
Mr Flaherty: I can't answer that, Mr Kormos, other than to say that'll be up to the Lieutenant Governor in Council.
Mr Kormos: We're being asked to approve section 2 of this bill. I would ask the parliamentary assistant whether there's been any consideration of adequate representation of not just anglophones but also francophones on the board in view of some of the roles that the board is going to be required to do. Is there a commitment to representation by francophones on the proposed board?
Mr Flaherty: With respect, Mr Kormos, I think your question is somewhat premature in that we don't have the enabling legislation yet, and the appointments are provided for in the enabling legislation. I can't answer your question directly about whether specific persons have been considered or anything like that because the act, as you know, hasn't been passed.
Mr Kormos: Chair, he speaks of this as enabling, and I appreciate that, but clearly there's been sufficient consideration to say that the board shall have at least five members, with no ceiling on that. This could become a dumping ground for Tory hacks. There's no suggestion of a maximum number. Surely the government, when it established the minimum number of five, must have said, "We need at least five for a particular reason." I'll ask the parliamentary assistant whether there's going to be a consideration of gender equity in determining appointments to the board, a representation of women and men on the board.
Mr Flaherty: Again, Mr Kormos, I can't add anything to the answer I've already given.
Mr Kormos: We have a problem here; we have a serious problem. If you look ahead in the act at subsection 3(3) -- it's relevant to this discussion now because we're talking about the section of the bill which provides for the appointment of persons to this board, to the commission -- it reads, "(3) The commission shall exercise its powers and duties in the public interest and in accordance with the principles of honesty and integrity, and social responsibility."
Again I submit to you that we're required to at least refer to subsection 3(3) when we're considering section 2 and whether or not we're prepared to approve it as it stands. In looking at the responsibilities, the issues of social responsibility would very much suggest to me that there would be a need -- I don't know how other members of the committee feel about it and I'd be pleased to hear their views -- to ensure that certain communities or certain interests are represented on the board. If that's the case, it shouldn't up to the Lieutenant Governor in Council, which as we know is the cabinet, or the appointment secretariat. Let me speak to that for a moment.
We heard a lot of concern by organizations, charitable in some cases, non-profit in almost every case -- none I can think of that weren't at least non-profit; not all perhaps considered charitable, depending upon which definition of "charitable" -- that expressed great concern about the cannibalism of slots on their traditional forms of fund-raising, be it break-opens, Nevada tickets or bingo.
Here we have a commission with some onerous responsibilities, and I hoped that as part of the plan or strategy -- maybe I hope for too much -- there would have been consideration of the need to have somebody on this board who represents or has experience with or reflects the concerns of, or is capable of doing that in a very acute way, in a very concise or precise way, that large community of charitable and other non-profit organizations out there in the province.
I understand. We heard from B'naith Brith here in Toronto, which has been a fairly successful non-profit, charitable organization in terms of fund-raising. I know that constraints of time made it impossible to hear from the little people: the Knez Branimir group -- I made reference to them the other day -- down in Welland, the Hungarian cultural society, the Rose City Snow Seekers, the Welland Snowmobile Club, Welland minor hockey, the Polish Hall, the Ukrainian Cultural Centre down on McCabe Street. We didn't have a chance to hear from these people.
I would have loved to hear from the people at the Club Social or at the Auberge Richelieu because they do a whole lot of fund-raising. There were only two and a half weeks, very restricted, of listening and talking to people. Here we have no formula or strategy for making sure that the interests of these people are included.
Social responsibility? There's no strategy here being presented to us by the parliamentary assistant. Maybe David Tsubouchi, the minister, does know these things, and all that does is cry out for the necessity of him being here. We have no indication that there are going to be people who are representative, because the other thing the government wanted to speak about during the course of these last two and half weeks was not only the charitable funding this will provide -- mind you, they wanted to talk about it without having any idea, least of all any capacity to tell people what their definition was of charity, to tell people what their definition was of charitable organizations, to tell people what they anticipated would be their model of distributing their funds. They wouldn't even include in the legislation numbers, percentages which, as you can see from amendments that have been tabled, will be addressed in amendments to guarantee that the government kept its word about 10% going to charitable organizations.
I'm extremely concerned about that. I appreciate that Mr Flaherty says, "Oh, that's up to the Lieutenant Governor in Council." The sad reality is that notwithstanding some good patronage appointments by this government -- I acknowledge that freely. I sat on that committee. I participated in the interview of many of those people. Some very competent Tories were appointed, in some cases, to some very responsible positions. But this government also in short order has acquired the burden of some very bad appointments. One appointment that I voted against and the Liberal members of the committee voted against, just to illustrate how inadequate the reliance is upon the Lieutenant Governor in Council, was that of Evelyn Dodds to the Social Assistance Review Board. This government picked a reformer, a wacko, to serve on the Social Assistance Review Board -- 75 Gs a year, big cheese, big bucks -- and as vice-chair of that board to hear appeals from social assistance recipients who wanted to appeal rulings made about their eligibility.
1350
I read that from January through to June this year she heard 53 appeals and only granted 12 of them. One of the appellants, and this is an illustration of how dangerous it is to not lay this out in the legislative framework, was apparently a 52-year-old woman who had colitis, degenerative disc disease, celiac disease, arthritis and osteoporosis seeking to be deemed as permanently disabled. Her family doctor apparently offered evidence saying that she was unable to work because of the colitis, which is a bowel disease that causes severe pain and frequent urges to defecate and bloody stool. The woman indicated she has to wear protection when visiting the doctor -- Depends, that sort of thing, diapers -- and even then must go to the washroom at 10-minute intervals. Evelyn Dodds denied her appeal for permanent disability saying the frequency and duration of the colitis attacks was unclear.
Again, I'm speaking to the lack of structure within section 2 of this bill as to the basis for appointments to what will be a very powerful board with some very onerous responsibilities. Evelyn Dodds, wacko from Thunder Bay, is an example of how it doesn't work. You can't rely upon the system. Another case she heard was a 39-year-old former truck driver whose argument was that he was unable to work because of severe anxiety attacks causing heart palpitations, sweating, blurred vision and the urge to avoid people. It was described as chronic anxiety, disabling. The prognosis by a doctor was described as very guarded -- appeal denied by Evelyn Dodds.
One of the problems in the legislation governing appointments to the Social Assistance Review Board is that you don't have, as this legislation doesn't have, clear standards or guidelines as to who ought to be on there. You have a description of the tasks they're to perform. Here you have a marriage of what have traditionally been two diverse or at least separate regulatory bodies: the gaming commission and the Liquor Licence Board of Ontario, the alcohol licence board, if you will, of Ontario. I'm concerned because when I asked the parliamentary assistant the questions I have -- I'm not disputing that he simply doesn't know. I acknowledge that he simply doesn't know, and he's got high-priced help there. There's a couple of hundred grand a year sitting right around him, then add his salary to that and you're getting well beyond a quarter of a million, and these people are doing their best. They're doing their very best. They've been sent here without any tools. They don't know because nobody's told them.
I am very concerned about approving legislation that's going to permit the appointment of a board of at least five people, and Lord knows how many more, without telling us in some general, even vague way -- perk up, guys, whip staff is in here. Open those blinkers, open those cheaters, she's taking score. Perk up, guys; that's it. Barb's in.
You've got Evelyn Dodds as an illustration: a dangerous, tragic appointment, once again perfectly entitled, I'm sure, to serve somewhere on something. But because Social Assistance Review Board doesn't have what I'm seeking here in section 2 -- you had another appellant come before Evelyn Dodds, a 45-year-old man who said he was totally blind in one eye, near blind in the other --
The Chair: Mr Kormos, you are getting off the topic.
Mr Kormos: I'm speaking about section 2 of this bill.
The Chair: Ms Dodds has been mentioned three times, and she has nothing to do with this act.
Mr Kormos: Chair, I beg to differ.
The Chair: Use a different example, that's all, a little variety.
Mr Kormos: Another example of another dog that was appointed by this government, another totally pathetically inadequate person? We saw them being trotted through that boards, agencies and commissions committee, muzzles removed, unleashed, week after week.
We're talking here, in the case of Evelyn Dodds, a pure hack patronage appointment, a hatchet person, somebody mean and evil to do these people's bidding, rather than represent the mandate and to protect the little people.
This board, the Alcohol and Gaming Commission, is going to have the responsibility of protecting people along with a whole lot of other jobs. It's going to have an onerous responsibility. I've said that three times now too. It's going to have a responsibility to protect the victims of slot machines. It's going to have a responsibility to protect the small business people, notwithstanding that they've had the carrot dangled in front of them, the promise of the promised land, this brave new world of slots. They've been promised this economic euphoria with this new drug, this crack cocaine, the slots, when we know, Chair, that it ain't going to work.
It ain't going to work for the little tavern or bar in most of small-town Ontario, because we also heard evidence at the committee hearings about the sustainability, or more important, the lack of sustainability of this type of industry, especially when you don't have massive turnovers in markets, and that's most of Ontario. These poor folks thought, as I say, that this was the promised land. So I question the failure of the legislation to talk about the need for there being representation on this board by the community of non-profit and charitable interests.
Had there been even the slightest ability on the part of the parliamentary assistant, Mr Flaherty, to tell us that there was a plan, to tell us that there was a schema, that there was a policy that was even under development that would ensure these ends are reached, it would have soothed me somewhat, would have calmed my fears, but he, in all candour, shrugs and says, "I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know." That's what he says: "I don't know. Don't ask me."
We indicated that early this morning we'd love to be able to ask Mr Tsubouchi, because Mr Flaherty doesn't know. Now, the problem with asking Mr Tsubouchi this morning is that he don't know either. He don't know either. He's still been celebrating his early release for good behaviour from the imprisonment of Ministry of Community and Social Services. He's saying: "Praise the Lord, I must have got my statutory remission. My parole board was far better to me than it was to a whole lot of other folks" -- because he got early release. He must have done something right.
We don't have any suggestion here of representation on the board of small business interests, real small business -- not the Frank Stronachs of the world with thousands of non-union, lowly paid, mistreated employees -- legitimate small business, the little people who have been promised the world with this thing and for whom there is going to be nothing but grief.
We don't have any suggestion for even a glimmer of participation on the commission by people from the addiction treatment community, nothing, and one would think again -- you can't deal with section 2 without looking to section 3. Go with me, Chair, subsection 3(3):
"The commission shall exercise its powers and duties in the public interest," number one; two, "and in accordance with the principles of honesty and integrity, and social responsibility."
1400
I find it interesting that the government has to spell out that honesty is a principle and that integrity is a principle. One would have assumed that would be inherent.
But the important phrase there, what I suppose it is -- and I'll speak to that when we get to section 3. I certainly will. Because to make it a statutory requirement that members of the commission be honest I suppose gives you a little room for litigation at least, right? For them to enjoy the principle of integrity would be -- well, if only that had been part of the mandate of Evelyn Dodds we might be in better shape. At least we could litigate to have her removed for having breached the responsibilities. But, you see, that's the problem. It ain't there.
So we've got nobody here representing the non-profit charities community, no requirement that there be somebody here from the francophone community, no requirement that there be any sort of gender parity in it. Don't laugh; don't laugh. I know where you people come from on concepts of equity, and I understand that. That's an ideological thing, it's a religious thing with you.
As a matter of fact, I can also reflect on the appointments that I've witnessed going through that committee, and the number of women who have been removed from, among other things, police services boards, a remarkable number of eminently qualified women, and replaced with "good old boys." Real good old boys. We have an absence here of direction in guideline that should be of concern to all the members of the committee.
I digressed there for a minute because I spoke, of course, about gender equity. Again, I understand where Tory members are coming on the concept of equity: they don't believe in it. Fair enough. But nobody from small business, nobody from the non-profit charitable community, nobody from the treatment research community. Why, Dr Room would be, for you guys, an excellent candidate. He's been whipped into shape. It's like Gadhafi in Libya and his little green book. If you're going to be a good Libyan and if you're going to enjoy the largess of the Gadhafi regime, by God, you rehearse that little green book and you recite the mantra when called upon to recite it. Bingo, like that.
Now, here's Dr Room abandoning a position long held, and a position still held by other Addiction Research Foundation officers, and Dr Room, for the price he's paid -- now, mind you, at this point he may not survive the integrity test -- but for the price he's paid, one would think this government would be eager to say, "We're going to have people from the addictions research community, even if there are people who are going to be inclined to support our view of the world rather than many others' view of the world." There you go. Nobody from the affected communities in terms of other industries.
You heard, Chair, from the bingo industry. Again you heard -- as I indicated in speaking to an earlier portion of this bill -- that in some cases can be a very profitable industry and in other cases enjoy much more modest profits, but none the less one of the problems -- I was going to say one that is undeniably going to be impacted -- is the failure of this committee to want to address its mind to the contradictions. On the one hand, the break-open people are told, "Don't worry, slots are not going to impact on your break-open revenue." Well, fair enough. But on the other hand we're told, "Don't worry, slots are not going to increase the amount of money gambled." You can't have it both ways. That's called sucking and blowing. You can't have it both ways. If they are going to impact, then they have to be taken into consideration. If they're not going to impact, it implies there's going to be a whole lot more money gambled away here in the province of Ontario.
The committee's been disinclined to want to address that contradiction. Some committee members are disinclined to want to look at the whole picture; disinclined to concede anything.
We're up to the point of beyond small business people now. We're up to the affected or related gaming industries in the province: bingo, break-open. The number, as I recall off the top of my head just from memory, was $1.3 billion in break-open tickets sold annually. Clearly, if there's going to be an impact on it -- and one has to anticipate there's going to be some impact, because what we also heard was that it's a very similar market, right -- you remember that, Chair; I appreciate your understanding that -- for break-opens and for slots: lower income, spending small units of money per play and a similar sort of game, which requires absolutely no skill, and there's no component of skill in either one, and one which lures not the gambler, not the game player, not the card player or the person who knows odds in a crap game or even, I suppose, at a roulette wheel or at a 21 or blackjack table, but somebody who can be lured very quickly into this insidious racket. So nobody from those industries.
I would have loved to have had Mr Flaherty, even in the most modest or cursory of ways, give us something, a ray of hope, that would make it unnecessary for us to be so concerned about the silence in section 2 -- that's what we're talking about, section 2 of this bill, Bill 75 -- when it comes to the structure of the boards.
Once again, I'm really concerned, because Normie Sterling, the previous minister, says the government needs the cash. He said that in the Toronto Star, August 7, 1996. He says we need it to pay off our debt. Okay? Normie Sterling says we need it to pay off our debt. Well, these clowns are going to borrow -- what is it? -- $20 billion more over the course of the next four years than they would have had to otherwise to piece off, to grease, their rich, fat friends. They're not using any of the money to pay off the debt; they're using this to provide that tax break. So where in section 2 of this bill do we have any suggestion that people with any economic skills are going to be required to be a part of this commission?
I can move on because there's not only an absence of any comment or even, as I say, a glimmer in that regard, but we move on and we talk about the incredible politics that are going to be involved in identifying locations. I think it's pretty clear that the government is going to end up in partnership with the mob in the course of buying 20,000 slot machines.
I'd be so comforted to know that somebody with a law enforcement background was required to participate in this board process. Lawyers are fine and good as advisers to this commission or any other, as the government does make lawyers available, one way or the other. But I have concern about the absence of law enforcement, because one of the other problems right from day one -- and some of you might recall that there was a query put about the involvement of the Ministry of the Solicitor General. Once again, it was: "I don't know. Beats me. Search me. What are you asking all these questions for? What are you guys asking all these questions for?" That was the attitude: "Jeez, just let us put the slots out there and stop asking questions."
Well, you see, Corporal Tim Kelly from the criminal intelligence unit of the Fredericton Police Force -- and again, Yesterday in Sudbury I congratulated the city of Sudbury and its clerk -- one person, one office -- for having done one hell of a lot more research on this issue than this government had before it embarked on its folly.
Again, a concern that there's nothing in section 2 in terms of the structure of the board to require that there be law enforcement representation on it. Corporal Tim Kelly's report that he prepared for the Cities of New Brunswick Association annual meeting in Saint John, New Brunswick, October 16, 1993, writes this:
"The issue of slot machine, one-armed bandit and poker machine gambling has long been known to be associated with organized crime. In recent years confirmed intelligence reports have linked video lottery gambling and the purchasing of the devices to organized crime." Maybe the government's sorry now they insisted on calling these video lottery machines, because that's exactly what Corporal Tim Kelly calls them. We're talking about the mob here. We're talking about the mob, Chair. "Information has confirmed that the machines were manufactured in the United States by businesses owned by organized crime families then shipped to Canada and sold to crime figures here." You see, this is the link; this is the nexus.
1410
Am I prepared to dispute any of that? No. Am I prepared to dispute? A member of the government caucus, Mr Guzzo, was quite prepared -- and again not inappropriately, not inaccurately -- to link the ownership of the machines, the grey ones, the ones that had the instant capacity, acknowledged, to become illegal machines -- quite prepared to indicate ownership in Quebec and New York state, I presume primarily Buffalo, and to call upon people to draw the conclusion that it was organized crime distributing them through the province. I'm not prepared to dispute that. It's not to say that everybody -- I mean, we had an ex-RCMP officer before the committee yesterday, and I don't think there's any suggestion on any of our parts that he was organized crime, but he also wasn't a big player.
The issue here is that the machines were manufactured in the United States by businesses owned by organized crime families. You don't get into this business without sleeping with the mob.
Mr Guzzo: Why didn't you tell Bob Rae that?
Mr Kormos: That was a warning that was extended by the Windsor police. The Windsor police were capable of identifying organized crime figures appearing in the city of Windsor in relatively short order after the initiation of the discussion about a Windsor casino.
Corporal Kelly goes on, "With due respect" -- and this Corporal Kelly has been around.
Interjection.
Mr Kormos: I understand that, Chair, but we want a full and unfettered discussion here, well within the --
The Chair: I'd like one on topic, Mr Kormos.
Mr Kormos: Well, I'm talking about section 2 of Bill 75. I'm talking about the failure to require that representation on this commission include somebody with law enforcement experience.
Corporal Kelly goes on to say: "With due respect to the provincial government of the day, it is necessary" -- not that I really believe this -- "to report that Mr Brian Steeves, manager of the New Brunswick Lotteries Commission for the province of New Brunswick, has advised that since the proclamation of the New Brunswick Lotteries Act, an extensive investigation is conducted on suppliers of video gambling devices by the Atlantic Lottery Corp. The investigation is directed to ensure there is no criminal element involved in the sale or manufacture of devices utilized in the province of New Brunswick." Then Corporal Kelly goes on to say, "This issue remains topical for police."
You know what that means. He's saying: "Yeah, sure, Brian Steeves. Like, give me a break. Of course you're going to say that because some of the same critics in Atlantic Canada who warned their governments that they were going to end up in bed with organized crime, in partnership with them, just like critics have here, are still there, alive and well. Brian Steeves has got to say `We investigate.'" Do you think organized crime ain't capable of layering corporations and doing all the slick stuff? Of course they are. This is a very sophisticated, big money business.
So that causes me to address section 2 in this manner, the failure there to have any plan or guideline or structure of the people to be appointed to the commission, the board of directors.
The Conservatives don't want to believe it, but we heard or we learned by reading Frisch, by reading Derevensky, by reading Harvard University Medical School's Schaffer, by reading Griffiths and, yes, by reading Gfellner, by reading a variety of other research materials in addition to theirs, that young people are particularly at risk. That causes me concern, and that in itself should cause any caring or thinking person some concern.
But it also cries out, Mr Flaherty, for there to be some sort of plan to make sure the interests of youth are specifically represented on this commission, to indicate that as a policy you're prepared to address and put on record now, in view of the fact that adolescents, as reported by Frisch, appear to have a 17% level of either pathological gambling or a high risk to grow into it, in view of that, in view of the fact that the slots are anti-youth, that they are specifically targeted -- the people who make these machines aren't dummies. I'm not suggesting that they're dummies. They're very, very smart. They're very, very clever. They do their market research.
I know the government has wanted to speak about the statistical average that Gfellner reports of once or twice a week, 30 minutes a pop, 10 bucks a shot. I know they want to talk about that. I'm talking about young people and the failure of section 2, because that's all there is. Once section 2 is passed, it's finished. Forget it. There's no more readdressing it, Chair. If we don't speak to it now, it's never going to get spoken to. If we don't try to convince Mr Flaherty --
Interjection.
Mr Kormos: By God, there's Bert Johnson. I tell you once again, he's got my vote on first and second ballot. It'll be déjà vu all over again. Can't you see it? McLean 2. No, McLean plus: the new and improved. It'll be a good one. I'm looking forward to that. So I'm committing myself right here and now.
But no youth representation when youth are going to be substantial victims of an industry that's very clever, very insidious, that knows that your kids have been apprenticing for the role of addicted gambler on their video games and on their screen machines for the last decade and a half.
It's interesting. The one Toronto-based supplier, remember they talked about joining travel with gambling? They're going to have travel themes. You know, you can pick Hawaii or you can pick Bermuda or you can pick Kenora and you can play the slots and you get some sort of feedback on some sort of travelling theme. I know what the travelling theme when they're speaking to it is all about: "We've got all your money. Now travel on and get lost. Bugger off because you're broke." That's the only travelling you're going to get out of slot machine suppliers.
But these people are on to something, and they're on to something that's incredibly addictive. No representation, Mr Flaherty, and no suggestion of even a policy to ensure that youth, which has a vital interest in this scheme of yours -- they're going to be victimized.
Is that why you chuckled when I talked about gender parity, gender equity, in view of the fact that the data shows that slot machines are, oh, so democratic, if you will? They seduce women gamblers in a way that virtually no other intense gambling game can. The rate of addiction was approximately the same, 9.1% and 9.3%, for women and men; somewhat disparate from rates of addiction to other less insidious forms of gambling.
1420
What have we covered so far? We've covered small business. We've covered charitable, non-profit interests. We talked about the bingo industry. I believe we referred to the Nevada break-open ticket industry. We haven't talked about the coin-operated-machine owners. Remember the report -- all hell broke lose. It went out on the wires this morning, a professor from Osgoode Hall Law School, Professor Young, and his analysis that this government's in deep water. They're about to violate the Criminal Code of Canada. People are going to go to jail. I'll look forward to it. We'll see how they like those boot camps when they're being booted around.
We are left here. We're being asked -- and I know Mr Crozier wants to speak to us.
The Chair: Mr Kennedy and Mr Crozier and Mr Flaherty.
Mr Kormos: My apologies to all three.
The Chair: I just wanted you to include them all.
Mr Kormos: I'd like to hear from some of the Tory members too. I'd like to hear from them. I'd like to know where they stand. I'd like their communities to be able to read something concrete.
Mr Ron Johnson: If you'd put a sock in it, we'd have a chance.
Mr Kormos: I like their communities. Mr Boushy might have been preoccupied or previously committed, but I would have liked for Sarnians --
The Chair: You're getting off course, Mr Kormos, and Mr Boushy is not here to defend himself in any event.
Mr Kormos: I indicated that he wasn't at the committee. I'm not criticizing him for it by any way, shape or means, but I know the people in Sarnia would really like to know where he stands. I know Mr Boushy in Sarnia is well regarded as somebody who upholds traditional values and he certainly wants to present himself in that manner.
I was distracted by one of the government members. I had to back up a little bit, and if I repeated myself, I apologize. I know I was in the process of indicating or acknowledging that there are other people who want to speak, and I suppose I will defer to them in short order, knowing that I again can speak to what they've spoken to and comment on their comments.
The Chair: You certainly can.
Mr Kormos: I am troubled at the comments of Larry Moodie, who is a detective with the OPP anti-rackets division. I think there are only 11 staff there. There are only 11 police officers in anti-rackets, but here's a government that says it wants to put illegal slots out of business. Horsefeathers. Larry Moodie was one of the many sources, obviously, who estimate there are about 20,000 of these grey machines throughout the province. What is Larry Moodie saying? He knows his business. He says legalizing video gambling is not going to eliminate the illegal machines. Of the whole anti-rackets squad, there are only four cops assigned to investigate illegal gambling in all of Ontario. Give me a break. That's nuts. This government is not being straight with the people of Ontario at all.
When I have the parliamentary assistant here telling me -- again, I have to accept in good faith. Am I suggesting that he supported the nomination of that wacko Evelyn Dodds to the Social Assistance Review Board? Of course not. As a matter of fact, I suspect that he, in his heart, said, "Surely there's some other place where you can put her where she won't destroy people's lives, where we don't give her the tools, the mechanisms to hurt the most vulnerable." I'm not suggesting that Mr Flaherty has any personal responsibility for a person like Evelyn Dodds at the Social Assistance Review Board.
Not only do we have Larry Moodie, but the police in Alberta say that the introduction of VLTs, slots, what have you, did not eliminate the presence of grey machines, the illegals. That was the Alberta experience. It comes from the police. The police are, at the end of the day, disinterested. One way or the other, they can leave it or take it. You tell them what the law is and they'll enforce it -- if they have the tools, if they have the resources, if they're not forced into lying to victims of crime about the fact that their break-and-enter is being investigated when in fact the file is sitting there, as police officers have publicly stated in Niagara region with respect to the Niagara Regional Police Services.
I don't want to appear to be hogging the time. What I'm about to address with respect to section 2 may well be dealt with by Mr Kennedy or Mr Crozier, or indeed Mr Flaherty, so indicating, sir, that I have more to say about section 2, but acknowledging that one of those three spokespersons, speakers, might well end up addressing the issues I intend to address -- and then I won't have to, which will save us time -- I will defer to one of those three on your speakers' list now, and I hope they address what I plan to address. That way I won't have to address it after they've spoken and we can save ourselves a whole chunk of time.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Kormos. I hope you stay to hear from Mr Kennedy at this time, so you'll know what he does address.
Mr Kennedy: I think it is time for the people on this committee to wake up to the fact that this is the section, the enabling part of the legislation, which is the last chance for elected politicians to exercise any responsibility over this legislation. The government has chosen to give away a tremendous number of powers to an unelected body. What that body is composed of and how well it reflects the concerns that we've heard over the last three weeks has to be reflected in what we decide to do today.
There was no consultation with the police, according to the minister; there are tremendous concerns out there on the part of the people we heard from and on the part of people certainly in my constituency. In fact, you did hear from one of them, from the community police liaison committee that comes out of the city of York and covers the York South constituency. It's a group of citizens who are getting together trying to deal with the exigencies right now of a new type of crime that's happening. They have advice from the police, which I reported here, from Mr Gottschalk of the morality squad that they don't want video slot machines. Mr Gottschalk reflected the comments of Julian Fantino in London, who doesn't want to have these machines. You're foisting these new responsibilities on the police and there is no one reflected in the makeup of the committee or in the responsibility that we're letting go of; I think people out there need to know we're kicking off this responsibility.
There have been tremendous concerns raised. I heard some of them from the comments of the people opposite that reflected some concern for that, yet where are the amendments that show that? Where are the amendments to say that politicians want to have some influence over how this whole new experiment for the province goes forward? Because unless other amendments are agreed to than the ones that are on the table right now, we're going to give this commission powers to do everything. At this point, at this juncture in the legislation is where we can start to look after the public interest. People are going to want to know, when the VLTs are out there in their neighbourhoods, whether the members of this committee stood up for their interests.
Mr Ron Johnson: On a point of order, Mr Chair: Just to clarify the record, Mr Kennedy has been alluding that somehow none of the amendments put forward has been agreed to. In fact, that's not the case; none of them has even been voted on yet.
The Chair: That's not a point of order, Mr Johnson.
1430
Mr Kennedy: Because I know Mr Johnson is paying close attention to these hearings, I would like to make sure that my point is as understood as the other things that he's been carefully listening to. We have a chance in these various amendments and with this particular section 2, the definitions contained in it. The amendments that have been proposed, which have not been passed yet, from the government side do not reflect the kinds of things we've heard out there in the community, and particularly they do not reflect the substantive imbalance of this bill, which we've been told from sources as diverse as York University law professors -- we've heard, although they weren't able to get on the hearing agenda, from police forces their substantial concern about where this legislation is going and that the government hasn't done its homework. We heard earlier that the government, for cosmetic reasons, is calling this an alcohol gaming commission. They could call it an ethanol gaming commission, because that's what they should have called it in French to match, instead of liquor.
It's time for some straighter talk from all members of that side. What we're looking for is the composition of this committee. This is the chance where, if you're going to kick away your responsibility as elected representatives, when we get through the latter parts of this bill we'll see just how much responsibility you're saying you don't want, you can't exercise on the part of the committee. The minister will be given tremendous power to define where this commission is headed.
Instead, I think what we really have to do is address not only what we're heard, but our own sensibilities. If people are going to have some trust in this creation of yours -- this is going to be a Harris government creation -- 20,000 slot machines, hard gambling in people's neighbourhoods, if you want to address the responsibility, then attend to that. Your government, your caucus, the Premier's office -- somebody has made the decision that they need this money, but there's still a public interest to be defended here, and that public interest has to be reflected in this legislation and should be reflected in the composition of the commission under subsection (2).
What I would like to propose is an amendment that would reflect some of that public interest. It's very important that if we're listening to people like the Ontario Public Health Association and some of the others, we indeed look at the public interest in terms of how the protection is built into legislation. So I would like to propose --
The Chair: Excuse me, Mr Kennedy. I believe the proper procedure is to write out your amendment and permit the legislative counsel to vet it and return it to you.
Mr Kennedy: All right. I have it here.
The Chair: Okay, if you could do that, let him see it, because we don't have it in front of us. Perhaps Mr Crozier could take over from you and you could come back to it, at least once counsel has taken a look at it.
Mr Bert Johnson: -- running for leader.
Mr Crozier: Well, there are a lot of others who wish that too. You know, I'd like to be leader of the party, Mr Johnson, because if it were to come to legislation like this, then I guess, like the Premier's office has done, I'd be able to be dictatorial; I'd be able to come up to the budget time and have said for a year or more before how much I didn't need the money, how much we didn't need gambling revenue, how we had a spending problem rather than a revenue problem; tell the people of Ontario that, then simply flip-flop -- it seems to me I heard the term "flip-flop" a year or so ago -- and I'd be able to look back on the record of this Premier as having flip-flopped on this issue. But as leader of my party, then I would be able to bring into the discussion whether we should have VLTs.
I suppose if I were an honest person, a forthright person, I would have put it up front and said, if I were leader, that I would want to have VLTs. Yes, if I were leader I'd be able to look back and take a lesson from that. But Mr Harris chose to simply not tell us a year ago that he was in favour or to tell us what he did and really be forthright with us or, as I suspect happened this spring, have some of those inner circle guys come along and say: "Mr Premier, you've got to have this money. You've made some promises. You've made this big tax cut promise and you're going to go out and borrow $20 billion or so. You're going to have to change your mind on these things. We need money."
Anyway, I'm not running for leader, but thanks very much for your endorsement, Mr Johnson. I appreciate that.
I would like to express my concern under section 2 and then perhaps the parliamentary assistant can help me. Under subsection (6) it says, "The Lieutenant Governor in Council shall designate one of the members as chair of the board and may designate one or more members a vice-chairs." Then it briefly outlines the duty and goes on, in subsection (8), to say, "If the chair is absent or otherwise unavailable to act or if the office of chair is vacant, a vice-chair shall act as and have all the powers of the chair."
My concern is, what if in this commission that's going to be constituted -- and it may be a minimum of five; it may be 125 for all we know -- the vice-chair or vice-chairs the Lieutenant Governor in Council has seen fit to appoint aren't there? Does the commission become inoperational then? There's no provision here that if the chair and the vice-chairs aren't available, any kind of an interim vice-chair could be appointed to preside over a meeting. Can someone help me? What happens if those appointed positions are not present? Can they simply not hold a meeting then?
Mr Flaherty: Are you asking me that question?
Mr Crozier: I'm asking whoever might help me. If you might help me, Mr Flaherty, I'd appreciate it.
Mr Flaherty: On that specific point: The situation that I gather you're envisaging is that there is a board and there is a chair but the chair is incapacitated in some way and can't be at a meeting. The answer, I suppose, is that he appoints a vice-chair.
Mr Crozier: It says here, "If the chair is absent or otherwise unavailable to act or if the office of the chair is vacant, a vice-chair shall act as and have all the powers of the chair." If the vice-chair that the Lieutenant Governor in Council -- I don't know, maybe it's simply that that person can't make it to the meeting. I'm thinking back to when we were on town council, where it didn't matter whether the mayor was there, the reeve was there, who was there; council, at its meeting, could designate a chair. I just wondered why that kind of option isn't in this legislation.
The Chair: Excuse me, Mr Crozier. Subsection (6) permits one or more vice-chairs.
Mr Crozier: Yes, for the Lieutenant Governor in Council to appoint, but let's for argument say he only appoints one and the chair and the vice-chair aren't available. Does the board become kind of dormant until --
Ms Kirk: Perhaps I can respond to that. You'll note, Mr Crozier, as you quite properly pointed out, that in subsection (6) it is mandatory that a chair be appointed by the Lieutenant Governor in Council. Provision for appointment of a vice-chair is permissive for the Lieutenant Governor in Council. I think the expectation would be that the Lieutenant Governor in Council will indeed appoint a vice-chair, but in the event that didn't happen and the committee found itself with its chair unavailable, the committee would have authority under Robert's Rules of Order and under normal procedural principles to appoint somebody to preside over the meeting.
Mr Crozier: I referred to my experience on council. It would be similar to that?
Ms Kirk: Exactly, very much.
Mr Crozier: I appreciate that. I feel much more relieved now that they would be able to continue.
The Chair: Have we the amendment in proper form?
Clerk of the Committee: It's being copied.
The Chair: We'll go to Mr Flaherty and we'll come back to Mr Kennedy and Mr Kormos.
Mr Flaherty: If I may just elaborate on my previous response to Mr Kormos, since Mr Kormos has raised a number of points in the course of his observations here this afternoon with respect to the legislation before us, Bill 75, and the appointment of the board, I think that Mr Kormos can take some comfort in the fact that his government, in Bill 8, the casino bill, outlined the formation of the board in the same way; that is, that the members shall be appointed for a term by the Lieutenant Governor and that there will be not fewer than five appointed by the Lieutenant Governor in Council. So the same principle is followed in this legislation as was followed in the legislation of Mr Kormos's government.
1440
With respect to the approval of appointments, I believe Mr Kormos may be a member of the standing committee on government agencies, but he's familiar with standing order 106 which deals with the review of appointments by that standing committee of this Legislature. I can assure Mr Kormos that the government is committed to a balanced board and I think he would expect and could assume reasonably that the government makes every effort to represent the communities of Ontario on the boards, with the result that we would have balanced boards. As he knows, our government has made a number of appointments. I know he's unappreciative of the appointment of Ms Dodds, but I'm sure he's appreciative of the appointment of Bob Rae to the constitutional panel. Are you?
I think that addresses the concerns Mr Kormos has about the composition of the board of the Alcohol and Gaming Commission.
The Chair: Mr Kennedy, we're waiting for the copies?
Mr Kennedy: We're waiting for the copy for everyone to have.
The Chair: Did you wish to proceed?
Mr Kennedy: I think I can proceed to elaborate a little bit.
The Chair: Okay. Please do.
Mr Kennedy: What I'm asking in the amendment that you'll have before you very shortly is a very simple thing. In fact, it's not put forward with anything but the spirit of what I think we heard in terms of presentations, but not even asking you to concede the points which many members opposite found hard to accept from some of the people who came forward. It simply says, very minimally, look, we don't know exactly what the consequences of this will be. There are strong indications -- and I guess there are divisions between what we believe those indications are and what the side opposite is prepared to admit. But notwithstanding that difference, if this government would wish to show good faith in terms of its protection of the public interest, then it would put at least a representative on the board who would have expertise in terms of public health or in terms of charitable organizations, because those are the two sectors that are at least potentially at risk.
I have to state my own opinion, hardened over the time of the deputations we've heard and the research that we've done, that there are indeed risks to public health and to the wellbeing of charitable organizations in this province from the nature of this bill, the way it's been drafted and the intent of how it's been brought forward. But I think it's within the purview of this committee to alleviate some of those concerns by ensuring that the composition of the commission includes that interest, because there is nothing in the appointments process that will permit that interest to get represented. It's not a basis, unless we make it so, for rejecting or for selecting the people who would sit on this commission.
This is a new definition that we're putting forward to the public. This Alcohol and Gaming Commission is really something different. If you on the government side wish for it to be received as an effort made in good faith, then this is the type of provision that would lend itself to the public receiving it in good faith.
I don't know if we have the written motion yet, but I'll be putting forward a motion to that effect and looking for your support. As I say, it's been termed in fairly minimalist types of provisions. We're asking for one member, one of five. The rest can be Ms Dodds or her cousins; it doesn't matter. I think that the point here is there needs to be some sense of both that we've responded and we've listened to the people we've heard and the concerns that they've had and also that there is some ongoing mechanism which -- again, once this legislation and particularly these clauses have been passed -- won't be able to be enabled by this committee. I think not to at least address the composition of the committee in some tangible way really undermines what we've heard in the past three weeks, because this is clearly where the responsibility is going.
I'm hopeful that there'll be other amendments that may find the confidence of this committee that would limit some of that risk, but this is the only juncture at which we can deal with it in terms of making sure that some of the community concerns are reflected. I think that there is no other means by which you can show, and I mean this to all members of the committee, that we've been listening and we have those kinds of concerns at heart.
Mr Chair, I don't know what you would like to do in the interim, but --
The Chair: I believe we have to have those copies so at least we can read them. Perhaps we can go to another speaker and come back to you at the time the copies are ready. Mr Kormos, you were next on the list, if you wish to speak.
Mr Kormos: With respect to the motion, I wonder if Mr Kennedy could read his motion to us again. I'll make notes this time.
The Chair: It's just being copied, Mr Kormos. I would prefer that each member of the committee had it before them so they could give it due deliberation. I think that's important.
Mr Kormos: Okay. But just for your guidance, please, is that motion on the floor now that Mr Kennedy moved?
The Chair: No. He's never made it because it --
Mr Kennedy: It hasn't been made because it was being worded to the concurrence of the legal advice from the legislative counsel.
The Chair: We don't have the exact wording and we need the exact wording. We can't approve a motion in principle, I do not believe.
Mr Crozier: Mr Chair, I could save some time here because there was something I wanted to put on the record. It won't be contentious or anything. I'm not even going to make it a friendly amendment, although it is in the same context. When Mr Kormos was discussing various groups that should be represented on this commission, I thought back to when the Ontario clean and sober foundation came before us, several young people. I just put this on the record so it might be advice for the Premier's office that when it comes to these appointments, there maybe should be someone of the calibre of the young people who came to us from the clean and sober foundation. I was very much impressed by their presentation and it falls in line with what's being spoken about here.
I might be able to help clarify, because I specifically took notes with regard to a subject that Mr Kormos brought up, and that was the fact that early on, in fact he said in the first day -- we discussed whether the Solicitor General's office and the Consumer and Commercial Relations ministry had any discussion with regard to illegal gambling in Ontario, and the words I copied at that time were that no work was being undertaken between the Solicitor General's office and CCR.
I found that a bit surprising, in fact almost shocking, at the time and I made a note of it. I didn't just want to make a mental note; I wanted to make a written note of it. I couldn't believe that Consumer and Commercial Relations would go ahead with a bill as encompassing and as volatile as this and apparently not have the slightest idea what the Solicitor General felt about it, how they felt.
We can recall the day that Minister Palladini was going to increase the speed limit on the highways and it sure didn't take the Solicitor General long to straighten him up. If you recall, it was the next day in the Legislature that he backed away from that. I almost would have thought the Solicitor General would have stepped in on something like this, and I thought I'd clear that up, because we both made note of that.
The Chair: All members should have received Mr Kennedy's motion. Perhaps you'd better read it specifically into the record, if you would, Mr Kennedy.
Mr Kennedy: This is the motion, the goodwill amendment, I think, that would start to shape this bill in the public interest, if there is a way to do that. Certainly I believe it represents a small gesture on the part of this committee towards the submissions and the anxiety that we heard expressed by the community.
I move that subsection 2(2) of the schedule to the bill be struck out and the following substituted:
"Board of directors
"(2) The commission shall have a board of directors consisting of the members appointed under subsection (3), one of whom shall have expertise in the field of public health or charitable organizations."
The Chair: The motion has been made. We shall now have discussion in regard to the motion.
Mr Kormos: I want to move an amendment to that motion. The amendment that I move, and I have it written out here, is that the motion is amended by adding: "And another who shall have experience in law enforcement, and another who shall have a relationship with the small business community, and another who shall be under the age of 25."
I'm tabling that with you now and I know Mr Kennedy doesn't accept that as a friendly amendment because it contradicts the spirit, and I appreciate that and it's no offence meant to him, but I do move that amendment and trust it will be debated and moved on in due course, and then we'll deal with the motion of Mr Kennedy, either as amended or not amended. No disrespect to you, Mr Kennedy.
Mr Kennedy: None taken.
The Chair: Mr Kormos has made -- excuse me, is my understanding correct that this is not an amendment you would agree to, Mr Kennedy?
Mr Kennedy: No, I wouldn't consider it a friendly amendment.
The Chair: Fine. I just wanted to clarify that. The motion has been read -- did you read this exact motion into the record, Mr Kormos?
Mr Kormos: I've underlined the amendment. I've prepared a draft there, Chair. As you can see, I've underlined, as is the norm, the amending portion of it.
The Chair: Well, again, perhaps we could have -- no reflection on your legal skills in drafting the amendment but we'll have legislative counsel vet it for us, Mr Kormos.
Mr Kormos: Thank you, Chair, I'd appreciate that.
The Chair: There'll have to be copies made. Perhaps we can recess for five minutes. Would that be suitable?
Mr Kormos: Thank you, Chair.
The committee recessed from 1452 to 1502.
The Chair: If we may proceed, Mr Kormos, everyone has a copy, but I would ask you to formally read your amendment of Mr Kennedy's proposed amendment into the record. I appreciate it.
Mr Kormos: That Mr Kennedy's motion is amended by adding "one of whom shall have expertise in law enforcement," -- and that's an exegetical comma -- "who shall have a relationship with the small business community, and shall be under the age of 25." That's reflecting three additional people in addition to the person that --
Mr Ron Johnson: "Under the age of 25." You don't want to put a bottom number in there?
Interjections.
Mr Kormos: "One of whom." These all stand alone.
The Chair: Are there any questions, comments or amendments to Mr Kormos's amendment?
Mr Kormos: Again, I appreciate what Mr Kennedy did, and I thank him for his motion, but with respect, his amendment simply isn't comprehensive enough. I know that the Tory convention begins tomorrow, but I'm not sure that any of these Tories are good enough Tories to want to go to their federal convention. They'll be at the federal Reform convention. It's not as if they're missing out on Winnipeg, because we know that basically they're Reformers, not Tories. Heck, I couldn't imagine not participating in all levels of my party's activities.
Mr Ron Johnson: Will you speak to the motion?
Mr Kormos: Certainly I belong to one political party. We've got people across the way here who belong to at least two, and Lord knows how many secret societies, because if they weren't secret, we would know.
Mr Guzzo: Like the law society. You remember when you belonged to the law society. They're nice guys.
Mr Kormos: I think it's important to add these characters, these roles, to this list of people who should be on this board, because it's important that there be a broad representation, that there be a minimal representation of groups that have a particular interest. Again, I keep being drawn back to subsection 3(3) of this part, and that is the requirement for the powers and duties to be exercised "in the public interest and in accordance with the principles of honesty and integrity, and social responsibility."
It's grossly unfair to a board that's being proposed to call on it to represent the public interest without equipping it with a broad enough cross-section of the public so that it can do that. I suppose one of the difficulties -- and I'll concede this -- about my amendment to Mr Kennedy's amendment is, is it exhaustive? Of course not. One could think of half a dozen -- and I'm not going to move another amendment to that effect -- other areas of the public that ought to be directly represented on the commission's board.
It does highlight some of the areas of greatest concern. There's an inescapable field of view or school of thought that once you get involved in this business you're dealing with organized crime. We had the opportunity to speak to authorities in three other gaming jurisdictions, one being Atlantic Canada, another being Quebec and the third being Alberta. I'm not suggesting that any of those people would knowingly or willingly invite organized crime into their province. At the same time, one knows undeniably that organized crime is attracted to slot machines like flies to a cowflop. There are just no two ways about it. I think that the presence of somebody with law enforcement background -- again, as you know, I've been particularly impressed by the report prepared in Fredericton --
Mr Bert Johnson: Sergeant Kelly.
Mr Kormos: Corporal -- for the Cities of New Brunswick Association for its 1993 annual meeting in Saint John, New Brunswick, October 16, 1993, by Corporal Tim Kelly of the criminal intelligence unit of the Fredericton Police Force. We're not talking about someone who just has passing or casual familiarity with it. This Corporal Kelly was 10 years in major crime investigation and he's a part of the criminal intelligence unit.
I have some familiarity with these units, and they, as I understand it, deal provincially, nationally and internationally. I know some other members of the committee will be familiar with that. It's quite tedious work, in so far as I've been advised, because it deals with a lot of simple information trading or transferring and storing, but in the course of doing that they can put puzzles together and create bigger pictures that wouldn't be available had they not worked together.
Here is Corporal Kelly, clearly acknowledged for his expertise by the Cities of New Brunswick Association, giving us some pretty strong evidence, pretty strong commentary -- not based on speculation but based on hard police work and confirmed reports.
1510
I have enough concern about organized crime making any more headway into this community -- our society, our province, the community of our province -- that I want to make sure -- and had Mr Flaherty been able to tell us that there was even the slightest guideline that would have guided the Lieutenant Governor in Council, the cabinet, to indicate to them that there should be representation of these various facets of the public, I wouldn't have felt compelled to amend Mr Kennedy's amendment. Indeed, I may not even have supported Mr Kennedy's amendment, because I would have thought Mr Kennedy would be being duplicitous and simply engaged in wasting everybody's time here --
The Chair: Never.
Mr Kormos: -- in trying to prolong what could be, perhaps should be, a relatively speedy process. But I don't think his amendment goes far enough.
Again, Mr Flaherty could have resolved this. I feel badly about the committee's time being expended in this way. Mr Flaherty could have addressed this some time ago today and alleviated any need whatsoever for these amendments to be brought or for these concerns to be developed, to be built on, to be argued, if you will.
We're still stuck with the proposition that this could conceivably be a five-person board. If Mr Flaherty had only been able to tell us -- but he doesn't know. He just shrugged, "I don't know." If only he'd been able to tell us that there was some sort of design or model contemplated for there being a cross-section so that the board would be armed, tooled, capacitated to comply with subsection 3(3), with the rigid requirements there, we'd be moving ahead. He had an hour and a half at lunch time to determine, and I'm confident he did.
I saw Rob Sampson as parliamentary assistant do one crackerjack job in greasing up auto insurance and sliding it through the Legislature and the reward that he got. I'm confident that Mr Flaherty, notwithstanding that he's getting the mushroom treatment from his own ministry, will at the end of the day receive a reward, be rewarded for bringing slots into Ontario. But where angels fear to tread, he comes here again handicapped with an absolute lack of planning, because we're still left with the prospect that this board could consist of only five members. It's all that the bill is prepared to do for us.
Again, I prevail upon the government members to support my amendment to Mr Kennedy's amendment. I don't know whether anybody will move amendments to my amendment to Mr Kennedy's amendment. I suppose it could happen, but I wouldn't see any need for that to happen because, as I say, I've tried to, rather than be exhaustive, merely illustrate some sort -- please, just one of whom shall have expertise in law enforcement.
Look at the next one, and look at how encompassing the second -- these will be requisite positions of the minimum of five, one of whom "shall have a relationship with the small business community." That is so encompassing because it addresses not only those little people who are buying into the argument that this is, as I say, the panacea for all that ails them financially and economically, but it also embraces the little people who are going to be displaced, who are going to be put out of business.
The problem is, Mr Flaherty, that the government produced diddly-squat in terms of any concrete research about the impact of slots -- not a single damn study about the economic impact on affected businesses as a result of cannibalization. Nothing. Not a single study that was realistic.
Part of the marketing of this is the employment, and you saw and heard what Ivan Sack had to say, didn't you, Mr Flaherty? I suggest to you that Ivan Sack is a somewhat detached, although skilled, commentator on this issue -- it's not as if he's a foe of casino gambling or gaming in general -- and he provided a very objective and evenhanded overview of his perspective on Bill 75. Ivan Sack of Canadian Casino News said in response to these claims of all the jobs the slots are going to create, "Horsefeathers" -- pure, unadulterated horsefeathers. He said it just ain't going to happen that way.
Chair, I know you listened carefully when Mr Sack gave his presentation and I know you read his submission after it was filed. You saw what Ivan Sack had to say, that most of the operators that are vying for these slots now already have cashiers, be it the racetrack -- they've got the windows, people making cash, dispensing cash -- or bars and taverns -- again bartenders. Although Mr Sack didn't comment on it directly, I do believe we've heard more than enough to conclude that one of the nice things about these slots is that they're not labour-intensive, they don't create employment. It doesn't take anybody to run them. They're automated -- ka-ching, ka-ching -- once every one and a half seconds you slide the loonie in. Nobody has to be there. You don't even need a changemaker because you've got change machines that'll take your five dollar bills, it'll take your 20 dollar bills. I've got an amendment coming up later, quite frankly, Chair -- you'll notice it's been filed -- that would forbid credit-card-operated machines and also forbid the presence of an ATM or bank machine in any location where slots are out there victimizing people.
But they don't create jobs. As Ivan Sack pointed out, the two locations that are vying most aggressively for them, bars and taverns and racetracks, already have cashiers and/or they have change-making machines. Of course the whole idea of it is you get credits, right? Remember the spin the government gang was trying to put on the fact that you merely get credits, as if to somehow suggest that was an element of protection there for the player? Are you kidding? Bullfeathers again. That's designed to make you simply run off your credits. I'll speak to that a little bit later and make reference to some of the commentary that's been done on that phenomenon when I talk about the amendment -- and I do hope we get to it, sir -- that I've tabled.
Ivan Sack said the jobs that are going to be created are going to be in servicing the machines and the delivery, the repair and so on. Fair enough; I can't dispute that. What's Quebec's experience? What is it? You know darned well what it is: 14,700 machines and how many jobs? Three hundred jobs. For the whole province of Quebec, 300 jobs. Mike Harris promised us 725,000 jobs, and what do we get? Twenty thousand crummy slot machines.
I'm telling you, folks, I'm worried about the prospect of organized crime coming into this province. Mike Harris has already mugged us. It's true. No jobs.
We've got the cannibalizing effect and that's why this amendment to Mr Kennedy's in itself worthwhile amendment seeks to have at least one member of this board that constitutes the commission to have a relationship with the small business community, as I say, because we have several facets of the small business community impacted, affected. One is the industries that are going to be cannibalized, and not a single study, Mr Flaherty, not one, about the impact of slots on what are highly labour-intensive casino operators -- BJ games etc. You heard from a number of them -- highly labour-intensive.
1520
It's no secret why the mob and this government are in this joint venture to create a slot machine regime, and that is because it's a lot of hard, cold cash, highly addictive and requires very little labour to maintain it. They're not advocating letting bars and taverns put blackjack tables in their operations, and bars and taverns haven't cried out for them, because blackjack tables are labour-intensive. A dealer has to be there every minute that the game is being played and the intensity of the work is such that the shifts --
The Chair: You're getting off topic.
Mr Kormos: No, I'm talking about the small business community and I'm talking about the interests of the small business community. Please, sir. I'm illustrating as best I can why this amendment ought to be supported by each and every one of the members of this committee. I understand the Chair's interest and need to keep speakers in line and on topic, but the Chair also -- with certainly no disrespect to you, sir -- has to be careful to not restrict the debate so much for it to lose its context, because while I'm talking about my amendment to Mr Kennedy's amendment, which is a motion amending section 2 of the government's motion, because they've moved section 2, we all have to talk about it in the context of the total bill, Bill 75, and what Bill 75 means. It means slot machines, 20,000 slot machines.
I forgot where I was. Let me back up a little bit. I'm sorry, Chair. You distracted me for just a minute.
We're talking small business people, and you can't avoid talking about them, because they're going to be impacted. We were talking about why it was that it wasn't blackjack tables that were being proposed for bars and taverns as a way for them to get that economic shot in the arm. After all, they say it's just about entertainment. Why isn't it poker tables? Why isn't it roulette wheels? Why, in each and every case, is because each and every one of those gaming activities is labour-intensive because they can't be left unattended and because you're not going to grab a buck a pop every second and a half at those games. There are some time frames within which you play it.
So you see, this isn't about entertainment nor is it about jobs, it's about scooping as much money as quickly as you can out of as many people as you can and inevitably out of the people's pockets who can least afford to pay it, and who deserve far better from you, Mr Flaherty, and from your government, led by Mike Harris, few of whom will be found at the Tory convention this weekend because most of them aren't federal Tories, they're federal Reformers.
We've got concern about the cannibalization of slot machines, of this industry, and don't forget, although Bill 75 is all about 20,000 slots, the Alcohol and Gaming Commission is about all gaming in the province. This is where it's important, imperative, that you have the inclusion of a small business representation, because small business people who are labour-intensive, who are going to be cannibalized, have to be protected against the natural tendency for this commission to have a bent or a bias towards the big cash generator, which is slots, which is the low labour-intensive activity. There's going to be a natural tendency, see, because you're going to pick the people -- the Lieutenant Governor in Council. Oh yes, like Hal Jackman sits down and goes through the list. He might refer the names of -- no, I'm not sure he'd refer any of his family's names because some of them would probably be damn good members of this commission, and I'd refer them myself.
But the fact is that the appointments to this -- and I've witnessed the appointments to district health councils, for instance, by this government. This government has no interest in having district health councils provide unbiased advice that's representative of the community. This government has displaced a whole bunch of good district health council members and replaced them with party hacks who are prepared to follow the party line coming down from Jim Wilson, Mike Harris, Tom Long et al here at Queen's Park. There's going to be a tendency for this commission to show favouritism towards the government's slot regime. The government's slot regime is going to have the capacity and the tendency to consume everything that falls in its pathway. Do you get that, Mr Flaherty?
Please, the small operators are out, they're gone, they're finished. "Cannibalization" is a reasonably good word, because your slot regime is going to chew them up and spit them out. Your legislation doesn't care about what happens to workers in the bingo business. Again, are there conceivably problems in the bingo business? Yes, there may well be. Address them; don't put those people out on the street, because with the prospect of creating no more than 300 jobs in the whole province by virtue of some 20,000 slots, you haven't got a whole lot to offer and you certainly haven't delivered or even come close to delivering on what you promised; 725,000 jobs, my foot.
You're consuming small business here. You're chewing them up and spitting them out. You're placing them under siege, under attack. You might as well just tell them to load up the truck now, take their assets, which will become worthless the minute this bill receives third reading, and haul them off to the dump. The problem is, in the absence of transfer fees from this government to municipalities, dumps are charging user fees, not inappropriately. Lend them the money to pay the user fee at the dump to unload that into the bin.
We haven't received a single study, not a page of reflection or analysis from you or your government on the impact of your proposal for 20,000 slots, on the impact of your deal with the mob, on small business operators in this province. The women and men in the bingo business and their employees, the women and men in the amusement device business, you heard from them in Ottawa.
I'm grateful to you, Chair. These are small business people. That's why I want them to be represented on this board. That's why I've amended Mr Kennedy's amendment, which amends Mr Flaherty's motion, because small business people are going to get the shaft; they're going to get screwed left and right. They're going to be replaced by machines. John Filo, when we were up in Sudbury yesterday, in commenting on the lack of labour involvement, on the fact that this is a non-productive economic activity, talked about the banks' experience with ATMs. Look what's happened in the banking industry: billions and billions of dollars in new profit, tellers and other bank workers being laid off in droves and those who are working still being underpaid and not in any way, shape or form getting their share of the pie.
You heard in Ottawa from Mr Whithead -- was that his name, sir? -- the vending operator, the coin-operators' association. These are people who provide the machines that are in arcades. Again, am I overly gung-ho about the potential that business has? We were down in Fort Erie, talking to the management of the public civic square, which couldn't have been built today. The last government saw fit to invest in the people of Fort Erie and in its future and share some of the burden of building the two arenas: the city hall, the civic centre. The last government saw fit to invest in the people of Fort Erie. The arcade upstairs in that arena, with a dozen machines in it, nets for the town of Fort Erie $1,000 a week. That's what it nets, and that's out of quarter-operated arcade machines, pinball-type things and I suppose some Pac-Man and video games going on.
There are things to be said about that, because that's exactly the phenomenon that makes electronic slots, your slots, all that much more dangerous, especially to young people. But you haven't provided any study, any analysis, even any reflection on the impact of these slots on the operators, the suppliers, the distributors of those machines and the value of their machines once you're in the business, because that's what you're doing: You're going into a joint venture with the mob to put 20,000 slots in every neighbourhood in this province, on every corner of every neighbourhood.
1530
Mr Flaherty: On a point of order, Mr Chair: If I may, I'm willing to suffer the personal accusations by Mr Kormos that I'm a minion and that I'm a lapdog, but to say that the government is in union with the mob or acting in conjunction with the mob I think is unparliamentary, and I'd ask you to instruct him to withdraw.
The Chair: I have asked Mr Kormos in the past to withdraw the partnership. He did say they may be purchasing machines that are produced by companies controlled by the mob, and that's speculation; I wouldn't have the slightest idea. But here he is talking about a partnership directly between members of this government and the mob, whoever they might be, and that is unparliamentary, Mr Kormos. Not only that; you know it's unparliamentary, and yet you're doing it.
Mr Kormos: J. Edgar Hoover denied their existence for a lifetime career.
The Chair: Mr Kormos, I ask you to withdraw it. I've asked you in the past. You insist on cheating. I do not understand why a person of your intelligence has to depend upon pushing the envelope and cheating. You don't have to do that to win.
Mr Kormos: Chair, stop being partisan for a minute. Don't tell me about pushing the envelope. Your government is putting 20,000, trying to get the slot machines out there in every community in this province.
The Chair: I've asked you to withdraw a number of times, and you have refused to.
Mr Kormos: If you'd read the material, you'd learn what police officers have been trying to tell you and others for a long time: that the people in the field who supply the machines are organized crime.
The Chair: I'm taking it you will not withdraw. Will you withdraw that comment, Mr Kormos?
Mr Kormos: When are you going to learn that that's the case, that's the reality?
The Chair: Are you going to withdraw that?
Mr Kormos: Who else are you going to buy them from? Those are the people who build them.
The Chair: I've asked you to withdraw it, Mr Kormos.
Mr Kormos: I respond to you the same way I have in the past.
The Chair: Yes? You persist in that behaviour. Continue.
Mr Kormos: It's the reality. That's what the reports, the studies say. We can't wish it away. No matter how much you want to, you can't wish it away. It would be such an attractive proposition if somehow you could make this sordid business so pristine all of a sudden, so clean, so admirable, so laudable. All the spin-doctoring in the world doesn't change the reality of it. Please, don't shoot the messenger. I'm telling you what police officers have told you and what law enforcement people have been trying to tell you for a damn long time. I'm telling you what researchers have said. You've heard the research referred to, the Vancouver Canadian policy alternatives that Mr Crozier has read into the record. I've referred to that paper myself. You've read this stuff. Do I wish it weren't true? Of course I wish it weren't true. But damn it, it's there. You can't escape it. You can't wish it away.
Interjection: Protect the grey machines. The grey machines are owned by the church groups, Peter, and you're on the side of God.
Mr Kormos: You guys want to get into the business so bad that you're prepared to forge ahead without any precautions. You haven't done a single damn study. You don't care about the small business people who appeared before this committee. You don't care about the bingo operators. You don't care about the vending and pinball operators. You don't care about them. You don't care about the break-open ticket industry.
Look, am I enthusiastic about all these things? Of course not. I've told you that time and time again. One of the problems with Bill 75 is that our experience shows us that you can't turn back the clock; you can't reverse the order of things. Once you establish this new status quo, it only grows and builds from there.
Do I have concerns about the proliferation and attractiveness of even, yes, bingo gaming and the impact it has? You bet your boots I do, but that's part of the problem. It was allowed to reach the level it is now and it's almost impossible, if not impossible, to turn back. You people want to fuel what has become a growing, non-productive part of our society, a parasitic part of our society, the merits of which I tell you -- to argue so-called entertainment, as if it were sort of Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire on screen -- are less than any other form before, and small business is going to get impacted.
You've heard from small-town tavern owners, Ridgetown, others, enthusiastic about these machines, not being told, as this government should be in a position to tell them if they had done studies and if they'd been honest about this proposition in the first place, that small towns can't sustain this type of gambling or gaming economy, that every buck spent in a slot ain't being spent in the shoe store, in the bookstore, in the grocery store, at the department store, what have you, that every buck being pumped into a slot ain't being spent at the local barber or butcher or candlestick maker. It's gone, and those are the bucks being pumped into the slots. You people don't like it when people on the opposition caucus have presented hard data: the profiles of slot players from Atlantic through to western Canada, the fact that they're lower-income people, the fact that there are higher numbers of unemployed.
You took great pleasure in identifying that among break-open ticket players. What did you think? That's what it's all about. It's called being nibbled to death by ducks. You take them a quarter and a buck at a time. People don't like to part with $50 bills, but the psychology of parting with a loonie at a time is far different, and that's what this industry is all about. It trivializes the expenditure.
Small business people are the victims in every way, shape or form. The existing small businesses that are involved in gaming in any number of shapes and forms or in machine entertainment, be it pinballs, what have you, small businesses in communities that are going to have their hearts ripped out of them by the presence of these slots in their downtown bars and taverns where people who have less disposable income than ever before, and most of them for their lives, in view of what's happened over the course of the last couple of decades, less expendable money than ever before, now are going to be prevailed upon to spend that, to hand it over to you. This activity is as productive as a mugging in terms of economic productivity. It simply takes money away from people who can least afford to part with it.
Mr Ron Johnson: Point of order, Mr Chair.
The Chair: Excuse me, Mr Kormos. Mr Johnson.
Mr Ron Johnson: I really don't have any problem listening to Mr Kormos babble --
The Chair: What's your point of order, Mr Johnson?
Mr Ron Johnson: I'm getting there, Mr Chair. I have no problem listening to him babble for hours on end, but I wish he would stick to --
The Chair: What's your point of order?
Mr Ron Johnson: My point of order is that we need to speak to the amendments to the motion. I haven't heard a word of this amendment or anything to that amendment in about 15 minutes. I simply ask that you keep Mr Kormos on topic.
The Chair: That is not a proper point of order. Mr Kormos, please proceed.
Mr Kormos: I am talking about small business people and why it's essential to have a representative from that community on this board.
I think that they're going to be screwed. I appreciate the opportunity to indicate to you that I understand small business. I grew up in a small business culture. My grandparents were small business people when they were immigrants here from eastern Europe because they didn't let people like them work in factories unless they paid the foreman or let him sleep with their wife or daughter. That's how it worked. That's how it worked for people like my grandparents and where they came from, the part of Europe, the part of the world they came from, and for a whole lot of other people too. So you became small business people, and they were. My own parents are small business people, all of my life, and I worked in that family business from when I was old enough to carry a hammer or a wrench, and I've been a small business person in my own right. Again, I don't envy those people who, because of their circumstances, have to rely upon a small business venture as a lifelong means of earning an income. It's tough.
1540
I'm talking about small business, what most small business is in this province. Again, it's not 20 or 30 non-union employees. It's mom-and-pop operations; it's mom-and-poppers. That's what my family, my parents, had. That's the type of small business that I grew up in and worked in as a kid. You don't do it for money; you do it because you've got no choice when you're a kid, but you do it because that's how the business survives. Nobody gets paycheques. That's the way my grandparents did it, and did it with their children. So please, I understand small business. Grandparents, people who couldn't read or write even their own language, never mind English, but who at the end of the day kept food on the table for six children and helped raise a whole lot of grandchildren. But I digress.
The Chair: I compliment your father, but that has nothing to do with the matter before us, Mr Kormos.
Mr Kormos: I want to put this in context. I want to indicate that when I talk about small business --
The Chair: Just try to direct your mind, if possible, towards what we're discussing today.
Mr Kormos: I want to talk about small business people in as realistic a form as possible. I don't want to give the impression that when I talk small business people, I'm talking the way some of the people in this government talk about them, small businesses, again, 20 non-union employees you can push around, shove around at will because they're too afraid to report -- not that there are going to be any employment standards for them to report to in short order. Mr Crozier knows that.
So the small business is going to fall victim to this government's ploy, its partnership, its deal with the devil, its operation of these vulgar little thieves -- not VLTs, vulgar little thieves.
Then move on to the third portion of my amendment to Mr Kennedy's amendment, which of course amends Mr Flaherty's motion to pass section 2 of schedule 1 of Bill 75, An Act to regulate alcohol and gaming in the public interest, to fund charities through the responsible management of video lotteries and to amend certain statutes related to liquor and gaming. The bill is titled as to lend itself to filibuster. I don't know; merely reading the title of that bill can prolong a debate.
The final part of my amendment, which I urge members to consider, and I certainly urge Mr Flaherty -- Mr Flaherty can, with the wink of an eye, whip each and every one of these government members into voting whichever way he wants them to. These government members are here to do as they're told. If you think not, Chair, we just saw how they came to when the whip walked in here. Man, oh man, that attracts attention so fast it will make your head spin.
The third portion of my amendment is addressing the issue of youth and that constituency, because we know that the facet of the community, the segment of the community that is certainly targeted by the slot industry -- targeted, I say, by the slot industry -- is young people. Sad but irrefutable data that I've referred to time and time again -- and again that has brought all sorts of responses from the government and other advocates of the slots -- indicates that there are double-digit levels of problem gambling in the CEGEPs and universities of Montreal, young people. I've said it before, I'll say it again: Frisch's study, Dr Ron Frisch from the University of Windsor, identifies among the adolescents that he's studied a 17% rate almost equally balanced between pathological gambling and high risk to become pathological gamblers.
Slots are highly attractive to young people, especially the electronic slots. These are slots plus. These aren't the machines that we saw, for instance, in the Hull casino. These are machines with far more bells and buzzers; as one would-be manufacturer indicated, the opportunity to provide almost a virtual reality experience. Remember the travel one: "Bugger off. We took your money. Travel on."
Young people are very much the target, I'm convinced, by the manufacturers and designers and marketers of these machines, and there's some rationale for that. It's not an accident. The conclusions reached by Frisch and by Schaffer and by Mark Griffiths at the University of Exeter and others that are reviewed in the Canadian policy paper that's been written on governments addictions to gambling are consistent. It's not one of those perverse conclusions that immediately cause one to say there has to be something wrong with the mode or the manner in which the research took place. It's consistent with what one observes. It's consistent again with the whole style of manufacturing and marketing electronic machinery, electronic games, to young people.
I was concerned as to whether or not I was misrepresenting or misinterpreting the work of Derevensky and of Frisch -- Derevensky at McGill and Frisch at Windsor -- so I called them and spoke with them both at some length and told them what I'd been telling this committee and simply touched base to make sure that my analysis or my interpretation of what I had read by them was accurate. Both of them indicated that their own sense of their own work was consistent with how the opposition -- and again, not just myself but the Liberal Party -- had been presenting it during these hearings.
High-risk generation for addiction to gambling. It's the new narcotic, the new drug, and it's called the crack cocaine of gambling. Not for the purpose of engaging in mere hyperbole because -- once again, let's put it this way. Most people don't ever use cocaine or heroin or marijuana. I suppose a heck of a lot more people use marijuana and hash simply because it's acquired some currency. Most people don't use heroin or cocaine, but we know that heroin, again remarkably so -- but cocaine is sort of the designer drug. It's out there wherever it might happen to be, and if I said it's out there on Yorkville Avenue people would go, "What the hell. Yeah, I'm sure it's out there on Yorkville Avenue and places like that," a whole lot of places. Most people never use it. Many people, perhaps in situational circumstances -- they're in university, maybe it's their circle of friends, maybe it's a New Year's Eve party and they've been drinking -- will use cocaine and they use it once in their lives, or two or three times. Or if it's part of a youth -- because that's what we're talking about, youth, that youthful stage of experimentation. They might use it over a period of time any number of times. But most of the people who use cocaine don't get addicted to it. That's the reality. Both anecdotal and statistical evidence demonstrates that.
The same can't be said about crack cocaine. That's why it's distinguished. That's why there was an uproar. That's why there were shockwaves throughout North America with the advent of crack cocaine, because unlike cocaine, which is addictive but not immediately so, and which again many people have used without developing addictions to it, crack cocaine has a quality to it, if you want to call that a quality, that the modest use of it can generate an addiction. The researchers say the same thing about the slots.
Again, it was only yesterday that we received the report, well prepared, by the city of Sudbury, by the city clerk who had prepared it at the behest of the municipality. He hadn't approved it but he had, I suppose, an anthology of news clippings and also police reports, not general occurrence reports but letters from various chiefs of police and police departments across the country, confirming the highly addictive nature -- it's what the researchers have been telling us too -- the highly addictive nature of slot machine gambling, and especially among young people, and an addictiveness for women that isn't shared by other forms of gaming or gambling.
1550
So I think young people have a strong interest in this. There may well be an argument -- I think there is, quite frankly -- that the horse race people put forward about the challenge for the breeder, for the owner, the entertainment value of watching horses race or being driven. It's ironic. As I understand it, in the horse race industry, unless other people can tell me better, the horse race people teach the horse how to run. There's a way of running for the racetrack. That's one of the things I always found peculiar about horse racing, that here are people teaching the horse how to run. Give me a break. Give the horse a break. In any event, that's what happens. They've got to teach the horse how to run so it can make folks happy at the track. But, again, so be it.
I think young people have a strong interest in the sort of policies that are being developed here, and moving away from the gaming issue for a moment, I say it's about time that young people had some specific role in the alcohol supervisory and regulatory system. Young people are the targets of those bastards, the Labatts and the Molsons primarily, no two ways about it. Their markets are young people. Their targets are young people. Their advertising techniques illustrate that, oh, so vividly. If we for a minute think that Labatt's and Molson's are somehow happy with the person who drinks one beer a week, think again. The person who drinks one beer a week is irrelevant to Labatt's and Molson's. They're a nuisance. They're more expensive to service. If everybody only drank one beer a week, Labatt's and Molson's wouldn't make any money. All the bottling process and returning bottles, you can't make the money back on the guy or gal who drinks one beer a week.
The beer industry, targeted at young people -- as compared to the spirits industry, which does not have a youth target except through their horrid little cooler phenomenon -- knows that to make money it has to sell more beer rather than less and that the person who drinks a case a week is 24 times more profitable, in fact probably even greater than 24 times, than the person who drinks one beer a week. The person who drinks a case a day might not be the longest-living customer, but man, while that person is alive and drinking, there's a profit margin there that would choke a horse.
Mr Bert Johnson: Is this Economics 101?
Mr Kormos: Maybe it's time that we looked at some very fundamental issues here, because there's been, over the course of talking about gaming, an attempt to portray the gaming activity as some sort of modest -- again, Gfellner's statistical portrayal of the average slot machine play is a person who once or twice a week spends approximately 30 minutes at a slot machine, investing $10 each time. Chair, if the slot machine industry had to rely upon that person, upon the average person, the average play, to make money, it would go broke. It's just like the beer industry having to rely upon the person who drinks one or two beers a week to make money. They'd go broke. There ain't no market. There ain't no market in the one or two beers a week or in the $10-a-play, twice-a-week play. There isn't. There's no money in that. The machines are expensive. We were told some $4,000 to $5,000, somewhere in that range, perhaps $3,500 up into the $5,000 range.
So I think the relevance of young people being represented and their interests -- they are very much under attack. They're under attack by the drug peddlers. I believe that. They're under attack by the booze peddlers, by the beer peddlers particularly. They remain under attack by the tobacco industry. Chair, I know, and you know I know and I know you know, both of us know, how addictive tobacco is, how incredibly addictive it is, incredibly addictive, and how treacherous it is in terms of what it does to us individually and collectively.
I heard the Minister of Health, I think it was this morning, on the radio saying to the doctors out there on the east coast that we have to be more concerned about helping communities, about prophylactic approaches to health if we're going to keep the cost of medicare down. So young people are under attack by the tobacco industry as well.
Quite frankly, I supported the last government's tobacco legislation. Interestingly, though, part of me very strongly felt, and continues to, that if alcohol and gaming are to be perceived as dangerous enough to warrant this strong regulatory body -- because that's what you're saying, that's what you're acknowledging. Do you get it? You're acknowledging that alcohol and gaming are sufficiently dangerous as to warrant a level of supervision and regulation that most other commerce isn't subjected to, that most other products aren't subjected to. Recognizing that, it's my hope that if tobacco isn't eradicated, at least it gets put under -- and perhaps some day this will be the alcohol, gaming and tobacco regulation and public protection act. It's a public protection act. You're recognizing the inherent danger, some insidiousness of those activities. The government is recognizing that.
Once again, I don't want to monopolize time. I've spoken to my amendment. I know that others will want to speak to it as well. At least, I hope they will. I hope to hear from some government members exactly what they have to say, and if I've fallen short of the ideal amendment, my apologies. I welcome an amendment to my amendment. If government members feel that I should have included very specifically some of the other categories, that I should make an exhaustive list, I welcome their amendments in that regard, because we can then discuss that and vote on that before we vote on mine.
The Chair: There can only be two amendments to a motion, Mr Kormos, as you're aware.
Mr Kormos: I'm indicating that if there is one to mine, I can understand that, because I may not have pleased everybody with my amendment. I may have disappointed some of the government members who felt that I should have been more exhaustive. But I'll be pleased to respond to those others who address my amendment, whether they support it or not. I acknowledge there could well be criticism and I'll try to take that in good stead.
Mr Toni Skarica (Wentworth North): I'm hoping Mr Kormos stays because I want to direct some of my comments towards him. I'd like to thank you, Mr Kormos, for your kind comments about my prosecuting abilities. However, if I was as smart as you said I was, I wouldn't be here today, I don't think.
When I first started prosecuting, quite frankly, we used to prosecute people who ran casinos and lotteries. In the 1980s that stopped. Governments moved into that area and the prosecutions stopped. The reason the laws were changed was really twofold. One was that governments, federally and provincially, were spending too much money and, in the process, were getting into debt and owing too much money. The reason that occurred was because they were inefficient.
I think these committee hearings -- see, there's Mr Kormos pretending to care about the whole process and now walking out -- but in any event, I think these committee hearings are a pretty good example of how inefficient government is. I've never been in politics before, and after a year of these hearings I can't think of anything more inefficient. Look at today. There are eight or nine of us sitting around, government members, at $80,000 to $90,000 a year. There are two or three opposition members. There are a number of bureaucrats, at the same type of income level or more, and some here as well making $100,000-plus. I can't think of anything more inefficient. Why do this number of people making that kind of money have to be here? Why can't we have a lot fewer people? Why is Mr Kormos permitted to go on for hours and hours, talking nonsense and delaying these proceedings?
1600
Mr Crozier: It's called laws; it's called democracy.
Mr Skarica: In the Supreme Court of Canada, the other part of our democracy that makes laws, lawyers are limited in time as to how much they can speak to make it a more efficient system. The member for the Liberals talked about democracy. The way the committee structure works, let's face it, there are always more government members than opposition members, so what's going to happen is basically a fait accompli. You know it and I know it. Everybody knows it. Don't point your finger at us, because you did it when you were in government and the NDP did it when they were in government. It's too bad that Mr Kormos left, because I was going to refer to his conduct when --
The Chair: We can almost have a vote right now, because he's not here.
Mr Skarica: Does that mean you want me to shut up, because I will.
The Chair: Every member of this committee is welcome to speak.
Mr Skarica: Actually, I have more to say, but if he's not here and we'll go to a vote, I can stop now. No?
The Chair: No, Mr Kennedy is speaking behind you.
Mr Skarica: All right, then I'm going to go for a couple more minutes. He's back, anyway.
Mr Kormos, I'm glad you're back, because I was just referring to the fact that you were filibustering here for hours and hours, and this committee process is most inefficient. Speaking as a taxpayer, I'm quite offended at what I see here today and every day in committees: the incredible waste of taxpayers' money.
For example, yesterday I flew up to Sudbury and told the taxi driver, as I told you, Mr Kormos, that it costs the taxpayers $700 to put me there. I asked the driver, "What would you rather have: spending $700 to put me in this committee that you've never heard of and don't know really what's going on, or have that money in your pocket?" The answer was pretty obvious as to which he wanted.
Mr Kormos, I read some committee hearings. I don't think anybody on the planet has ever read the entire transcripts of lengthy committee hearings, but I read the OTAB hearings when I had to do a review on training. Mr Kormos was the Chair of that committee and he was actually quite a gentleman, very nice to the presenters. But there was the same thing. The NDP was in power at that time. The groups came forward and said, "No, this OTAB's not going to work." All the groups that came forward said it and, true enough --
Mr Crozier: I don't like points of order, but are we on topic?
Mr Skarica: I'll get to it in a minute. Mr Kormos made the point that there's no minister here. There was no minister there in that hearing. There's never any minister there. There was a minister there to give a speech. Yet every time somebody's in opposition they complain about the minister. I recall in those hearings that the opposition parties complained there was no minister there. Now Mr Kormos is doing the same thing.
Finally, Mr Kormos referred to employment equity and the breaking of laws by authorities. This is something that is dear to my heart, because I'm surprised he's not complaining about authorities breaking the laws when it comes to employment equity. One of the great frustrations that I think all politicians have, and you'll have it if you ever get in and the NDP will have it if they ever get in, in the year 3000, will be, what do you do with a burgeoning bureaucracy?
We, in theory, are downsizing the bureaucracy. Given to me recently -- and this relates to the employment equity comments and the breaking of laws by authorities -- this document really alarmed me. It's the Ministry of the Attorney General hiring new people at $16 an hour. This is June 3, 1996, and this appears at the bottom of this job posting, "In accordance with our employment equity goals for this occupation, applications are encouraged from aboriginal people, francophones, persons with disabilities, racial minorities and women." That's illegal. We repealed all that stuff a year ago, yet the bureaucracy is still using that stuff. What's going on here? Which gets me back to the point that these proceedings are irrelevant. The bureaucracy does whatever the hell it seems to want.
The Chair: Mr Skarica, I believe you're getting a little off topic. We're dealing with the amendment.
Mr Skarica: My point is that in my opinion the reason we're here, we're doing VLTs and casinos and so on, is that governments are inefficient and don't seem to be able to curtail their spending. This committee process is an example of how totally inefficient government is.
Mr Kennedy: I'd like to thank Mr Skarica for his contribution, because it is clear that the amendment to the amendment which is in front of us right now is germane to some of the points he's raised. If, in effect, Mr Skarica and other elected officials in this room find it problematic that bureaucracies and other organizations don't respond directly to elected control in the way he would like, if they don't have that sufficient control, then this is a chance to provide it.
Unfortunately, the amendment to the amendment is not one I would support simply because we cannot pack all of the concerns we heard, the very considerable concerns we heard over the last couple of weeks, into this part of the legislation. Instead of trying to provide for every consideration, what we're proposing in the original amendment is general recognition of the kind of trust this bill will be breaking. This bill will be breaking a trust on the part of the public towards the government. It's been strained in other ways by the present administration, but this is one of the more blatant ways in which the public interest is about to be compromised.
What I have suggested in the hierarchy of priorities, certainly what Mr Kormos has suggested, is not out of order completely. Law enforcement is a very significant issue in this bill. There is no question, when you have the head of the criminal intelligence section for the province, the police chief in London, saying, "Don't do VLTs"; when you have the prior minister responsible, the one who introduced this bill, admitting -- we don't know what the present minister's outlook is, but we have to assume that if the prior minister responsible for introducing this bill did not consult any police forces -- none -- law enforcement has to be a consideration in terms of the kinds of implications the operation of the Alcohol and Gaming Commission will have in the future.
There were points that some members of this committee who didn't attend all of the hearings may not have heard, but numerous people from the hospitality industry are hurting because there isn't an economic plan on the part of this government, a plan that would do anything to restore consumer confidence, a plan that would have any kind of expectation developed among consumers. Instead, it's forced this part of the economy -- the hospitality community, the restaurateurs and people with bars and resorts -- to look to a gimmick that has them collect taxes on behalf of the government and dangles that in front of them in return for their support. The kind of support they've given has been fairly vociferous. It's even poignant to hear that this is where they're putting their faith, on these particular machines, which, as has been pointed out in the past, are a symbol for your administration. These are machines that employ no one, produce nothing and prey on vulnerable people, yet you persist.
You persist as well to tell the small business community that somehow it will benefit when in fact this government, in its statements in the budget by Mr Eves, proposes to give 10% of the income to operators compared to other provinces that offer 25%. It proposes to provide one VLT machine for every two licensed facilities. In doing so -- and in reinforcing the need for my original amendment, but acknowledging the concern that is raised by the member of the New Democratic Party -- it is either misleading the hospitality community by saying to them, "We're going to do you something of a benefit," or it's misleading the public. There is no way to reconcile the kind of numbers, the 20,000 machines, most of them already committed to racetracks and charity gaming halls, and any tangible benefit for the restaurateurs, the bar owners and the resort owners of this province.
1610
What do those restaurateurs who came before our committee say to that? Well, they didn't say it very often in committee, but what they say in the hallway is, it's a foot in the door. It's a foot in the door that they're only getting 10%; it's a foot in the door that they may not get very many machines. If that's the intent of this government, then there need to be further protections in this bill, but the protections may have to indeed be on the public's side.
So again, when we look at the kinds of ways the government might configure the commission, how it could make the commission relevantly address the concerns that are out there in the community and how the members of this committee, some of whom have been expressing dissatisfaction, I suppose, with their own government in the sense that they don't feel potent enough in this setting to change these laws -- you're being asked whether you approve of Mr Kormos's approach or the somewhat more reasonable approach that I believe I put forward. You are being asked, you have the opportunity, to express what you heard. If you have concerns, they can be reflected in the legislation. You can make that discussion in your caucus and you can certainly reflect it here today.
There is no excuse, Mr Skarica, no excuse at all for the public interest to be swept aside or for these hearings and these discussions to be meaningless. I can tell you, despite how you may feel from your participation, that they're not completely meaningless, because we're starting to get phone calls from people who are concerned about what your government is doing about VLTs and the continuing spotlight, albeit you might say a little protracted under the experienced dialogue of the member for the New Democratic opposition party -- but that protracted spotlight is starting to raise concerns among people.
That's why it's incumbent on you make changes to this legislation and to do it in a way that reflects your own concerns, albeit as I've heard them, not as strongly held as some of the people who've deputed before the committee, not as strongly held as the people on this side of the committee table. But at the same time, they must be put in the legislation. The only thing that's going to make a mockery out of this, out of the expense, the travel and so on, is if nothing substantive changes in this committee -- and the Chair is quoted in the London Free Press as saying there will be changes. Mr Chair, I appreciate that confidence you put forward to the reporter for the London Free Press based on our hearings in Lambton county, and I encourage the members of this committee to think likewise.
No, we can't cover every concern in this legislation. If we were to do that, we would be proceeding on a much, much different basis, but there are things that we can do to reflect the concerns, and I think substantially. If the government really is, as the former minister freely admitted, wanting to make money, putting aside other considerations because its budget numbers don't add up, if it's now admitting that, then it's all the more reason to tell the public there's some way that their other, now secondary concerns are being swept aside -- the concern that gambling perhaps should not be increased, that hard gambling shouldn't be in neighbourhoods where it's exposed to children, that the kind of foresight that took cigarette machines out of restaurants is now allowing us to believe that gambling machines will go back in.
The Chair: I believe you're getting somewhat off the topic of this particular amendment.
Mr Kennedy: Thank you for the correction, Mr Chair. I want to address each of the points that was raised in the amendment to the amendment, because if you note in the amendment, it advises that we should include somebody under the age of 25, and I have to acknowledge that. While I cannot agree that should be part of the amendment, I have to acknowledge that it is a serious concern.
I think it is important, given that those other categories could viably be represented, that the government side and indeed all members of the committee, while they should reject this amendment as one that is too specific, should support the original amendment in its form because it does at least address where the unarguable effects will be.
There is no question that some of the intent that we've heard, but not the legislation itself, reflects some of the concern for public health, for the impact on addictions. There is no question in the body of evidence that we've heard that public health and addictions are going to be affected. No one on the opposite side can argue that there is no effect and that there won't be an expansion of gambling. Every other province has had it. Forty-two states will not do what you're proposing to do, which is to put these into restaurants and bars.
If it is your intention -- and you may know it already or there may be some openness that is greater than Mr Skarica's on what could happen in the course of these hearings -- but if there is none, then this is the place to at least make a gesture that shows there is no lack of consideration for public health, that you don't not care that charitable organizations could lose some of their wherewithal. Significant numbers of service clubs, of established organizations have told you clearly, and somebody's trying to cite some convenient statement by somebody in Alberta, when we see that it's reduced their revenues by $6 million, when all of those organizations would not have come forward had they not heard from their counterparts in other jurisdictions that they're going to lose out and their charitable activities will lose out so that your government and its plan to provide the tax cut, its fiscal arrangements will gain.
At a minimum then I ask you to have regard for that impact on public health. I would note that the idea that representation be there is supported by the Ontario Public Health Association, so it's not simply a partisan-inclined request at all, and that charitable organizations, which I think you must start to appreciate, are seeing a very strong breach of faith on your part. There's been nothing done by this government to assist the operation of charitable organizations.
In asking you to stick to the original amendment, I'm asking you to at least show the public out there that there is some intersect possible on the part of the concern that can be exhibited by the various parties here, some intersect that says, "We don't agree on everything but we agree on some things," and some activity on the government side that says it's willing at least to budge a little bit. I hope in the course of these hearings, and I obviously hope that we'll see it expressed before this particular amendment is voted on, that there is that possibility, that you haven't given up on your responsibility in terms of what you've heard and what's come forward.
Everybody around this table who's been attending the hearings is more knowledgeable about the impact that this legislation will have, certainly more knowledgeable than the government and the ministry were when they put this forward. We heard many, many instances at the beginning of these hearings where the government did not know -- did not know what it planned to do, did not know what the impacts would be, had not consulted with the police forces, didn't know what level of addictions could exist. This is the chance to correct that.
If there is fiscal urgency, if that's the reason we're rushing this, if that's why we have legislation in front of us that takes these machines into bars and restaurants and doesn't just leave them in the controlled environment of casinos, if you feel you have to do that because the money isn't working out for you, then at least admit that and put in some proper safeguards, because there is nothing in this legislation -- you'll find that out clause by clause as you hear some of the responses and some of the amendments -- to give assurance to the public. It's a wide-open gambling bill in many, many respects. None of the things are itemized that need to be there for protections.
If you want to proceed on that kind of omnibus gambling bill, if you really want to give that kind of arbitrary power to unelected people, at least ensure that the kind of people you're putting in place are those who are trained to recognize where this organization you're setting up is going to go, because it's going to go in uncharted waters. You're taking Ontario down a path that, while it's been explored by other provinces, has never been done on such a large scale. We will have the largest number of video lottery terminals, of electronic slot machines, of any province. We don't know what the impact of that is going to be. Your side has said that very clearly.
What we've seen in other jurisdictions is scary. It's scary to the average person out there, to the people who, as was very well explained to us by a representative of the native women's organization, find themselves needing to look to some of the softer forms of gambling simply to advance their lives, to bring a little bit of quality of life, as she explained, to their children. While we can't condone that as a way of conducting care for family, it is at least the kind of temptation which you're now proposing to put widely in front of people. If you're going to do that, then it behooves you and it behooves us to put forward some measures and some safeguards. You heard often, I think, Mr Kormos say that you didn't care. Well, gentlemen, this is your chance to show that you do.
1620
Mr Crozier: I want to make a few comments relative to what was spoken to before because it raised some concern with me. I appreciate Mr Skarica's frustration. I have shared that on occasion myself. Neither you nor I were here when this came about, but I understand that precedent was set when the now Premier stood in the Legislature -- didn't just filibuster a committee or tie up a committee -- and read the name of every lake, river and stream in the province of Ontario. So certainly we've had those who preceded us give us something to reflect upon.
Secondly, for Mr Skarica or any other member of the government, since they are in control, to say that these meetings, these hearings, the committee activities are irrelevant disturbs me. We can say that because we don't have the hold on the reins. We can kind of bait you. I've said that I'm not a gambling person, but five will get you 10 -- and that still stands, although nobody's taken it yet -- that none of the opposition amendments will be adopted. I still throw that out, but that's okay. We're the opposition and we understand the frustration that goes along with it.
But for you to tell the public that these hearings are irrelevant is rather shocking, because I think, then, you had the obligation to say that before, at the beginning. I think you would have had the obligation not to spend $700 and go to Sudbury if you really felt that to be the case. But for you to sit here now and pontificate on it, I don't understand that. I don't like to give that message to the public. I want the government to give the message to the public that --
The Chair: I corrected Mr Skarica. He was off topic, and I believe you are too.
Mr Crozier: Oh. Did you let him go on a little bit about it, though?
The Chair: I did.
Mr Crozier: Okay. Well, I appreciate that. But I'm disturbed by that; that a government member would say that.
More to the point then, the amendment to the amendment to the main motion that's before us. I suggest that the official way, the appropriate way to put it is that not only is it incumbent upon the Lieutenant Governor in Council to appoint specific representatives from various parts of the public, but we will be moving on to -- I have to refer to it, although I won't debate it -- subsection 3(3), where it says, "The commission shall exercise its powers and duties in the public interest and in accordance with the principles of honesty and integrity, and social responsibility."
If you take that back into this section, not only should we name the representatives of the community at large who should be appointed, but we should make sure that we appoint people who are honest, who have integrity and who have social responsibility. I don't know how we're going to do that because it's hard to legislate those three things, and when we get to subsection 3(3) I may even want to ask the parliamentary assistant and his assistants why you even have that in there. How can we legislate that? I'm giving a little warning that I'd be interested in how we can apply that section. If it is valid, we should apply it here as well; it should go to these appointments not only by name but they should have honesty, integrity and social responsibility.
I would like to be able to name all sections of the public at large who should be represented on a bill like this. Goodness knows, we've heard from enough of them. I hope the views that have been reflected over the past few weeks will be reflected by those who are appointed to this commission. They won't have had the opportunity to listen to the presenters as we have, but in the long run, as we go down the road, I think this commission is going to have to represent all segments of the community.
With those comments I will conclude my remarks on this particular amendment to the amendment to the main motion.
Mr Kormos: I did indicate that I might feel compelled to respond to some of the comments made with respect to my amendment to the amendment to the motion. Although for the largest part I was outside the door giving an interview condemning the government's abandonment of the family support plan and the cutting and slashing it has done to that plan and the shutting down of regional offices and where that leaves children and, as often as not, their mothers, I did hear certainly most of what Mr Skarica had to say. In any event, it's not the first time he has expressed views like that, certainly privately. I don't know whether he has expressed them publicly; I suspect he may well have. Again, I appreciate that we are speaking here to the amendment to the amendment to the motion, which is the motion on section 2, but I must take to heart what Mr Skarica says.
Mr Bert Johnson: A point of order, Mr Chair: I'm sorry, I couldn't hear the member for Welland-Thorold. I didn't hear what he said.
Mr Kormos: I appreciate Mr Skarica's comments. I have had high regard for him for a good chunk of time. I disagree with a whole lot of his political views -- I'm not shocking him or surprising him by saying that -- and I heard his reference to previous governments and I accept that too, because I was as concerned about that when I was here as a member of the government caucus as I am now about the legitimacy of these committees, about the absence of ministers. There's nothing wrong with the proposition of having a parliamentary assistant doing this. One ministry has a dozen different things going on at one time, and that's why PAs make the extra bucks --
Mr Flaherty: Big bucks.
Mr Kormos: Well, a good 12 grand a year plus, in addition to their 78 grand. Mind you, they take the heat too. I'll still never forget -- oh gosh, from Guelph, the parliamentary assistant to Murray Elston. He was forced to lead the charge on the no-fault stuff for the Liberals.
Interjection.
Mr Kormos: No, the parliamentary assistant to Murray Elston. The people who understand the recent politics of this province would know who that was -- a great guy, super guy, a bank manager, and he got his butt kicked in the provincial election -- undeservedly, but after taking the heat -- Mr Flaherty, this is important to hear -- on what ended up being very unpopular no-fault insurance. Murray Elston did just fine, thank you. He cruised back to victory and then to a successful retirement on a pension. His was a timely retirement.
Mr Crozier: Similar to what yours will be.
Mr Kormos: No, his was a timely retirement. He didn't have to turn 55. He was nowhere near.
I hear what Mr Skarica is saying, and he should know. I was critical of that as well, and have been for a good number of years. I know I spoke to some of the Conservative caucus members prior to and during the course of the last election, and we were in concurrence, believe it or not, about the fact that maybe this government was going to do something about the nature of committees, change the model a little bit. I could tell you this: When I served on committees, I voted -- which didn't earn me any kudos in my caucus and eventually reached the point where I wasn't the government representative on any committees, although I attended them frequently using my as-of-right status as a member of the Legislature to attend at and speak on committees, as I did on the casino committee and the government's auto insurance committee etc.
The fault here is the fact that the committee role is akin to a Moscow show trial. The result is predetermined. The fix is in. We know what's going to happen, so what do opposition members do? Surely opposition members have to try to focus as much attention as possible on issues that they have a responsibility to raise. I feel very badly being involved in a committee dealing with this particular topic, in view of the fact that it shouldn't have been a partisan issue. There are serious issues here, serious concerns. It didn't have to be a partisan issue. It wasn't the Tories' issue. They were anti-casino, they were anti-slot. It wasn't as if they'd campaigned on the issue of slot machines and been elected on that basis. They had expressed strong anti-slot views.
What we have to do is, I think, slow this process down. The government members should be going to their whip and House leader's office and saying that things are not going well in the committee. We obviously want to see where the new minister stands on this. We understand that he needs an opportunity to be briefed. I said that this morning. There can be ways of resolving this.
I feel badly because this government, like every other majority government, appears eager to engage in the tyranny of the majority. I've been on both sides of the fence. It doesn't serve the Parliament well; it doesn't serve the people of the province well. I'm grateful to Mr Skarica for his comments, but I'll be even more grateful for some action to accompany the words. I can only say that action may not make you popular with your House leader or with your party leader, but it'll probably go a hell of a lot longer way to getting you re-elected in your riding than following the caucus line all the time.
The Vice-Chair (Mr Ron Johnson): Mr Johnson.
Mr Bert Johnson: No, I'm learning too much listening to them, Mr Chair.
The Vice-Chair: I think I have no other speakers, so we'll call the vote.
Mr Kormos: Mr Chair, recess as per the rules, please.
The Vice-Chair: There'll be a 20-minute recess.
Mr Kormos: Thank you, sir.
The Vice-Chair: We'll reconvene at 4:55.
The committee recessed from 1633 to 1652.
The Vice-Chair: The first thing we're going to do is go to the vote on Mr Kormos's amendment to Mr Kennedy's motion.
Mr Kormos: Recorded vote, please.
Ayes
Crozier, Kormos.
NAYS
Flaherty, Ford, Guzzo, Bert Johnson, Skarica, Stewart.
The Vice-Chair: Mr Kormos's amendment has failed. Now we will vote on the motion by Mr --
Mr Kormos: No, no.
Mr Crozier: I move adjournment, Chair.
The Vice-Chair: So we are moving adjournment?
Mr Crozier: I'd like to move adjournment until 10 am tomorrow.
The Vice-Chair: All those in favour of adjournment until 10 am tomorrow? Carried.
The committee adjourned at 1653.