SAVINGS AND RESTRUCTURING ACT, 1995 / LOI DE 1995 SUR LES ÉCONOMIES ET LA RESTRUCTURATION
UNITED STEELWORKERS OF AMERICA DISTRICT 6 (ONTARIO)
BOARD OF TRADE OF METROPOLITAN TORONTO
ONTARIO SECONDARY SCHOOL TEACHERS' FEDERATION
FEDERATION OF WOMEN TEACHERS' ASSOCIATIONS OF ONTARIO
ONTARIO TEACHERS' FEDERATION / FÉDÉRATION DES ENSEIGNANTES ET DES ENSEIGNANTS DE L'ONTARIO
CANADIAN UNION OF PUBLIC EMPLOYEES ONTARIO DIVISION
ONTARIO HOME BUILDERS' ASSOCIATION
ASSOCIATION OF CONSERVATION AUTHORITIES OF ONTARIO
ONTARIO PUBLIC SERVICE EMPLOYEES UNION, REGION 3
ONTARIO PROFESSIONAL FIRE FIGHTERS' ASSOCIATION
CHINESE CANADIAN NATIONAL COUNCIL
METRO TORONTO CHINESE AND SOUTHEAST ASIAN LEGAL CLINIC
CONTENTS
Tuesday 19 December 1995
Savings and Restructuring Act, 1995, Bill 26, Mr Eves / Loi de 1995 sur les économies
et la restructuration, projet de loi 26, M. Eves
Ontario Mining AssociationPatrick Reid, president
Peter McBride, manager of communications
United Steelworkers of America, District 6 (Ontario) Hugh Mackenzie, research director
City of TorontoKyle Rae, city councillor
Mary Ellen Bench, legal department
Board of Trade of Metropolitan TorontoMichael Lauber, vice-president
Ross Dunsmore, vice-president
Ontario Secondary School Teachers' FederationEarl Manners, president
Federation of Women Teachers' Associations of OntarioSheryl Hoshizaki, president
Citizens for Public Justice
Gerald Vandezande, national affairs director
Jennifer Harris, co-chair
Ontario Teachers' Federation / Fédération des enseignantes et des enseignants de l'Ontario
Ronald Robert, president / président
Pierre Lalonde, acting secretary-treasurer
Ruth Baumann, administrative assistant
Canadian Union of Public Employees, Ontario Division
Sid Ryan, president
Ontario Home Builders' Association
Tom Stricker, president, Greater Toronto Home Builders' Association
Andrew Manahan, director of industrial relations
Association of Conservation Authorities of Ontario
Bob Gray, vice-chair
Jim Anderson, general manager
Chiefs of Ontario
Chief Gordon Peters, Ontario regional chief, Assembly of First Nations
Mike Sherry, legal counsel
Ontario Public Service Employees Union, Region 3
Joan Gates, vice-president
Ontario Professional Fire Fighters' Association
Jim Lee, president
Chinese Canadian National Council; Metro Toronto Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic
Avvy Go, clinic director
Amy Go, chair, national board of directors, Chinese Canadian National Council
Toronto Teachers' Federation
Frances Gladstone, president
EVIDENCE SUBCOMMITTEE
STANDING COMMITTEE ON GENERAL GOVERNMENT
Chair / Président: Maves, Bart (Niagara Falls PC)
Vice-Chair / Vice-Président: Tascona, Joseph N. (Simcoe Centre / -Centre PC)
Flaherty, Jim, (Durham Centre / -Centre PC)
Grandmaître, Bernard (Ottawa East / -Est L)
*Hardeman, Ernie (Oxford PC)
*Maves, Bart (Niagara Falls PC)
Pupatello, Sandra (Windsor-Sandwich L)
*Tascona, Joseph N. (Simcoe Centre / -Centre PC)
Wood, Len (Cochrane North / -Nord ND)
*Young, Terence H. (Halton Centre / -Centre PC)
*In attendance / présents
Substitutions present / Membres remplaçants présents:
Gerretsen, John (Kingston and The Islands / -Kingston et Les Îles PC) for Mrs Pupatello
Phillips, Gerry (Scarborough-Agincourt L) for Mr Grandmaître
Sampson, Rob (Mississauga West / -Ouest PC) for Mr Flaherty
Silipo, Tony (Dovercourt ND) for Mr Wood
Also taking part / Autre participants et participantes:
Cooke, David S. (Windsor-Riverside ND)
Crozier, Bruce (Essex South / -Sud L)
Curling, Alvin (Scarborough North / -Nord L)
Klees, Frank (York-Mackenzie PC)
Newman, Dan (Scarborough Centre / -Centre PC)
Clerk / Greffière: Mellor, Lynn
Staff / Personnel:
Pond, David, research officer, Legislative Research Service
Richmond, Jerry, research officer, Legislative Research Service
The subcommittee met at 0930 in room 151.
SAVINGS AND RESTRUCTURING ACT, 1995 / LOI DE 1995 SUR LES ÉCONOMIES ET LA RESTRUCTURATION
Consideration of Bill 26, An Act to achieve Fiscal Savings and to promote Economic Prosperity through Public Sector Restructuring, Streamlining and Efficiency and to implement other aspects of the Government's Economic Agenda / Projet de loi 26, Loi visant à réaliser des économies budgétaires et à favoriser la prospérité économique par la restructuration, la rationalisation et l'efficience du secteur public et visant à mettre en oeuvre d'autres aspects du programme économique du gouvernement.
The Chair (Mr Bart Maves): Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome back to the standing committee on general government hearings on Bill 26.
Just a housekeeping matter for members of the committee: The Labour Council of Metropolitan Toronto was unable to attend yesterday, but they've provided a written submission, which should be in front of you. If not, we'll get you a copy.
ONTARIO MINING ASSOCIATION
The Chair: This morning we start with members from the OMA, the Ontario Mining Association. Gentlemen, thank you for being here this morning. You have half an hour for a presentation, which you can use as you see fit. We usually encourage you to leave a few minutes at the end of your presentation for responses and questions. I'd appreciate it if you'd start by introducing yourselves for committee members and Hansard.
Mr Patrick Reid: Thank you, Mr Chairman, and thank you for specifying that it's the good OMA, the Ontario Mining Association, as opposed to the other OMA. I'm Patrick Reid, the president of the Ontario Mining Association. With me are Peter McBride, our manager of communications, and James Fisher, our manager of environmental services.
The Ontario Mining Association has 43 members. We represent the producing mines in Ontario, as well as suppliers of equipment and services to the mining industry in Ontario. That includes landscape architects, among other things. Our mission statement is to help improve the competitiveness of the Ontario mining industry to ensure that there are investment and jobs in Ontario.
We have brought with us a publication that we do every two years called the Economic and Fiscal Contribution of the Mining Industry in Ontario, done for us by Ernst and Young. I will table with the clerk four copies, one for each caucus and one for the committee. It will give you some background on the economic and financial contribution of mining. We have mines in all parts of the province, and I believe Mr Crozier has a mine or two in his riding, so I'm sure he'll be particularly interested in these comments.
We will be restricting our comments to part VII of the act or the amendments now entitled Rehabilitation of Mining Lands. We are leaving comment on the other sections to the exploration community, which is more competent to make comment on those particular items. We're not, therefore, going to be discussing the claims and staking aspects of the bill.
We also will be tabling a more in-depth study on clause-by-clause later on with the committee. We won't be getting into that kind of detail here today.
The Ontario Mining Association believes that the changes contemplated in these amendments will improve the investment climate for mining in Ontario. We believe that certain initiatives in these amendments will improve the atmosphere in regard to mining, and we support these amendments.
We also want to make it very clear that we're very concerned about some of the things that have appeared in the media in regard to section O of this particular bill; we're not going to comment on other sections. We believe there is a great deal of misinformation out there, in various newspapers particularly, that seems to get printed in one and then repeated in others.
The OMA has written a letter to the editor of the Toronto Star in regard to Mr Walkom's column which it has not seen fit to print, but the Toronto Sun yesterday printed our rebuttal, if you like, to a column in their newspaper. Their editorial comment at the bottom was "Perhaps we should've dug deeper," ie, the Sun. We presume that means they should've done their homework a little better before making those comments.
We believe these amendments will provide more flexibility to the mining companies in terms of financial assurance, closure and return of title to the crown. We also want to make it very clear in regard to the misinformation in the press that we do not see anywhere where environmental standards are lessened and/or, to use the phrase in some of the newspaper articles, trashed. There is nothing that we can see in this bill that talks about environmental standards. In fact, if you go through the bill, part VII, sections 139, 140, 141, in a lot of these things the standards are maintained, if not strengthened.
We have no trouble with reasonable, scientific-based, risks-assessed environmental standards in the mining industry, and we pride ourselves on our environmental record in Ontario. We're also going to table today some booklets called Sustainable Mining in Ontario produced by the Ontario Mining Association. I would add that the executive director, I believe, of the Conservation Council of Ontario has praised this report as being a good indicator of the state of what the mining industry is doing. We'll be producing a new one this year.
Specifically, if you look at section 141, it talks about filing a certified closure plan. "Certified" is a term that we presume will mean that a closure plan will have to be certified with a P.Engineering certificate, the financial assurance will have to be certified by an auditor, and the closure plan may require a certification from some officer of the company.
Obviously, this is a movement to self-regulation and more accountability and responsibility on the part of the mining companies. We feel we already meet those obligations, but we don't see how any environmental standards are lessened in any way in this bill as a result of that.
The bill talks in various sections of the act about prescribed standards. Obviously those are standards that are now in place and/or will be in place.
We've talked about certified plans. Again, if you look at section 139, it lays out in more specific detail what some of the adverse effects might be. Some of these things are tightened and strengthened, if you like, as opposed to weakened.
One further comment I would make is that mining is not a homogeneous enterprise; it's very diverse. We have a plethora of metals and minerals. Ontario produces about 40% of the revenues from mining in Canada. We have base metal minerals, we have copper, nickel, zinc, lead, we have precious metals like platinum and gold, we have industrial minerals like salt, nepheline, syenite and so on.
We are the premier mining province, and as part of the Canadian mining industry, we are probably the most technologically advanced and also, I might add, probably the most highly regulated of any industry. We've got more than six pages of federal and provincial regulation and legislation that relates to the operations of mines in Ontario and Canada. I think the cries that this is going to somehow have an adverse affect are, if I may use the term, groundless.
With that, I would like to say that that is really, at the moment, our presentation. As I say, we'll provide an in-depth review of some of the aspects of the bill. We're now available for questions.
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The Chair: Thank you very much. We've got six minutes a side, and we're going to start this morning with the third party.
Mr David S. Cooke (Windsor-Riverside): I don't have a lot of questions. I mean, who am I to question the former Liberal member for Rainy River?
Mr Reid: And the last one.
Mr Cooke: And the last one. I don't know a lot about this field. That's one of the problems of having such a large omnibus bill, that nobody can be expert in anything; we're all generic here.
But we have had presentations from the environmental community where they have expressed grave concerns about this amendment and concerns specifically about who will be monitoring to make sure that the self-regulation that's being put in place is real and that the environment is protected.
I'd just like to get your help in better understanding this. I don't have a mine in my riding. The closest thing is on the other side of the city, the salt mine, so this is not an area in which I have a lot of expertise. I have no expertise, would be a better way of saying it.
Mr Reid: I must say, things have changed since I was here. We never did say we weren't expert in everything, Mr Cooke. I think that's fairly refreshing. Part of that salt mine may be under your riding by the time you get back.
Mr Cooke: It's probably pretty close.
Mr Reid: I've heard that various environmental groups are concerned. I haven't seen their specific comments. If you look at the bill, the plans are going to be reviewed -- that's one thing -- so it's not as if they're just thrown into the black heap. As far as monitoring goes, part of that responsibility obviously is going to be on the companies to monitor. Under the old act and this act, they're going to have to file reports annually that I presume will be reviewed.
The good actors and the bad actors are pretty well-known to the regulators, whether it's this industry or others -- unfortunately, we have a few bad actors -- so those places that have a problem will still be providing reports and people will be reviewing them. If there's a problem, the company will be under more responsibility and duress, if you like, to bring them to the attention of the responsible ministry. It's not as if the entire civil service is disappearing. I think we'll probably --
Mr Cooke: Not because of this amendment.
Mr Reid: But let's be frank. Part of these amendments you're seeing are a result of government downsizing, and I think you're seeing it all over the world. It's forcing companies and industries into a more self-regulating, self-policing role, and God help those who don't do it properly. We have no problem with that concept.
Mr Cooke: Maybe you could just tell me, though, why this would be so positive for the industry. I'm not sure what the downsides are of the current system and what the positives are that are going to make Ontario that much more attractive to the industry.
Mr Reid: I guess in generic terms, we have six pages of regulation and legislation. There are federal inspectors, there are provincial inspectors and in some cases there are municipal inspectors. Sometimes a mine will have six or eight different inspectors from three or four different ministries show up in a week, and a lot of this stuff is, shall we say, not as important as others and it has an adverse effect.
In the mining industry, you probably are aware that a lot of capital went out of this country -- not just Ontario, but this country -- in the last few years, particularly to South America and Asia, because people were fed up with what they saw as overregulation and contradictory legislation. This puts the onus back on the companies and the industry to meet the standards, but to do it in their own way; to come up with the best practice to meet the standards set by the government, instead of having 12 inspectors showing up every day saying, "God, you put that widget on left instead of right," whether or not it has any effect.
The Chair: Thank you. I have to move now to the members of the government caucus.
Mr Rob Sampson (Mississauga West): Thanks very much for showing up this morning; such short notice, I know.
Could you give us an indication as to the level of employment that the mining industry has in Ontario and what its contribution to Ontario's economic base is? I don't want to stick you to exact numbers, but if you can give me some ballpark figure.
Mr Reid: The mining industry, depending on prices, the revenues are about $5 billion to $7 billion a year. We have, Peter, what, 50 mining communities?
Mr Peter McBride: Yes, in Ontario it's 50.
Mr Reid: Fifty mining communities, and the total employment is about 30,000 people. The economic multiplier we always argue about, but it's probably two and a half to three times. It's a high-tech business and there are a lot of services and equipment that go into the mining industry. So while we're small in employment numbers, the economic contribution is quite large. If anybody wants their own personal copy of this economic and financial contribution, we'd be glad to supply it.
Mr Sampson: Over the, let's say, past 10 years, to pick a number, would you say that the industry has grown or has it tailed off in Ontario, so to speak?
Mr Reid: Tailed off, no pun there -- tailings. It's had its ups and downs. The employment has gone down substantially. We are a high-wage sector and a high-cost sector. Our miners are the highest-paid industrial people in Ontario. The average wage is between $55,000 and $65,000 for a miner, and that's not counting bonuses, if they get them. When you contrast that with what miners get in Chile or Indonesia or wherever, our competitors -- but we win out on technology and productivity. We've got highly trained, highly skilled people who are very productive.
Mr Sampson: How do we encourage additional growth in the mining sector in this province? Is this piece of legislation here, as it relates to the Mining Act, going to help your industry grow and attract investment?
Mr Reid: Yes, it will. The provisions for financial assurance -- and perhaps I could take a second, because I used to be the critic for Mines and I didn't understand it even when I was the critic, so hopefully I do now. Financial assurance is a requirement that when you're opening a mine, you put up some kind of bond, letter of credit, cash or something that ensures the company will have enough money or assets to close the mine out when the day is done.
One of the things that was discouraging investments, particularly in some smaller operations, was the fact that if you had to put the cash up front, it made your return on investment very low or extended out the time before you started to make a profit. So it made the smaller mines that might have come into production not as economic or not as attractive, and for even larger operations, if you have to put a lot of cash on the table it's a disincentive to invest immediately, because developing a small mine will cost a company $50 million to $60 million; a large mine can be $300 million and up. So you're talking big numbers.
By the way, you still have to provide financial assurance, it still has to be approved by the Ministry of Mines, so those standards are still there, but it just gives us more flexibility and more options as to how we do it.
Mr Sampson: So this piece of legislation could be deemed to be good news for the smaller mining communities, developing mining communities, where we indeed, as a province, may attract some investment?
Mr Reid: I think it will go towards that end, yes.
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The Chair: Thank you very much. We'll turn to the members of the opposition.
Mr Gerry Phillips (Scarborough-Agincourt): I guess to paraphrase what was just said there, what I've heard from the mining industry is that the bill is something that you support and that it will have some fairly significant positive impacts on your industry. Is that fair to say?
Mr Reid: I think so, yes.
Mr Phillips: Does it concern you at all that if it's that important to the mining industry, as you've said, it's part of this huge bill; that it's I think the 14th section, you don't get to the mining industry until you've gone through 13 other sections; that in order to support your industry the members of the opposition are being asked to support releasing private medical records, introducing new taxes, taking away bargaining rights from firefighters and from police, giving the Minister of Health sweeping authority; that essentially in my opinion, and this is strong language, the reason why it's in there is so that people like you can come and say, "We're in support of Bill 26; we love it; pass it"?
In my opinion, it was deliberate. You're a major industry in this province. You employ an awful lot of people. You're important enough to have a separate bill, separate hearings. You've indicated this morning your concern about misrepresentation of the information in it. Is it any surprise that the news media have not had a chance to get into this in absolute detail down to the finest fine print?
I know that your industry will be at lots of our hearings speaking in support of Bill 26, understandably, because it will benefit your industry substantially. When you speak in favour of Bill 26, it isn't just the mining provisions, frankly, that we are being asked to support; it's every other provision. I think that you're put in a very tough spot. No doubt you were asked to appear before the committee. No doubt you wanted to appear before the committee to support Bill 26. But that's not the only part that you are in the end supporting.
My question is this: If this bill is so important to the mining industry, would you support us having the bill split so we can deal with the various major segments of the bill and we can give the mining industry the attention that it's due? Would your industry support splitting the bill?
Mr Reid: Well, I'll put my political hat back on, Mr Phillips, and say I'd have to discuss that with my executive committee. We're not here necessarily to support Bill 26. We're here to support the sections dealing with the Mining Act. We haven't made any comment, nor have we read in any detail the other sections of the bill. I'm here --
Mr Cooke: Just wing it.
Mr Reid: I'm following your example, Mr Cooke.
Mr Phillips: I think your members can appreciate, I hope, the position we're in, and that is --
Mr Reid: I appreciate your position. I appreciate the government's position. My position is simply to say that what we are handed, section O of the bill, dealing with amendments to the Mining Act, we support. That's the long and short of it. The rest of you are going to have to sort out the rest of it.
Mr Phillips: Did you have some prior consultations with the government on the details of the bill?
Mr Reid: I'm sorry?
Mr Phillips: Prior consultations, before the bill was tabled, on the content?
Mr Reid: It was suggested to us that there were going to be amendments. The Mining Act advisory committee that's been toiling away lo these three or four years had discussed some of these amendments -- in fact had, I believe, recommended some of the changes; not all of them. We had some discussion on the direction in which this bill might go and some of it, frankly, are things that we're on the public record asking for over the last few years.
Mr Phillips: What advice would you have for us when we say, "Listen, we aren't being asked to support the mining section; we're being asked to vote in totality of the bill"? I gather the industry hasn't looked at any other sections of the bill other than the section involving yourself. What advice does the mining industry have for us when we're being asked to have to vote for the whole bill and not just your section of the bill?
Mr Reid: I left this august body some 11 years ago because I was tired of trying to answer those questions and I really don't want to get back to trying either, thank you.
Mr Phillips: We have to answer it.
Mr Reid: Yes, I appreciate that.
Mr Phillips: The answer is that, in our opinion, groups like yourself are being exploited because it allows the government to say, "We've got these groups in favour of the bill," when in fact I think if your industry looked at all the other components of the bill, you'd say on balance, as an Ontarian, "We've have real problems with the bill."
Mr Reid: I'm not going to let you put words in my mouth, Mr Phillips. I've made my comments as to our opinion on what we've been asked to look at. We favour the amendments and the rest is not our problem at the moment.
The Chair: Thank you very much, gentlemen. Your half-hour has expired. I want to thank you again for appearing before the committee.
Mr Reid: Time goes fast when you're having fun.
Mr Phillips: It's real slow around here.
Mr Reid: Have a merry Christmas, all of you.
Mr Phillips: I have a different watch.
UNITED STEELWORKERS OF AMERICA DISTRICT 6 (ONTARIO)
The Chair: May I please call on members from the United Steelworkers of America. Good morning, Mr Lewis, and welcome to the standing committee on general government. You've got 30 minutes this morning to use as you see fit. Most presenters choose to leave some time at the end of their presentation to receive questions. I'd appreciate it if you'd introduce yourself and your organization for the committee members and for Hansard.
Mr Hugh Mackenzie: My name is Hugh Mackenzie. I'm the research director of the United Steelworkers of America in our national office. I'm here with Michael Lewis, who's the political action representative in the District 6 office of the Steelworkers. That's the office that's responsible for Ontario. I'm not going to read through the entire thing because I would like to leave some time to get into a discussion with you at the end of the formal presentation.
If I can start, let me just note for the record that Michael and I are here representing Harry Hynd, the Steelworkers director for Ontario; Tom Collins, the Canadian director of RW/Steelworkers, which is the service industry arm of the union; and our national director, Lawrence McBrearty. We got notice of the time of our presentation about 24 hours ago and they were not able to change their schedules to accommodate the committee and I apologize on their behalf to you for their not being here, but under the circumstances it was rather difficult.
In our formal presentation I provide some information about the union, which I'm not going to read because I'd like to leave some time for questions at the end.
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We'd like to start by thanking the members of the Liberal and NDP caucuses at Queen's Park, whose determination to resist the government's intention to ram through Bill 26 with little debate and no public input was entirely responsible for the existence of this process.
Bill 26 is an extraordinary bill. It amends over 40 individual pieces of legislation under 17 different schedules, all but two or three of which on their own would be sufficiently controversial to merit extensive debate and public input.
It's also produced a lot of political contradictions right from the outset. For example, the bill has been described as a necessary companion to the economic statement of the Minister of Finance and bearing the same relationship to that statement as budget bills bear to a formal budget. But even a cursory reading of Bill 26 shows you that many of the changes that are proposed in Bill 26 weren't even mentioned in the economic statement, so they can hardly be described as being inextricably linked to it.
Bill 26 has also been described by government spokespeople as providing the tools needed by transfer payment partners to implement financial savings. Yet, most of the changes in the bill go far beyond the scope of savings or restructuring, even as they are defined by the government, into a kind of corporate and bureaucratic wish list of responsibilities to be evaded, public processes to be avoided and obligations to be shuffled aside.
How else can one explain the inclusion of such changes as the gutting of mine site rehabilitation legislation, the restriction of access to information and the elimination of requirements for local referenda in the Municipal Act.
But the biggest political contradiction of all is between the substance of the legislation and the economic policy it supports and the extravagant and now empty rhetoric of the so-called Common Sense Revolution.
Jobs instead of welfare? We've got less welfare -- over 22% less -- but no jobs.
No cuts to health care? "Not one cent" was the statement; we've got a cut of $1.4 billion.
No user fees for health care? You can call it what you want, but a drug plan copayment is a user fee, plain and simple.
No American-style medicare? Now the government talks about levelling the playing field between American and Canadian health care providers.
The promise of protection for classroom education? Gone. The cuts to education will be blunt, they will be across the board and there will be nothing in them to protect the classroom.
No new taxes? Let's see how people feel about that one when the municipalities are forced to use the new powers the government is giving them to replace cuts in provincial funding with a wide range of new user fees.
Democratization of public decision-making? What a joke that is now. The bill grants unprecedented powers to cabinet and to appointed officials to make decisions that will alter fundamentally the way our society works -- decisions that will be made, if the bill is passed, without public input, democratic control or even effective judicial review.
In perhaps the greatest irony of all, the Common Sense Revolution, which was supposed to have been about too much government, turns out to have really been about more government intervention for anybody who either provides or consumes a public service and about a free ride for any business interest that wants to make a buck at the expense of the public.
The bill is such a huge document that we had a little bit of difficulty figuring out how we were going to deal with all of the specifics. Because the interest that we bring to the committee is, I guess, as much as anything else a public interest as opposed to a direct vested interest in the process, with the exception of the health care area, which we're going to return to in a different presentation, what we decided to do was to focus on some of the particularly egregious parts of the bill and to focus on those by way of granting or suggesting some awards for various pieces of the bill.
We put forward some awards in various categories. We were going to bring the awards with us, but we were worried about not getting past the security with them, so we thought we'd just leave them at home and discuss them instead.
First, the taxation-by-the-back-door award: expanded municipal user fee and tax powers. As everybody knows, Bill 26 grants sweeping new powers to municipalities to levy user charges, including direct taxes. Astonishingly enough, this would appear to permit municipalities to impose poll taxes -- the very tax that sank Margaret Thatcher.
The bill permits the setting of fees that discriminate among different classes of people. The minister may make regulations disallowing specific taxes in specific municipalities, or disallowing certain types of taxes, but it is all subject to regulation and at the government's discretion.
The interesting thing about that point is that it conveniently lets the government off the hook in every way. It provides the politically expedient way out of its promise not to force the raising of property taxes. It shifts the blame to municipal governments for anything that's unpopular. If something turns out to be really, really bad or really, really unpalatable to friends of the government, it can disallow it by regulation.
The second award, the self-interested nastiness award: pension cuts for laid-off public sector workers. This is actually something that, in my regular line of work, I deal with quite a bit. As many of you may know, the Pension Benefits Act contains special provisions that apply in the event of a major layoff or a shutdown. These provisions are designed to avoid the situation where employees who are laid off, who lose their jobs through no fault of their own in some major restructuring or downsizing, find their pension entitlements eviscerated by that process.
What the act provides is that in the event of a major layoff or shutdown, the superintendent of pensions can order a windup or a partial windup of the pension plan, and when a windup or a partial windup is ordered, there are a number of special benefits that are triggered for the workers who are so affected.
One of them is that if the plan provides, for example, for early retirement benefits, the process essentially grants benefits of a value that would have accrued had the employee continued to work there. It doesn't affect the calculation of the service entitlement, but it does affect the timing of the payment and therefore the value of the benefit that someone receives when they're terminated.
The other provision that's of particular significance to public sector workers is that there's a rule that says that in a partial windup an employee cannot have paid for more than half the value of his or her benefit from his or her own contributions. Those two things combined can make a significant difference in the pension entitlements of people who are laid off.
The government of Ontario's decided to exempt itself from these provisions. What is unbelievably outrageous is that not only have they designed to exempt themselves from it, but they've decided to make the exemption retroactive to the beginning of January 1993 and to provide in the legislation that employers can actually get the money back from people who were given it under these provisions.
Now keep in mind that this is not, in the popular private sector parlance, feather-bedding for public servants. This is a right that exists in the Pension Benefits Act that applies to every worker covered by a registered pension plan in the province. It's being taken away, and it's being taken away solely for the purpose of gouging money out of people they have just pushed out the door. I think it's just incredibly outrageous.
The public access not award: restrictions on freedom of information. Again, this has gotten a lot of attention in the media. We just want to stress that nowhere in any of the debate, any of the discussion about this, any of the apologies for it by the various people who have attempted to defend it -- there haven't been too many -- has anybody suggested that this has got anything to do with saving money or restructuring, the two things that title the bill. It has to do with shielding more and more of what government does from public scrutiny and making it more and more difficult for private individuals to get information, even to the point of making it more difficult and more expensive for private individuals to find out what the government knows about them.
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The backwards step award: the elimination of proxy valuation in pay equity. Again, members will no doubt be aware that proxy valuation was brought into the Pay Equity Act because there were large numbers of women, an estimate of about 100,000, who worked in female-dominated workplaces who could not take advantage of the pay equity legislation because there was no male comparator. While there are obvious reasons why one might decide that if this were strictly a private sector operation, it's kind of tough luck because there really isn't any relationship between comparators in different employers in the private sector, in the broader public sector, since these are all taxpayer-funded and all under the general aegis of the province of Ontario, the concept of proxy funding was created so that comparisons could be made between different employers.
The omnibus bill eliminates proxy valuation comparisons and again, in what has to start to be seen as a hallmark of the legislative changes of this government, effectively makes it retroactive, because what it says is that even if you've already got a proxy valuation plan and you've even posted the adjustments, you can take them away. What that means is that any employee who benefited from a proxy valuation adjustment who hasn't had the fortune to have that adjustment incorporated in a collective agreement, and therefore not subject to being rolled back, can have it taken away, literally with the stroke of a pen. All the employer has to do is go up to that posting and cross out a bunch of numbers and write in a bunch of different ones. The legislation makes it clear that employers are not going to be bound by what was the law of the land until this bill came in.
The arbitrary power award: the municipal restructuring amendments. The powers that the government gives to itself with respect to municipal restructuring are just extraordinary. I know there are people in this room who have had some experience in the politics of municipal restructuring who will appreciate perhaps more than others the enormity of the dictatorial power that the government is giving itself in the municipal restructuring area.
It does cute little things. Like, even in places where there is a provision for a referendum locally to decide on, for example, the fate of a public utilities commission or a public utilities board, that's eliminated. I guess democracy's great when it works one way, but when it works the other way it's not so great.
The list of powers that the government gives itself in the area of municipal restructuring is frankly eye-popping.
The catch-22 award: restrictions on interest arbitrators. This is actually one which our union has some direct involvement with, because we have slightly over 2,000 members who work in the private sector, the long-term care sector, who are covered by the Hospital Labour Disputes Arbitration Act. Again, this is one of those things where the changes that are brought in in the bill simply deny the original purpose of the legislation.
The reason why we have interest arbitration in Ontario at all is because various legislatures in the past have concluded that it is not in the public interest for the workers in those facilities to have the right to be able to exercise their normal right to strike in support of collective bargaining demands. So interest arbitration was brought in as a substitute for that. The role of an interest arbitrator has been, in effect, to try to determine what the contract ought to be between the parties that appear in front of the interest arbitrator.
Bill 26 contains amendments which effectively could nullify that alternative, by introducing criteria which arbitrators have consistently found to be properly political in nature and not relevant to the interest arbitration process. The ability to pay sounds like a reasonable proposition for an arbitrator to consider until you realize that arbitrators have been unable to define it in the public sector, arguing that ability to pay in the public sector really means willingness to pay, something that is unilaterally determined by the employer.
Requiring arbitrators to take into account potential public service cuts again places the arbitrator in the position of making decisions about service cuts that should be made by politicians who are accountable to the public. In both cases, I think the position of arbitrators would be that the kinds of things they're being instructed to take into account by this bill are properly decisions that ought to be made by politicians and not by arbitrators. If arbitrators, for example, were to start ordering hospitals to shut beds or ordering police departments to close down stations, I think the public too might get the idea that maybe arbitrators shouldn't be making those decisions.
The last award is the "Let's see if we can squeeze this one in" award. This one was a tie. We couldn't decide whether the special earmarked fund for hunting and fishing fees or the gutting of the mine site rehabilitation regulations was a better example of people seeing a legislative train rolling along that looked like it was going to move through pretty quickly and throwing as much on to it as they possibly could.
A number of members of our organization in mining communities have asked to make an appearance before this committee, I think in Sudbury, to discuss the mine site rehabilitation issue in greater detail, because it does raise quite profound issues about the way northern Ontario has developed and about the way the interests of the public and the mining industry are balanced.
Let me just make a couple of comments. The special fund for hunting and fishing fees, to my knowledge, would be the first earmarked fee that we've ever had in Ontario. It struck us as kind of a curious first one to have because those kinds of earmarked funds raise a whole lot of questions about the way government is run that I don't think anybody has adequately answered. It certainly hasn't been adequately answered in a parliamentary context.
One of three things can happen when you set up one of these dedicated funds. One, nothing happens, nothing changes. In other words, it just becomes an accounting exercise where the bureaucrats who put together the budgetary documents have another balancing total that they have to tote up, in which case all that's happening is that people are being fooled into thinking something is protected that really isn't.
Another alternative is that it may result in less money being spent on these activities. As a fund starts to be known as the only source of money for a particular activity, it may be that we end up spending less money on protecting fish and wildlife than we ought to.
The third option is that we end up spending more money on fish and wildlife protection than we otherwise would have. It seems to me that it raises the obvious question, that if a fund is going to result in more being spent, why should spending on fish and wildlife be singled out for special protection and, say, not spending on child welfare or something like that?
Finally, the changes to the requirements for mine site rehabilitation raise even broader issues of environmental responsibility and community involvement in northern Ontario. They attempt to end abruptly a debate that has gone on for decades, and they do so firmly and completely on the side of the irresponsible minority of companies in the mining industry that refuse to take their environmental obligations seriously, creating the potential for an environmental race to the bottom right here in Ontario.
To wind up, there's a theme running through the many disparate elements of this bill. Bill 26 grants government unprecedented power to make decisions that will affect the very fabric of life in this province. It gives government and officials extraordinary arbitrary powers to make decisions that affect consumers of public services, producers of public services and individual citizens who seek information from the government itself, and it does so in a way that veils those decisions from public debate. Ironically, and perhaps predictably, the bill itself does that, even with this process that has been forced on it by the opposition parties.
Bill 26 is not about less government; it is about less scrutiny. It is about less democracy. It is not necessary even for the purposes that it was announced for and it should be withdrawn.
The Chair: Thank you for your presentation, Mr Mackenzie. We have two minutes and 20 seconds per caucus, starting with the government caucus.
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Mr Joseph N. Tascona (Simcoe Centre): The changes to pay equity in terms of proxy, I'd like to ask you, can you tell us about the experience of any other jurisdictions that use proxy?
Mr Mackenzie: I'm not an expert on pay equity, so I can't.
Mr Tascona: I can tell you that Ontario is the only jurisdiction that has the proxy comparison method.
Mr Mackenzie: And what's the point?
Mr Tascona: The point is that we're just moving in line with every other jurisdiction in this country with respect to not having proxy comparison.
Mr Mackenzie: Let me make two points on that. One is that the proxy valuation comparisons applied to the broader public sector. They did not apply to the private sector. I really don't see what the relevance of comparisons between Ontario and other jurisdictions is.
Secondly, that comment doesn't get around, doesn't obscure, the basic point of how outrageous it is that legislation would be brought in effectively to extinguish rights that accumulated in the past. The legislation is clear that even if you've got a proxy valuation adjustment that's been posted, it can be withdrawn. Our view is that that's just an outrageous application of retroactive power.
Mr Tascona: The proxy employers are still required to pay out more than 3% of their 1993 payroll. These employers are still obliged to pay out this amount, up to 100% government-funded, so the government is living up to its commitments with respect to pay equity.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Tascona. Unfortunately, the time is exhausted. Let's move to the opposition side.
Mr John Gerretsen (Kingston and The Islands): In your awards, the award that you didn't give out was the TVO Studio 2 Commentator of the Year Award. Maybe you have a comment on that as well.
Mr Mackenzie: I assume you share my mother's view then.
Mr Gerretsen: Oh, I see. Okay. I'm sure that's true.
I take it in your capacity you've had an opportunity to make presentations etc with respect to a vast variety of legislation that has come through the system over the last number of years. Is that correct?
Mr Mackenzie: Yes. I think it's fair to say I've been around this place in various capacities for a long time.
Mr Gerretsen: Have you ever seen a bill that deals with as large a variety of areas of public interest as this particular bill, which deals with health issues, with municipal issues, with mining issues, with privacy issues, with public sector disclosure issues? You can just go on and on and on? Have you ever seen a bill quite like this, packaged in one omnibus bill?
Mr Mackenzie: I've never seen anything remotely like this. As we said in the brief, there are at least 15 really important issues of fundamental public policy, and each of them on its own would merit extensive public debate, a lot of public discussion, and frankly contain proposals that in my view would be extremely vulnerable to even the most cursory public discussion. It's just extraordinary.
I also think there's been no justification advanced for it other than, "We wanted to get it all through before Christmas." I think one of the reasons why we've got these bizarre things like the Mining Act amendments thrown on to this is that various people realized there was a big legislative express train headed through and it looked like they were going to be able to get it all through by Christmas, so "Let's see what we can throw on it."
Mr Gerretsen: That's what the last presentation was about, as a matter of fact. Thank you very much.
Mr Tony Silipo (Dovercourt): You conclude your presentation by asking that the bill be withdrawn, and I think certainly as far as the opposition parties are concerned, that would be our wish as well, for virtually every one of the reasons that you have outlined in your brief and many others. But I think the reality is that the government is probably not going to agree to that. Given that likely scenario, what, if any, advice do you have for us?
Mr Mackenzie: There are so many dimensions in which the bill is offensive it's hard to pick any one that one would say ought to be addressed first, and it's also very difficult to get your head around making constructive suggestions when the principle is so offensive. But I guess amendments that get rid of some of these proposed changes that are so transparently extraneous to the announced purpose of the bill would be positive, and amendments which force public scrutiny, public debate and public decision-making on some of these arbitrary powers that the cabinet's given itself I think also might be helpful.
The bill in fact goes in the opposite direction, pulling these things out of the public purview, out of the realm of public debate, and I think that, at the very least, things that made it easier for the public to have its say and perhaps even to exercise some control over how these powers are actually executed would be at least a small step in the right direction, given the fact that the thing generally is a complete disaster.
As I say, it's hard to get your head around which of the pieces of it are the worst, but I guess, given the premise on which the government says it's operating, amendments that work to democratize the process and to make it more transparent to the public would certainly be helpful.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Mackenzie, for appearing before the committee today. Time has expired, and we appreciate you showing up today.
May I please ask for Kyle Rae, a councillor from the city of Toronto to come forward.
CITY OF TORONTO
The Chair: Good morning, Mr Rae, and welcome back to the standing committee on general government. You have 30 minutes today to make a presentation, and you can use that time as you see fit. Most presenters choose to leave some time at the end of their presentations for questions. I would appreciate it if you would introduce yourself and your companion for the sake of the members and for Hansard.
Mr Rae: Good morning, committee members. I'm Kyle Rae, city councillor for ward 6, and this is Mary Ellen Bench from the solicitor's office at the city of Toronto. For members of the committee who called or whose staff who called earlier this morning wondering whether or not I was here in an official capacity, in the documents you've got in front of you, tab 8 shows the council resolutions concerning Bill 26 and its request for me to attend.
I would like to thank the committee for the opportunity of presenting the city of Toronto's comments on the proposed Savings and Restructuring Act, 1995, Bill 26. At the outset, I must indicate clearly to the committee that my comments are somewhat incomplete due to the all-encompassing and very technical nature of the bill and the late date at which it was made public by the provincial government, and due to the fact that several substantive provisions in the legislation are subject to the minister's right to make regulations. As proposed regulations have not been made available for view, it is very difficult to comment in any other way.
Highlights of Bill 26 were considered by city council at its meeting yesterday, December 18, 1995, and city council has authorized me to attend before you and present council's position regarding motions adopted by it. One motion adopted by council which was proposed by the mayor is "that the province be requested to conduct further public hearings in the city of Toronto in January 1996," to allow for proper input.
As this committee is aware, the normal provincial proceedings for announcing committee hearings in the newspapers was not followed with respect to the hearings schedule this week and very little opportunity was provided for the public to get to the speakers' list to make presentations before this committee. As well, as I have previously stated, further time is required to properly consider the complex matters addressed in the bill. Given the short time allotted for making oral comments, I will highlight only some of the recommendations contained in the city of Toronto's written submission. I urge committee members to read the entire written submission, because it addresses other issues which should be reviewed and clarified prior to the passage of the proposed legislation.
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The city shares some of the province's goals and objectives in achieving fiscal savings and promoting economic prosperity through public sector restructuring, streamlining and efficiency. As members of this committee may be aware, the city of Toronto is in the process of implementing a new administrative structure for the city which also supports these goals and objectives. With this shared purpose in mind, I wish to make the following comments.
It is the city's concern that the powers of the minister are extensive and extremely broad. The powers granted to municipalities under Bill 26 can be taken back to the minister because of the powers retained by the minister to make regulations. In this context, it is difficult to reach any substantial conclusions. The committee should know that city council is extremely concerned about the concentration of powers in the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing and the discretion given to the minister under Bill 26.
The city views a general licensing power as a significant improvement over the current hodgepodge of licensing powers contained in the Municipal Act. The specific provisions of the proposed general licensing authority, which clarify the ability for municipalities to place conditions on licences, are supported by the city.
As members of the committee may be aware, the provisions of the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto Act, commonly referred to as the Metro act, place authority for licensing businesses and trades within Metro under the jurisdiction of the Metro Licensing Commission. In most other municipalities in the province the licensing of businesses is the responsibility of the local municipality, not the upper tier. This makes sense because business licences issued are interrelated with municipal zoning bylaws and other regulatory bylaws such as noise control, which are regulated at the local level, as well as the responsibility for enforcement of the building and fire codes at the local level.
Prior to issuing a business licence, the Metro Licensing Commission must seek the city's input with respect to such regulatory matters. Metro Licensing does not always do this, and this has caused a number of problems for the city; that is, the courts have refused to grant the city an injunction where land was used without the necessary site plan approvals in a situation where Metro had issued a business licence citing the owner's expectation that he could carry on business once he received a Metro licence.
If the authority to issue licences for business in general, or specifically for businesses having a significant local input, such as restaurants, adult entertainment facilities, entertainment facilities in general and street vending, were transferred to the city, the city could benefit businesses, providing them with a one-stop-shopping opportunity where they could apply for all necessary permits and licences at one place. The city could also be able to best ensure public input and conditions that meet the city's regulatory bylaws that are imposed. This would translate into a faster turnaround time to get all permissions necessary for businesses to open, for one-stop licensing and for greater public input.
In order to achieve this, the city's brief sets out a proposal to add a new section, 216.1, to the Metro act that would allow local municipalities the option to assume all or certain powers to licence, regulate and govern businesses within the local municipality. That's tab 3.
In its brief, the city has also commented on the proposed new section 209.4 of the Municipal Act, which would allow a local municipality to assume an upper-tier power. The city is recommending that this provision be amended to allow a local municipality to pass a bylaw to assume an upper-tier power within the confines of that municipality so that local municipalities within a regional structure could act independently. This could be another way of achieving the same result.
I must also stress that the city's proposal to transfer certain licensing powers now held by the Metro Licensing Commission to the local municipalities for the reasons given is in line with the province's objectives of achieving fiscal savings and promoting economic prosperity through public sector restructuring and efficiency. It has also been the stated belief of many members of the provincial cabinet that local authorities are the most responsive to local concerns.
As an alternative if the city's request is not supported, I must advise the committee that one of the city's principle concerns outside of economic efficiency and public service is that the new general licensing powers, which include the power to licence, regulate and govern businesses, could conflict with regulatory powers of the city under the Planning Act and the Municipal Act relating to such matters as zoning, site plan control and noise control. As a minimal requirement, the city is recommending that section 216 of the Metro act be amended to clarify that the licensing commission cannot issue licences to businesses in contravention of any regulatory bylaws in force in the local municipality in which the business is located. Again, this recommendation is set out in greater detail in the brief.
Another area of particular concern to the city is the proposed changes to the renamed Ontario Municipal Support Grants Act. The proposed legislation takes away the per-household grants customarily provided to municipalities and replaces them with a general authority for the minister to make grants or loans or provide other financial assistance to municipalities. These changes will provide greater flexibility to the minister, but cannot otherwise be assessed because sufficient information is not available to determine what this will mean to the city of Toronto. The proposed legislation is clear that the minister does not have to treat all municipalities equally in providing grants, loans and other financial assistance. Additionally, the proposed legislation makes it extremely difficult for municipalities to assess what kind of financial support they can expect to receive from the provincial government, which is a concern to the city as it goes through the 1996 budget process.
Finally, while the provision of health services and drug benefits are not within the city's direct authority, city council is concerned with the impact the proposed legislative changes set out in schedules G, H and I will have on residents of the city. City council is therefore requesting that these legislative changes be abandoned.
As I mentioned at the outset of my presentation, I have been able to highlight only part of the city's written submission to Bill 26, and that submission is incomplete, given the time available to review a very complex series of legislative changes without the benefit of the accompanying regulations. Having said this, I will once again urge the committee members to read the city's entire written submission. I hope the comments and recommendations of the city of Toronto will be given serious consideration.
Thank you for your time and attention, and myself and Mary Ellen Bench would be pleased to respond to your questions.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Rae. We have about six minutes and 30 seconds for each caucus, starting off with the opposition caucus.
Mr Phillips: I appreciate your being here on behalf of city council and I appreciate the work that council has done so far on the bill.
One of the areas we're interested in is the whole area of fees, charges, and we think even taxes, on a couple of points. One is that it's clear in looking at the minister's compendium, as it's called, the explanation of the bill, that the intent is to give virtually unlimited flexibility for municipalities to charge fees, charges, and we think also taxes.
One of the concerns is it's clear -- he said yesterday that the intent was to allow municipalities to raise revenue this way -- that we're going to have quite an interesting structure around Ontario as you cross over one municipal border into another. You've got quite a hodgepodge of fees, charges.
Has the council had an opportunity with their legal advice to look at interpreting the clause on fees and charges? Yesterday I think Mayor McCallion indicated her legal people said they interpret it to mean that they could impose a gas tax, a sales tax and virtually any other tax except income tax. Has legal council at city of Toronto looked at this provision, and have you reached a conclusion on what would be possible under this provision?
Mr Rae: We have looked at it. It was under discussion yesterday, but I think it would be best to have our legal counsel respond.
Ms Mary Ellen Bench: In looking at it, I think we agreed generally with the comments. It appears broad enough by the language that a tax or a charge that's in the nature of a direct tax is allowable. That would include a retail sales tax that's an upfront, after-market charge similar to the Ontario retail sales tax, or a poll tax or a head tax, an income tax as a direct tax. It throws it wide open in terms of what could be charged. However, again, that's subject to the right of the minister to make regulations to permit or not permit charges, so it's really difficult to know where we would stand in the end.
One of the recommendations in our brief is that this be clarified, that if there's no intent that a poll tax or similar charge be allowed, that be stated clearly in the legislation.
Mr Phillips: But your view is, as the language is written, that those things would be permitted.
Ms Bench: As it's written, it's allowed.
Mr Phillips: Unless excluded.
Ms Bench: Yes.
Mr Gerretsen: Do I take it then that basically one of the problems you have with the municipal sections deals with the fact that although it appears that obviously municipalities are getting more power, the minister in effect can take any of these powers away by regulation at any time he feels that any of these taxes or charges are "unfair," whatever that means, as he said yesterday?
Mr Rae: Precisely. That was the major concern raised by members of council yesterday, that it did look quite appealing, quite enticing to a municipality which perhaps over the last 10 or 15 years has been trying to get legislation through the province and has been unable to get effect to some legislation; for example, the idling bylaw to get control on the buses that belch all their fumes into our streets. We've never been able to get Queen's Park to move on that. You're prepared to open up the door, but you're going to have ultimate control of it. It is, as I said, quite enticing, but the capriciousness of a Minister of Municipal Affairs can throttle any opportunity that we would like to take.
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The Chair: Bruce, three minutes.
Mr Bruce Crozier (Essex South): Mr Rae, thank you for appearing. Just for the record, I wanted to refer to your tab 8, where city council has made certain recommendations with respect to the bill.
Number 1 is that you're stating your opposition to Bill 26. Number 2, you've requested that various schedules of the bill be separated to allow for better public understanding and debate of the changes. Number 5, you've commended the opposition parties for their action to defend the public interest in the matter of the bill, and we appreciate your comments there. And number 9, you have requested that the provincial government, in spite of the fact that these hearings are set up as they are, conduct further public hearings in the city of Toronto. I appreciate those recommendations and comments.
I did, though, want to refer directly to tab 6 under the Ontario unconditional grants and get your opinion. Under section 30 of the act, the Ontario municipal sport grants, the minister, although they're going to give you these unconditional grants, then can establish standards for activities of municipalities, including provisions of services. In other words, we'll give you these grants, no strings attached. It appears, though, there's a great, big rope that says: "But if you don't do what we think you should do, we can withdraw the grants. We in fact can ask you to pay them back." Could you comment on that section, please?
Mr Rae: That was also raised yesterday at debate at council. It's again the appealing part of this, but also the stick that's going to be wielded when we start exercising our muscles on how to deal with the restructuring in Ontario.
One of the concerns we have is that over the last six months there has been a chill that has fallen upon the city of Toronto and it's been since the government has taken office. There is a feeling, whether rightly or wrongly, that the city of Toronto is under attack, that the provisions of services, the level of services that we provide, are considered rich compared to what's happening in the rest of the province. That kind of disparity, I think, we're beginning to feel is hitting us very hard. People of this province in need often come to this city.
Mr Crozier: Even the town of Harrow would feel under threat.
Mr Rae: The people in North Bay without a family come to live on Yonge Street, and it's very difficult for us to meet their needs.
The Chair: Sorry, Mr Crozier, that's the end of your seven minutes and we have to move on to the members of the third party.
Mr Silipo: Thank you, Councillor. Just to pursue this issue of the direct taxes -- and it's helpful to hear what your city solicitors are telling you. In fact, I would ask, if possible, if you could give us something in writing, a legal opinion from your city solicitors, because we had a discussion yesterday in committee about that and there seems to be some reluctance on the government side to get additional legal opinions. It would be helpful for us if you could provide that, not necessarily now, but obviously at some point, an analysis that you've done of those sections.
Ms Bench: Our conclusions are stated: If you look at tab 8 of the submission, there's a report from the legal department with an 18 at the front of it, and there's a chart attached to that report, and page 13 of the chart --
Mr Cooke: Something that maybe fleshes it out a little bit more.
Mr Rae: Maybe in prose rather than in tabs.
Mr Silipo: Yes, that would be useful; I think that would be helpful. Whatever additional information you could provide to us there would be quite helpful, but what I wanted to pursue was, given the advice that your counsel has given you about the right of councils now to impose income taxes, sales tax etc, I just want to pursue the one recommendation that you have for us under that part, which is, I think, in tab 4, which is that you're asking for an amendment to explicitly prohibit the imposition of a poll tax or head tax.
I just want to pursue, by omission therefore, the fact that you're not asking us for changes that would explicitly prohibit the imposition of income taxes or sales tax. Can we take that to mean that the council would be interested in imposing those taxes, or has any discussion along those lines taken place?
Mr Rae: There were some members of council who did raise this, but I don't think it was fully fleshed out and it could be by omission rather than by intent. As I said, we dealt with this very quickly. As I also said, it is so wide-ranging that members of council had to grab pieces of it and try and wrestle with it. So we may not, as I said, have dealt with it as fully as we would like.
Mr Silipo: The other interesting point that you flag on this is the powers of the minister to decide by regulation what you can and can't do even after they've given you the power to do it. Ironically enough, this would seem to us to be probably the only instance where a government would be able to make decisions around taxation by regulation.
Ms Bench: I'm not aware of another instance where a provincial government would be able to make decisions on local taxation the same way as this, outside of setting the standards in the Assessment Act, for example.
Mr Silipo: It would be in effect -- it's not stretching it to call this "taxation through regulation"?
Mr Rae: Given that the minister will have final authority and do this without consultation, I think you're correct that through regulation these can be imposed.
Mr Silipo: Another area I wanted to pursue was the issue of amalgamation of municipal powers. I think I'm quite aware of the position the city has taken with respect to the future of Metro etc, but I'd like you to comment a little bit further on the approach that's taken in this bill that it seems to us would allow various lower-tier municipalities in Metro Toronto to assume one or more of the powers of another local municipality, as we understand it.
Perhaps you could just give us your sense of that and whether you think this is the way in which the restructuring in Metro, or indeed throughout the province, should be taking place as opposed to a separate piece of legislation that says: "This is what the government thinks we should do. Let's have debate and public opinion and discussion on that."
Mr Rae: I must tell you that it is not clear at all from this legislation what the intent is. Lower tiers would be given ability to take over upper-tier operations; upper tier would be allowed to take over lower tier. There is no direction in this at all. It opens up to either process of local municipalities taking over responsibility or regional municipalities taking over lower municipality function. This goes back and forth. There is no clear indication, no policy direction from the province on this. It depends on what will be the most advantageous at a given time.
Mr Silipo: We had been given to understand at one point that the provisions that were in here around restructuring did not in effect apply to municipalities within Metro. Is that in fact your reading of it and could they apply to --
Mr Rae: They could apply to Metro, but it's a very complex process. If the city of Toronto were wanting to take over the Metro licensing, we would have to have the agreement of the majority of the other municipalities in Metro. North York, Etobicoke and Scarborough would have to agree and they'd have to have more than 50% of the population to be able for us to take that, as I recall from the discussions at council yesterday.
On top of that there may be some regulation, some of it in place, that if we were to take, for example, the running of Metro parks in the city of Toronto, if we were to do that, we would also have to run all the parks in the rest of Metro.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Silipo. That has exhausted the time. The government caucus. Mr Hardeman.
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Mr Ernie Hardeman (Oxford): First of all, you expressed some concern that the minister is giving too much power to the municipalities for local autonomy to deal with the fiscal situation, and then in return you're concerned that the minister retains the power to take that away again. Is the position of the city that we should just go halfway, and should the minister's power by regulation to govern the imposition of these fees not be in place? Should the autonomy be granted and left that way?
Mr Rae: I think the city would say that you have the ability to change the way in which we operate as municipalities. We are creatures of the province. However, we don't know what the regulations are going to say, so it's very difficult for us to comment on them. You've left it so wide open and you make it appear like the cities and municipalities of this province will finally be able to have some authority or some licence from the province, yet the minister will retain significant powers to curtail our ability to move in that new direction. We don't have a crystal ball and we don't know, given the changes in ministers, how they will be received by each minister as they come and go. Since it dwells so centrally in the minister's hands instead of in a public domain, I think that's our problem.
Mr Hardeman: Is it the city's submission that the government closest to the people is the most accountable to the people and it would be reasonable to assume that as many jurisdictions as could be put in the hands of those politicians closer to people should be put there -- local autonomy?
Mr Rae: I believe that. Also, the Minister of Municipal Affairs has said that on several occasions.
Mr Hardeman: I guess my question is whether you would agree with the Minister of Municipal Affairs.
Mr Rae: I do agree with him.
Mr Hardeman: So, without the regulations, is it your submission that the bill is doing that?
Mr Rae: We don't know, because we don't know what the regulations are saying. There is good intent, but we don't know, given who's going to be pulling the strings, what the final intent is of the government. It's giving and taking at the same time.
Mr Hardeman: Hazel McCallion, the mayor of Mississauga, was in yesterday speaking to us and she said she thought the bill finally got the province off the backs of municipalities. Would you agree or disagree with that?
Mr Rae: I would say members of council are quite interested in seeing how far we will be able to restructure within the intent of this bill. But looming overhead is, how far can we go and what kind of retribution will be taken on the city if we go too far in the mind of the minister? There is a Big Brother idea looming behind this. You are elected as we are elected. People in our constituencies expect us to provide services. But if we're trying to second-guess the direction of what's going on in the province, it's very difficult.
Mr Hardeman: The other part I think you mentioned, Mr Rae, was the issue of transfer of powers from upper tier to lower tier and vice versa. Your suggestion was that it needed to be opened up so it would be easier for Toronto to accept powers from the region or from Metro and the other way around.
Mr Rae: That's in the bill.
Mr Hardeman: Yes, it's there, but you seem to imply that it was too restrictive, that you wanted to be able to do it unilaterally, to have Metro take power or to have Toronto assume power from the upper tier more easily than it is in there. But do you not have a concern that it would become a hodgepodge, one municipality wants it from the upper tier and the next municipality wants to give it to the upper tier and the upper tier can't do it unless they do it for all?
Mr Rae: That's the case already.
Mr Hardeman: Wouldn't you suggest that the position of the bill would solve that problem, that it has to be universal and that it has to be the majority of municipalities making the decision?
Mr Rae: The hodgepodge exists today, and I think that the hodgepodge may work, though, in different parts of this province. I don't think imposing one ideal across the province is a worthy pursuit. I think there are better things you could be looking for in terms of savings and efficiency.
Our recommendations on this very issue are on page 3 of tab 4, concerning local municipalities assuming powers in their own area. I think the city of Toronto is very clear about its relationship with the Metro Toronto system, and we see some merit in your recommendations that will allow us, or hopefully will allow us, to make those changes to be a far more efficient city.
Mr Hardeman: There has been a considerable discussion on the issue of whether the bill allows charging of certain types of taxes and so forth, and there are differences of opinions on that. Reading the chart that we have here, I would gather from what's in here that it doesn't imply that you can charge all types of taxes, though it's not very clear and I appreciate the opposition requesting a written legal opinion to clarify that.
But if it was so, would you have any recommendations as to what could be -- first of all, I want to point out that I think the mayor of Toronto has said that they were not in a position to be adding, or were not going to be adding, any new user fees or poll taxes even if they were allowed. Could you give us any suggestions as to what you would put in that would prevent that from happening?
Mr Rae: Unless it were imposed by Queen's Park, I don't think members of council would, of their own volition, introduce user fees. I don't think there's an interest on the part of council, so if we don't wish to use them we will not use them.
Page 13, which we referred to earlier, talks about our analysis of the tax situation. I have not heard members of council talking about user fees as an alternative, but it's quite clear, I think, to the public that user fees are another form of taxation. You would be doing what the federal government has been doing to you, and that is handing off responsibility. In doing this, in providing us with the latitude to impose user fees, it's a far more comfortable term than a tax, but it will work in the very same manner.
The Chair: Sorry to interrupt, Mr Rae, but we've come to the conclusion of the half-hour and we're sticking quite strictly to that time.
Mr Rae: I understand.
The Chair: I want to thank you both for appearing before the committee today.
BOARD OF TRADE OF METROPOLITAN TORONTO
The Chair: Can I please call on members from the Board of Trade of Metropolitan Toronto to come forward. Just quickly, to members of the committee, each caucus is responsible for dividing up its own time, so members of the government side might take note that if you want two people to speak, you should get together on that to divide the time up.
Mr Gerretsen: Good ruling.
Mr Phillips: Don't let them bully you.
Mr Gerretsen: That's right. Take a stand, Mr Chairman.
The Chair: Good morning, gentlemen, and thank you for coming today to appear before the standing committee on general government. I'd appreciate it if you would introduce yourselves and your organization for the sake of the committee members and for Hansard. You have half an hour to use as you wish. You may want to leave 10 or 15 minutes at the end of your presentation for questions.
Mr Michael Lauber: Thank you very much, to the members of the committee. Just to do introductions, I'm Mike Lauber. I'm volunteer vice-president of the board of trade. To my immediate right is Ross Dunsmore, also a vice-president of the board of trade, a volunteer as well. To my left is John Bech-Hansen, who is the board economist, and on my far right is Jim McCracken, who is a board policy adviser.
Gentlemen, we will deal with the municipal section and we will deal with the interest arbitration. Our paper makes reference to the pension area as well, but we won't talk about that today. I know health is being dealt with separately, and our paper does not deal with health either because the board currently does not have a committee on health and we really don't have the expertise to deal with that.
We're looking at a bill here which is obviously very vast in scope and I could see having some unforeseen consequences which could jump up and bite us as time goes on. Some of the provisions that the people might be most concerned with could be dealt with by having sunset clauses built into them.
Generally speaking, though, we support user charges for the municipalities, licence fees and so forth. We also support the ability to privatize certain services and for far more authority for the municipalities in that particular area.
GTA restructuring: We've been very active in putting forward papers to the Golden commission and to the government in dealing with the restructuring of the greater Toronto area. It's partly in response to that initiative and our feeling of the absolute necessity to fix the tax base in Metropolitan Toronto and the greater Toronto area and to restructure the political level that we are supportive of this minister having powers in order to make something happen at that level. I think it's very essential that we accomplish a restructuring in the next year. It will take some decision-making and ability to make decisions in order to make that happen.
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The municipalities have been traditionally children of the province. Certainly the larger municipalities have grown up and are very sophisticated governments and I don't think need to be treated that way. I think it is proper that the province is recommending a reduction in the level of day-to-day supervision of the governments, and we are not concerned with that. The cities would end up controlling a greater amount of their revenues and they're also controlling their expenditures. We do believe that they should have within their control as much of the revenue as possible so that their destiny is within their own discretion as much as possible.
There's a lot of concern being expressed about user fees, about privatizing, licence fees, poll taxes, income taxes and so forth. As we see it, this legislation is only enabling them to do that. Nowhere does it say that they must do it or will do it or anything. It's purely enabling. We don't see that as being a problem, to have that enabling legislation there for them to do that.
If municipalities abuse that right, as they could well do, they are obviously accountable every three years in the ballot box and they can be tossed out. Business assessment can leave the city, as has been happening within Metropolitan Toronto with its high tax base. Business has been moving out in droves for the last four or five years, and that loss of assessment is causing some huge problems. I just heard Kyle Rae refer to Big Brother, the minister, watching them, coming down on the municipalities. I think they should be far more concerned about their loss of assessment and what the voters might do to them if they were to abuse these provisions. So we don't see a big problem there.
We do feel that some of these reforms, though, in giving the minister authority, are very important to accomplishing the GTA reform, as I said before. Our recommendations on GTA reform, which have been well publicized in the media and distributed to the members of the committee, talk about eliminating the various regions, coming up with one region over the greater Toronto area; bringing emergency services to the new regional level; roads and parks going down to local levels; the elimination of school board trustees; the amalgamation of municipal hydros; and of course competition in the process, of opening the contracting of services to competition between the city departments and the private sector.
As we proceed in this reform, I think the only thing that is absolutely clear is that there are not 30 municipalities and mayors who are going to agree on the direction we're going in, and therein enters the minister. I think it's fairly sensible the way they're approaching it. You've got a two-stage process where the municipality or regions can work it out together and agree and proceed with a reorganization or the minister can form a commission to do it for them and impose it. I think, in the GTA and other regions of the province, we clearly have too many municipalities, we have too much government and somehow we have to pull it together and reduce the numbers.
As I say, we do support user fees. We don't regard them as a substitute for tax. If you start imposing a lot of user fees for services that are presently provided in the tax base, I expect to see the taxes come down, so we don't see user fees as being an add-on to the tax. User fees are a choice. I don't regard them as a tax because you do have a choice in most of the services, whether you use them or not, except garbage and a few other things like that.
Market forces do apply on user fees. They can be too high. They can be the wrong user fees. We had a good example a number of years ago when Metropolitan Toronto hiked the tipping fees on garbage to -- what was it? -- $150 a tonne or something like that. That was so successful that all the garbage went to Ohio and they ended up depleting their whole fund of money, a $200-million fund they had built up supporting garbage, because they had raised the user fee beyond the market's willingness to pay. So I think there is market pressure on user fees and they can lose out.
There's a table in the back of the material that's been distributed to you, appendix 2. You'll see that some jurisdictions across Canada and in the United States have a much heavier reliance on user fees as a percentage of their municipal revenues. A lot of reasons come into it there. You'd have to really play around with some of the numbers to get a true comparison of the numbers, but I think if you just look at it on a conceptual basis, many jurisdictions get up to 60% and 70% of their revenues out of user fees, where in Ontario it's generally much lower, down around 30% or so of revenues.
We do not agree with some of the threats to charge user fees for non-anticipated emergencies and so forth. If your car breaks down in a municipality, we don't expect to have a tax to put the fire out or something like that. I think that would be very destructive and damaging.
Privatization, contract out: yes, definitely. The only way to reduce costs is to open the system up to competition between the municipal departments and the private sector. I think it protects both the municipal departments to be competitive, it drives them to be competitive, and it also gives the private sector an opportunity there.
Special-purpose bodies are a difficult thing for us. Essentially, we recognize the frustration, sometimes, with special-purpose bodies, but on the whole the board of trade position is to support special-purpose bodies: police and other organizations like that. We feel the political control should be primarily at the budgetary level. Some of the bodies, like transit and police and so forth, we feel are best run as special-purpose bodies, keeping them away from the day-to-day influence and interference of elected officials. I know there's a tendency to argue against them and to try to do away with them, but we're very cautious on that and generally would support their existence.
Direct taxes, yes. There's a reference to direct taxes, and that enables a lot of opportunities, anything from poll taxes to income taxes and sales taxes and so forth. While I doubt that any of the cities, certainly in the near term, would attempt anything like that, we would caution on that and take a serious look at that issue. Right now we have two levels of government, the federal and the provincial levels, that are sharing that tax base, and I'm not sure it's in the best interests to have a third level of government sharing that tax base. We have enough trouble bringing about disentanglement without adding people in to sharing common tax bases.
The last item I'll mention on the municipal side is variable mill rates. We have recommended that strongly within our presentations for reform of the tax system within the greater Toronto area. There's no reference to it in this bill. It may come in future bills, perhaps in an amendment to the Assessment Act. We feel that it's a very important method of allocating tax and to have an accountable and measurable way of allocating the municipal tax cost between the residential and the business sector. So we would hope that will be pursued at the appropriate time. We feel that a variable mill rate brings accountability and responsibility to local governments in their treatment of business and residential balance in the tax system.
I think they are the end of the remarks I'll make on the municipal sector. I'd like to pass it over to Ross, who will deal with the interest arbitration.
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Mr Ross Dunsmore: My remarks begin on page 6 of the submission that we've provided to you and I'd invite the members to turn to that page.
As an introduction, we commend the drafters for attempting, in the interest arbitration area, to control costs. If there's one thing that business these days wishes to do, it's to have as low a cost base as possible while it's attempting to be competitive within the province of Ontario, and this legislation will be of assistance. It will also be of assistance, in our view, to keeping businesses competitive in the province of Ontario, and by that I mean they may stay here more than they would go otherwise.
I have one summary point and seven specific points. The summary point is that, with respect, one must be as precise as possible in making instructions to interest arbitrators, because they have demonstrated over many years their valuing of their own independence and their unique capacity for determining their own approach to any legislation which is less than precise.
A good example of this that all of you will be somewhat familiar with is the fact that, notwithstanding the very imperative restrictions of the Social Contract Act, numerous arbitrators it found within their capacity the ability to award wage increases. You must be very precise if you intend to control costs, which we understand to be the import of these particular regulations.
The seven specific points:
With respect to ability to pay, the instruction presently in the regulation is that the arbitration board shall "consider" the ability to pay. If you review any of the innumerable interest arbitration awards over the year, you will find many references to the fact that all the submissions of the parties have been considered. But consideration is not sufficient. You must require the interest arbitrators to not only consider the implications of what you are particularly interested in, but to apply it. It is the application that is necessary to ensuring that you achieve your end of controlling costs.
It is not underlined here, and I would ask you, because it is so emphatic in my submission, to underline in point one, in the first part of the language, "and apply" in the sentence which begins, "In making a decision or award, the board of arbitration shall consider and apply," because we have said we will underline our proposed amendments. That in itself would make a significant impact.
The second point with respect to the same area is that the cases over the years have made it very clear that for an interest arbitrator, ability to pay is equated to the ability to tax. It has always been the view of arbitrators in this field that as long as employers have the capacity to collect more money, then they are not inhibited in any way. The employer always will therefore have the ability to pay in any of the fields that we are talking about. That is why we propose that the considerations here to control costs should require the arbitrator to not only consider the ability to pay in light of the fiscal situation, but also in light of not any increase in taxes.
If there is to be a decision about an increase in taxes, that is a political decision, that is not an arbitral decision, and you should be precise in restricting arbitrators to making decisions related to wages and employment conditions, not political decisions.
My third point: With respect to the evidence that you have before interest arbitration boards, it is important that there not be interminable wranglings over financial information. I can assure you that we could spend many, many thousands of dollars at hearings fighting about whether the calculations were made appropriately or whether some other way ought to have been considered. It is much more appropriate to specify that the arbitrator should be required to make his or her decisions on the same information the politicians made their decisions on. In other words, whatever decision is relied upon by the municipality should also be sufficiently good for the arbitrator to rely on it.
On the third point on page 7, again with respect to precision, under ability to attract and retain qualified candidates, with respect, the arbitrator must be compelled to deal in more specific detail with the economic fact of qualified applicants. I can remember several cases where more than 2,000 persons would be applying for the position of probationary firefighter, evidence clearly of no need to increase the rate for a probationary firefighter in any way, and still the arbitrator increased it 5% or 6%. Whatever it was for other firefighters they also gave to the start rate, completely unjustified by the economic data related to those who were willing to take on the job at the present rate. That information would have been argued in front of the board and the board would have considered it, but not applied it and not placed any account upon the economic impact.
With respect to public and private sector comparisons, some have argued before you that the private sector should be included in the comparisons that would be appropriate for an arbitrator to consider. In our submission, and we've had some additional time to reflect on this, these criteria should not be utilized. They should be removed from considerations before arbitrators specifically. They do consider it in any event, but the instruction you have given has the possibility to increase substantially the costs of employers, and that is because over the years police and fire have always argued that they should be paid the same. Firefighters are usually arguing that they should be paid as much as police.
If this instruction is put into the arbitration process, arbitrators will be facilitated in concluding that fire should indeed be paid as much as police officers, and many municipalities would not agree with that proposition. So the instruction should not be there.
Similarly, and perhaps at a much higher cost, nurses in nursing homes and homes for the aged have for years sought to be paid at the same level as nurses who work in hospitals, notwithstanding that there are substantially different responsibilities and duties carried out by the hospital nurses. That battle has been arbitrated on many occasions and the nurses have not been successful in increasing their rates to those of hospital nurses. The arbitrators would be facilitated in solving that problem at great expense to employers in this particular environment if you require arbitrators to consider comparable positions across the broader public sector.
Therefore, it's our recommendation, since the purpose of these regulations is to control cost, that you not mandate comparability. It is inappropriate. What instead you should be looking at is the ability to pay in the fiscal circumstances without tax increase in local situations.
The fifth point, the ceiling on wage awards at the bottom of page 7: The problem with police and fire comparisons is that police are not employed by the same person who employs firefighters. If the police and fire comparison exists, then the firefighters are not paid in a manner that is similar to the way in which all other municipal employees are paid. The result, through arbitration over 10 or 15 years, has been that firefighters will have wages 5% to 10% higher in aggregate than those of other municipal employees, notwithstanding that they all work for the same municipality. That should not be allowed to continue. Firefighters should be assessed and considered in their payment in the context of the same circumstances as other municipal employees.
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Local factors: This, in my view, is an important matter for you all to consider. In only the instructions with respect to the Police Services Act have there been added two additional criteria for the arbitrators to consider, and the one that I wish to focus on most specifically is number 7, which says that any other local factors shall be considered.
In my submission, if you leave the regulation the way it is, then what will arise is a circumstance where it can be forcefully argued that local matters cannot be considered by any arbitrator in any other sector than the police sector, because the first five criteria are the same across all the pieces of legislation that you're seeking to amend. If you've intentionally kept them the same but added two only for police, then it can be forcefully argued that in the municipal sector you cannot consider local matters because the Legislature intentionally left it out of the Fire Departments Act and intentionally put it in the Police Services Act.
Therefore, since local problems are the essence of every municipal argument, it is important, if we're attempting to (1) be fair and (2) control costs, that you eliminate local factors from police services or you add it at least to fire.
The Chair: We have two minutes for each party, beginning with the third party.
Mr Silipo: I wish we had more than two minutes because there's a lot in this brief that I'd like to pursue, but let me just focus in on one area which seems to me to be a bit of a contradiction and perhaps you could explain a little bit further. You seem to be saying, on the one hand, that you like what you see here as being more powers to the municipalities, but at the same time you have serious reservations about schedule M's provision which allows municipalities to impose more direct taxes. I'd like you to talk a little bit more about that.
Because I don't think I'm going to get a chance to ask you another question, perhaps I can also ask you to comment on this one point in particular that I take great issue with you on, where you say that "a nominal charge of $1 to enter a skating rink or swimming pool is hardly punitive." I'd say to you that's probably true if you're talking about a situation in which there's a family income of $30,000, $40,000, $50,000 or more. I suggest to you that there are many families in Metropolitan Toronto which, even working at minimum wage, would find that in fact a very punitive thing to do and couldn't afford that.
I just have a problem with your approach that says that user fees are okay because they're not going to be a burden, and don't you see that they really are another form of taxation, but it was essentially more around the point of the contradiction that I saw in what you were suggesting earlier that I wanted you to comment.
Mr Lauber: In the area of the direct taxes, I don't think the municipalities will get into direct taxes. Quite frankly, we don't know --
Mr Cooke: Won't ever?
Mr Lauber: I don't think ever.
Mr Cooke: We hope.
Mr Lauber: I'm not sure why we're worrying about putting them in the bill at this time. If they came out of the bill, that would be fine with us, the ability to levy direct taxes, on that issue, because if we're looking at disentanglement and expenditures, then I think we should retain some separation on the revenue side of things as well, and the municipalities, to get into it, will end up building a bureaucracy to collect and manage these taxes, I'm sure. We don't like that side of it.
As far as the $1 is concerned, I know that's an emotional issue and I'm sure there are other ways of dealing with the people who can't afford the $1 to take the family to the skating rink and so forth. But the vast majority of the citizens of the greater Toronto area or of the province and so forth can afford that. Don't forget the flip side of this: If we run things properly, they're going to have more money in their pockets because their taxes are going to go down.
Mr Sampson: Thank you very much for your presentation. I'm intrigued by a number of aspects, including your discussion on the employee benefit plans introduced by the former government in its budget without details or consultation. I guess that must have slipped by the champions of public consultation over there. I noticed the general theme of your --
Interjection: You're getting tough on day two.
Mr Sampson: The general theme of your discussion, and I think you actually said it, absolute necessity to restructure: Why, in your view, is it absolutely necessary that this government restructure?
Mr Lauber: To restructure what?
Mr Sampson: I think you were talking about restructuring with respect to the way we deal with municipalities, interest arbitration. You started off your comment that it was absolutely necessary and you agree with restructuring.
Mr Dunsmore: With respect to the interest arbitration process, the restructuring is necessary because if we are going to control costs, there's a fundamental requirement that you regulate the interest arbitration process more precisely, because it is completely uncontrolled at the moment.
Mr Sampson: So somehow that is connected to the municipal components of our act, to say that we're going to pass more responsibilities to the municipalities?
Mr Dunsmore: Yes.
The Chair: I'm sorry, there's not enough time left to allow a response to that. We quickly have to go to the members of the opposition.
Mr Phillips: The brief from the board is perhaps the strongest brief supporting, in my opinion, delaying passing this bill until we have a chance to understand its implications more. I just flipped through a bunch of pages here. You say, "We know the bill may give rise to many unforeseen circumstances." You say, "The board disagrees with the direction of the proposed legislation," in one part. "The board has reservations." You disagree with the lack of the mill rate. You say back later that certain sections should be deleted, must be deleted, that another section is unfair, that in view of the time frame, the board requests that a certain part of the act be withdrawn; this is on the taxes.
Your brief is filled with, I think, warnings to us about concerns of the board. The one thing you think really is strongly in need of support by the board is this restructuring recommendation for the GTA.
We were told yesterday by the minister that the GTA is excluded from those provisions specifically, and therefore on the major part of the bill that you support strongly, we're told Metro is excluded from that part.
My question to the board is, am I characterizing this properly from the board's perspective, that the bill is filled with things that you are concerned about, and has the board been told that Metro Toronto is included in those restructuring provisions, where East York can be taken over by the city of Toronto without East York ever agreeing to it? Have you been told this is part of the bill?
Mr Lauber: I don't think we've been told that's part of the bill, and I wasn't aware of the comments made yesterday. Essentially, though, on the bigger picture of the bill, there are some cautions in here and I think there are some cautions in any piece of legislation. We're not saying this bill shouldn't go ahead, more or less as it is, or as it is. I think some of the cautions we have, such as the taxes --
Mr Phillips: But if it didn't include Metro in its restructuring, would that perhaps have a different view from the board?
Mr Lauber: If it were excluded from the restructuring? We'd just have to get the authority some other way.
The Chair: Thank you, gentleman. You've exhausted your time for presentation. I appreciate your taking the time to appear before the committee today.
Mr Phillips: Could we get someone from the government to clarify that for us, because yesterday the minister indicated that Metro was excluded from these restructuring provisions.
The Chair: I'll see if we can get a written response from the minister's office for clarification.
Mr Phillips: Thank you very much.
Mr Gerretsen: Somebody presumably is in charge of carrying this bill through the committee.
Mr Phillips: They're watching on TV.
Mr Gerretsen: Oh, I see.
Interjections.
The Chair: We'll get some kind of clarification.
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ONTARIO SECONDARY SCHOOL TEACHERS' FEDERATION
The Chair: The gentlemen from the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation, welcome to the standing committee on general government. Today you'll have 30 minutes for your presentation; you may want to leave 10 or 15 minutes at the end for questions. I'd appreciate it if you would start by introducing yourselves and your organization. Thank you and welcome.
Mr Earl Manners: Thank you. Well, I don't know who to thank for the opportunity to be here. My name is Earl Manners, president of OSSTF. With me are Malcolm Buchanan, general secretary, and Larry French, our director of external policy.
The executive summary to our report opens with the line, "Bill 26 moves Ontario toward government by fiat." Others have used the word "dictatorship." I know some in this room may wonder whether that's just a rhetorical statement, but I had an opportunity last night to review some of my exams that I used to use as a Canadian studies teacher. In the civics section I had questions asking my students to make a distinction between democracy -- "What are the defining characteristics?" -- and a dictatorship. Of course I would give marks if they wrote down, "Government for the people, by the people," as the definition of democracy, that it contains a series of checks and balances, that there is a legislative function or a legislative power to make the laws, executive power in the cabinet and the ministers to propose laws, and that there was a judicial function or power to uphold the laws; that these were all separate and there were checks and balances built in. I would also give marks for a student who said that when all these three powers are combined into one, you have a dictatorship.
When I took a look at the omnibus bill -- and just for my edification I read through parts of it last night. In schedule L on the Pension Benefits Act; schedule K, freedom of information; schedule M, the Municipal Act; schedule F, hospitals, just to start, I found 20 different examples, without even trying, where the minister or the cabinet was given not only the power to propose the law but the power to change the law by regulation, by administrative order or by just administrative direction, and also references that they would not be subject to the law if they acted in an illegal manner -- and none of this would happen with parliamentary debate. If my students said that was an example of a dictatorship, I think I would have to give them full marks. So it is not just rhetoric.
There are other concepts that I used to teach about too, and that was the Big Lie and scapegoating, and I tended to use examples from our history of the 1930s in other countries in Europe. We have certain examples of that in the omnibus bill.
The minister said, for example, when he was talking in his economic statement about education finance, that the Ontario average expenditure on education was 10% higher than that of other provinces, creating, I think just by coincidence, a $1.3-billion overexpenditure, in his mind, which is exactly the target in the Common Sense Revolution in the secondary school reform.
The reality, unfortunately, is quite different. For some reason, the Minister of Finance used 1994 data rather than 1995. The data he used excluded kindergarten enrolment, although the funding for kindergarten was included. As a result, 100,000 pupils were not counted in the calculations of per-pupil expenditure. You know what effect that has, then, on the statistics about costs. It would make Ontario look higher than it actually is. The data the minister used included private schools, and he also excluded Ontario from the calculation of the average.
That, I think, is a misrepresentation of facts. It certainly would exaggerate the Ontario average expenditure on education as compared to other provinces. It's certainly not 10% above the average. If you use 1995 data and exclude Ontario it's only 4% above the average, but if you include Ontario in that calculation, our expenditures are only 2% above the average. Yet Ontario also has the highest per capita income, and we also deal with the most number of immigrants to this country and therefore have additional expenditures for ESL. It doesn't take into consideration all of that.
So I don't think our figures are out of proportion at all. In fact, if you look in the appendices of our report, you will find that Ontario ranks 29th when you look at Ontario's expenditure compared to the United States and Canada -- 29th -- yet supposedly we're uncompetitive.
All these data were provided by the minister in his financial statement to justify schedule Q and changes to the arbitration procedure. Not only do we believe that the school boards should be excluded from schedule Q, we believe schedule Q should be dropped in its entirety.
In criminal law, political interference is inexcusable. What schedule Q does for contract law is that it legislates political interference. It puts the Common Sense Revolution above questions of fairness, justice and equity.
Arbitrators who are supposed to be, by definition, neutral, become agents of the government. But more than that, schedule Q also gives arbitrators the power to cut programs and to determine the qualifications required to deliver those programs. As a result, they not only become agents of the government, they also become the politicians. Why trustees would not then just want to go to arbitration, to have an arbitrator make the decision for them, so they would then be able to say, "It wasn't me who made the decision, it was that arbitrator" is beyond me.
The effect of schedule Q in the school board sector is to really undermine the collective bargaining process and probably lead to greater conflict in employer-employee relations.
What it would allow an arbitrator to do, for example, is to say that you no longer need teacher-librarians, you no longer need teacher-guidance counsellors, you no longer need computer studies teachers, you no longer need music teachers, you no longer need physical education teachers, and the list goes on. These are not just references pulled out of the hat. These are musings that have been included in both the former Tory blue book on education by the Minister of Education and by some of our trustee organizations.
The second area I would like to look at is pay equity. I have to say at the beginning that I do not know why the government would repeal proxy value calculations for pay equity. The Premier said during the election campaign that he was opposed to so-called quota laws. I do not accept his definition of a quota, but this situation has nothing to do with a quota. It has to do with ensuring that traditional female job classes do not remain job ghettoes in terms of pay, and that when they do not have a male job comparator they're allowed to go look outside the establishment for a comparison so their value is recognized.
Some of our lowest-paid workers for children -- day care workers, home care, children's aid society workers -- are all going to be negatively affected by this. I suggest to you that that is a very telling indication of the value this government puts on children. This is not a quota, this is discrimination, and it's blatant discrimination on the part of this government.
Under the Pension Benefits Act, schedule L, you are well aware that the teachers have a partnership with the government in the teachers' pension plan. We are subject to the provisions of the Pension Benefits Act in case of windup, so you can well imagine that we are concerned that the suggestions you have for the OPSEU and public service pension plans will very shortly appear on the table in negotiations with the government regarding the teachers' pension plan as well.
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It's inexcusable that the government would exempt itself from an act that it supported in 1987 when it was passed. It's inexcusable that a government feels it can put itself above the law when even private sector pensions are not above this law. This law was put in place because of the Conrad Black-Dominion Stores pension fund fiasco, and what I believe the exemption would do is create such a fiasco now in the public sector.
Not only would it save the employer $225 million if they downsize by 10,000, or $400 million if they downsize by 20,000, but it would allow the employer to receive reimbursement for payments back to 1993. You want to have your cake and eat it too.
Being exempted from liability and fiduciary responsibility is another example of the unfettered powers of cabinet. There is a superintendent of pensions. That is the responsibility of the superintendent of pensions, and the power of that superintendent should not be usurped.
Under schedule K, freedom of information, you can understand that information is the stuff of education. Intellectual freedom is the hallmark of a public education system. When you curtail access to information, you're curtailing access to critical thinking and the ability of our students and teachers to have access to information they can use in the classroom.
We find the reference to the ability to expand powers to refuse access to records by heads of institutions to be unacceptable. We find the imposition of user fees for obtaining access to this information -- all that does is ensure that it's freedom for those who can afford and no freedom for those who can't afford to pay. We indicated that the compendium to go along with Bill 26 would have cost us over $700 to obtain, just to be able to analyse this piece of legislation that's before the committee today.
But I want to emphasize something else. It's not just this bill that tampers with freedom of information. Bill 7 and Bill 8, which have already been passed by the government, also tamper with freedom of information. Bill 7 limited the right of employees and unions to information they may need in an collective bargaining situation, and Bill 8 destroyed or ensured that all information related to employment equity was destroyed.
If an employee now, who must go before the Human Rights Commission, feels they have been discriminated against, there is absolutely no information available for them to use. It has either been destroyed or their right of access to that information has been limited.
Our legal firm says that unions and employers are thus forbidden to access and use information that was legally obtained to carry out a duty under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This is contrary to the charter, and those pieces of legislation should be amended to conform to the charter by facilitating access to employment equity data.
We will be looking at a charter case in this area of freedom of information and as it relates to employment equity.
Finally, under the Municipal Act, schedule M gives the minister or a commission the power to restructure municipalities. That includes the right of municipalities to restructure local boards, which includes school boards.
Any order of the minister or the restructuring commission implementing a proposal overrides any other legislation. I assume that is also how you intend to get around successor rights legislation in the labour act.
I don't need to discuss the new taxation powers and user fees. Others have done that rather well.
But this is not about dealing with the debt and the financial statement, it's about privatization. It's about privatization of municipal services, but since school boards are also included as referenced under this act, it's about privatization of school board services. Now, some may say that's just custodial and maintenance services, or some may say that's just office and clerical services and that doesn't relate to the classroom. Well, it does. It does affect the teaching-learning environment very directly. Once you privatize those services, what's next? Music? Physical education? Libraries? Management of the schools? Maybe we want to move to charter schools. I suspect that's the true intent of this government, is the privatization of our education system as well as our health care system as well as much of our municipal services.
This bill is all too encompassing. It needs much more time for debate by the citizens of this province. It should be split up into a number of sections related to health, municipalities, the civil service, pensions and other matters. It certainly will have a profound effect on our education system, and I can't find one example in it that would make our education system better. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you. We have a little less than four minutes per caucus for questions. We'll start with the government caucus.
Mr Terence H. Young (Halton Centre): I'm very concerned with your definition of a dictatorship --
Mr Cooke: I'm sure you are.
Mr Young: I have a different one that I've taught my children. A dictatorship is where they take people away in the middle of the night for opposing the government, and they often never return. There are many countries in the world that people have to put up with that, and thank God Ontario is not one of those places. For you to compare Ontario to that is irresponsible, totally irresponsible.
I want to ask you what your collective membership -- what cost-savings initiatives you are putting forward to help us address the financial state of the province and what responsibilities your members have to address costs, because your members' salaries are 75% of the cost of education.
Mr Manners: It's a rather controversial suggestion, and your minister has already rejected it, but confederated school boards seems to be one of the obvious things that we've been proposing for a number of years. We even did some polling and found out that 71% of the population supports confederated school boards and that in fact the largest number of supporters identify themselves as Conservatives. So we've put forward what we think are responsible measures that are supported by people who support this government, and yet they've been entirely rejected by the Minister of Education and the Premier, in spite of the fact that during the election the Premier stood in front of the Peel public board and Peel separate board and said, "We've got to do away with this kind of duplication."
Mr Young: May I ask you what they are? What are those measures?
Mr Manners: The confederated school board model is a prime example.
Mr Young: So you support that concept?
Mr Manners: Yes.
Mr Young: Any others?
Mr Manners: I'm not going to get here into a discussion of what are local collective bargaining issues. In the education sector there's a long history of local collective bargaining and it will be issues related to the financing of education or cutbacks that will be dealt with there.
Mr Young: Okay. Do you want to go ahead? Do you want to ask a question?
Mr Tascona: Yes. With respect to the interest arbitration, I'm curious why you would be opposing this when the purpose, as you know, is to control costs, and we are in a financial situation that is difficult. By opposing the mandatory criteria for interest arbitration, are you saying that arbitrators should not be accountable to the public interests of the government's ability to pay for a wage settlement?
Mr Manners: They are neutral arbitrators and they're to evaluate all information that is placed before them, including the financial records of boards of education, if they so wish. What schedule Q does is make them agents of the government, not neutral arbiters. It tells them to put the Common Sense Revolution first, before other information that may be before them. When this was attempted in 1982 or 1983 under wage and price controls, the arbitrators of the day rebelled and said no. I suspect that many arbitrators here too, in 1995, will say that this is a curtailment of their professional responsibilities.
The Chair: We must turn now to the opposition side.
Mr Alvin Curling (Scarborough North): Thank you very much, and I must commend you for this presentation. It is forthright, direct, and I think you characterize the government situation very accurately about a dictatorship in itself. As a matter of fact, do you know that this would have been law by now, this Bill 26, without any input anyhow?
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There's so much you had in here, but let me just focus on one aspect of it. I think it was section 8 that you had spoken about, that the board can be dissolved by the minister. You mentioned that in your third paragraph, where local boards are being dissolved. You read, "It follows that, depending on the nature of the regulation that is created by the minister, municipal councils could do away with boards of education. If the board of education is attached to two or more municipalities..."
It's my understanding that as long as it's associated to two municipalities, they could dissolve the board just like that. Is that the understanding?
Mr Manners: That's our understanding of schedule M; that it would allow a municipal government to make a proposal to the minister to dissolve a board of education, to make it subject to that municipal council, and that they could go forward with that just by ministerial decree.
The other thing that it does is it would allow a regional government -- Hamilton-Wentworth comes to mind -- to try to, again, do away with school boards. One part of that region may initiate the activity, and it could apply to more than one board of education. So the Hamilton municipality may initiate this, but it could apply to Wentworth as well.
Mr Phillips: Your recommendation on that, I gather, is to simply remove that section. I think we understand that and appreciate it.
Just to follow up on a comment one of the government members made that this bill is all about reducing the deficit, I'd like your comments from your members' point of view; this bill is all about finding $5 billion for a tax cut. This isn't me talking. I always carry this around, this is the direct fiscal impact of the Common Sense Revolution. What it shows is -- you can look across the top; this is the revenue. That number there is $5 billion. That's the tax cut cost. That's how much money the government has to find for the tax cut. I use their numbers because it avoids getting into an argument about what the real numbers are. But their numbers are $5 billion. The way they have to find that $5 billion is originally they said they'd have to cut $6 billion. They now say they'll have to cut $8 billion.
I guess my question to the membership of OSSTF is, is the membership supportive of a program that purports to tackle the deficit, but really the majority -- when I say the "majority," more than half -- of the money that's cut is then paid out in the form of a tax cut. Does your membership have a view on whether that's the right way to go or not?
Mr Manners: They do have a view on this. Even though our members, given some of their salaries, may benefit from the tax cut, they have indicated quite strongly and by resolution at our provincial council that if a tax cut is to be implemented on the backs of the most vulnerable in society and through all these cuts to social programs, we don't want it, because --
The Chair: We must move to the third party.
Mr Cooke: Just a couple of quick questions, and then I want to talk a little bit about what impact this might have on labour relations in the province. Just a quick question: Were you consulted at all about any of the changes that came in this that affected your members?
Mr Manners: None.
Mr Cooke: I want to go back to the part of this act that talks about elimination of school boards, which you know I had a view on: fewer of them, but not being taken over by Mayor McCallion.
Mr Manners: I'm aware of your view.
Mr Cooke: The minister has said that school boards will be protected by regulation, because it's not one of the local boards that they envision giving the power to the municipalities to eliminate. I guess I'm wondering what your views are in that the school boards at that point would then be able to be eliminated simply by the change of a regulation, that there would no longer be any legal protection. This is one area where I assume the Catholic system and the public system come completely together when it comes to governments.
Mr Manners: Well, I think both the Catholic and the public systems believe in local school board governance, because it's closest to the people. School boards have had a long history in this province, because it is felt that at the local level they needed an independent governing body to deal with all of the issues around education, that it can't be dealt with just in a subcommittee report that would come right after whether a road needs to be repaved or not.
We support local school board governance. We do not believe that any Minister of Education should be able to amalgamate or annul, or whatever the proper words are, a school board just by regulation, that if this minister and this government believe that school boards are not to be included in these powers they should have never been included in the first place, and rather than wait for regulations it should be announced right now and changed and removed from the bill.
Mr Cooke: I think it's going to be important when we deal with clause-by-clause of this bill. We won't see the regulations; the regulations won't be tabled here. But I don't think it would be good public policy to say you're protected and it's going to be done by regulation for school boards only.
A final point, because I only have about 30 seconds, probably: Can you give us your view on the changes that are in here on Bill 100, what your guesstimate will be of the impact on labour relations in the education field?
Mr Manners: It's hard to guess. I mean, the cuts are going to have a profound effect on the ability of local school boards to continue to deliver the kinds of programs that they have in the past. They will affect the classroom in spite of the promises of this government. What it will mean: If school boards know that arbitrators have these fettered responsibilities now, I suspect school boards will just drag their feet; they won't negotiate in good faith, and they'll just try and encourage employee groups to go to strike or push them towards arbitration so they can just wash their hands of the decision, because it's going to be made for them.
Mr Cooke: Well, I think that's --
The Chair: Mr Cooke, you're accurate on your 30 seconds. Very good timing. That's the end of the half-hour. I want to thank the OSSTF for appearing today.
Before we recess for the lunch break, a quick housekeeping note from Mr Phillips that the subcommittee of the full committee will have a meeting at 12:40 in committee room 2 today. We will recess until 1 pm.
The subcommittee recessed from 1158 to 1303.
FEDERATION OF WOMEN TEACHERS' ASSOCIATIONS OF ONTARIO
The Chair: Good afternoon, everyone. Seeing representatives here from each caucus, and since it's five minutes past the hour and I hate to be late, I will call the afternoon session to order.
I'd like to call on representatives from the Federation of Women Teachers' Associations of Ontario to come forward, please. Welcome back to the standing committee on general government. You'll receive half an hour of time today to do your presentation and you will probably want to leave a few minutes at the end of your presentation for some questions and response from the three parties. I'd appreciate it if, for the sake of the members of the committee and for Hansard, you'd read your names and organization into the record.
Ms Sheryl Hoshizaki: My name is Sheryl Hoshizaki and I'm the president of the Federation of Women Teachers' Associations of Ontario. With me I have Joan Westcott, the executive director of our organization, and Pat McAdie, our researcher. Today we are very pleased to be able to present to you because we have some very serious concerns about the omnibus bill.
As I said, we are an organization of women elementary teachers. There are 41,000 women teaching in the elementary public system in Ontario and I think it's very clear that our members would receive at first hand the impact of any legislation such as this, on how it would affect children and families living in communities. For that reason, we feel that we have not only a need but a responsibility to be here today.
We have grave concerns about the bill and I'd like to go through them. Before you you have a presentation of our brief. I will not read the brief to you, but I would like to highlight some issues within the brief and I also would like to make comments as to why we take such serious issue with these changes.
First of all, the volume of the document: As I stated earlier, there is immense legislative change. The question we have is, why is it being contained in one bill? I'm sure we can speculate why that is in fact happening, but we would like to give you the benefit of the doubt. We believe that the changes are major. For that reason, we know that the changes will redefine our communities as we know them. For that reason, we also believe that some of the changes are unknown. Even ministers who are in charge of their own portfolios admit to not knowing the total impact. I think that's a serious issue. For these reasons, we at FWTAO expect, at the very least, a full and open debate on the omnibus bill.
We believe you should listen to the people who are part of the programs and services that make up the communities. We as teachers know it is the constants in children's lives that make sense to them. We cannot teach them about free and open debate, about democracy, about a commitment to equality as a belief which is basic to a whole society, if we do not even model this in our own governments.
I'd like to move into the area of pay equity. Schedule J of Bill 26 removes the proxy method of comparison from the Pay Equity Act. FWTAO believes that this is a direct action against women and thus children. Without a comparison group outside their place of employment, some women will be destined to live forever at a certain economic level. That is not only unfair but morally unjustified. There's no economic merit to the concept, since these are wages that are not spent in communities. We believe that those changes should be made.
Under user fees, FWTAO believes that user fees are quite simply taxation. In fact, they're unfair taxation. The people who can least afford it will have to pay for basic services and basic advantages for children.
A government that ran on a Common Sense Revolution mandate that promises a future cannot really believe there is common sense that takes more from the people who can least afford it.
In fact, because of user fees, public libraries, which were once described as a poor person's university, will no longer be available to young children and families who need them most.
User fees to public parks makes no sense. Where will the children play. More importantly, where will they learn about the natural world so that they will have respect for it for their future?
User fees for recreation? Where will children learn about wellness? And all communities will tell you that children and youths need things to do.
User fees for public services and firefighting services? In our schools today we have programs called VIP programs, the relationships and partnerships that we have established with the government in Ontario and certainly with police within communities. Our children have learned to respect and understand what peer pressure and the importance of their own self-esteem mean through these programs. The cancellation of these kinds of programs will put a new face on the relationship that young children have with police and protective services.
Quite simply, this government has promised a tax credit for those who can afford it and a tax for those who can least afford it.
In the area of the environment, this government is proposing changes in Bill 26 that will have detrimental effects on the environment. Companies will not have to adhere to the environmental standards needed to ensure a sustainable natural world. This simply does not make good economic sense.
I'm from Dryden. I've lived through the polluting of two of the largest river systems in northern Ontario. The systems have taken 30 years to even begin to clean them up, but the communities affected will never know their original lives. We have lessons to learn from that, and to take a step backwards in the area of not establishing standards for companies is irresponsible.
The area of municipal boundaries: The section of schedule M that refers to municipal redesign is a unilateral move to create larger systems with less services. It is disturbing that school board amalgamation is not excluded from the list of boards that can be dissolved. It makes only good sense to support those communities that seek to amalgamate after careful and serious consultation with all those who are affected by the move.
The idea that school boards can be exempt from this section through regulation is just not strong enough. If the government didn't mean to include school boards, then it should have been stated in the legislation. Maybe the real answer is found in the fact that the government doesn't know what is or isn't exempt from the legislation and that all kinds of regulations will be formed as Band-Aids to salvage very basic services in Ontario. This is no way to govern.
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The area of interest arbitration: The changes identified in schedule Q of Bill 26 amend the provisions in five acts, and on page 9 they're outlined for you: (1) the employer's ability to pay in light of its fiscal situation; (2) the extent to which services may have to be reduced if the current funding levels are not increased; (3) the economic situation in Ontario and in the municipality or municipalities served by the board; (4) a comparison, as between the employees and other comparable employees in the broader public sector, of the terms and conditions of employment and the nature of the work performed; and (5) the employer's need for qualified employees.
These impose serious limitations on the independence of arbitrators. In fact, arbitrators themselves reject the ability to pay as a legitimate criterion for public sector compensation. Most often, it is willingness to pay that has resulted in an arbitration decision. Since ability to pay is completely within the government's control, this unfairly limits the scope of bargaining.
The area of health: FWTAO is gravely concerned about the changes that will impact on the health of citizens in Ontario, particularly young children and poor families.
The power given to the Minister of Health to use and disclose personal, confidential information is unacceptable. It is somewhat ironic that this government, which literally ran on a "less government" mandate, is suggesting that now government can invade Ontario citizens' privacy.
Shopping around for drugs makes no sense. Many communities have one or two drugstores. Imagine shopping around for the best deal while you are sick.
Copayments are the breaking of a promise to citizens in Ontario that all citizens will have access to quality health care.
Hospital closings, profitable health care systems and user fees in hospitals are the dismantling of a health care system that we in Ontario have taken pride in.
In summary, the omnibus bill is really about democracy. It's a transfer of power that this government has made from the Legislature to the cabinet, from open debate to closed debate. All members in government are duly elected from across the province -- from towns, from cities, from rural communities. They represent the people of Ontario and should in fact -- and must -- have a voice on these very serious issues that will impact on the constituents as well as the communities.
I'd like you to bring attention to our recommendations on the last page. They're very specific:
(1) That schedule J be removed from Bill 26.
(2) That the government refrain from cuts which would lead to user fees for vital services.
(3) That the government respect the need to maintain an environment which is a healthy place to live and work and raise our children.
(4) That school boards be excluded from the provision of section 8 of schedule M of Bill 26.
(5) That schedule Q be deleted from Bill 26.
(6) That the access provided to the Minister of Health to personal and confidential information from health files not be expanded.
(7) That cuts to health care funding not be imposed in such a way that they create a two-tiered health system.
(8) That schedule K be removed from Bill 26.
(9) That Bill 26 be rewritten as separate bills to allow for full public debate and consultations.
That is our presentation.
The Chair: Thank you very much. We'll have about five minutes per caucus for questions. We start this afternoon with the opposition caucus.
Mr Phillips: On recommendation 9, that Bill 26 be rewritten as separate bills, from our look at Bill 26 I think it's fair to say that we've never seen a bill with as many sweeping provisions as Bill 26 has. I was looking today at the ad we're going to be placing in other cities. I think there are 15 ministries that are affected in major ways as a result of the bill. You've indicated in your brief here that you've only just begun to get into the bill.
Our problem is this: We've done everything we can do as an opposition to get the bill divided, which we agree with you on very much, to get additional hearings, which we agree very much on, and to allow a more reasoned debate on the bill, which we very much agree on. As a matter of fact, the board of trade from Toronto was in this morning, theoretically supporting the bill, but pointing out that they had, by my count, eight or nine major concerns about the bill.
Have you any advice for us in opposition on how we might accomplish your objective of number 9, of getting this into a more manageable size?
Ms Hoshizaki: If I were qualified to give you advice in opposition maybe I'd be sitting there, but what I guess we would like to say is that we're a Federation of Women Teachers' Associations and we represent approximately 80 associations across the province. We've talked a lot about the omnibus bill in a very short period of time, and that's our issue here, that it's a very short consultation period which doesn't give any opportunity for even the expert to have an extensive investigation as to the impact. We won't know the impacts until they're actually established.
However, the constant here has been that even people who support this government's move to deal with the deficit do not support this process. This process that actually inhibits the democratic right to have input certainly, in our organization, has been received as being detrimental to Ontarians. If it's advice, I guess the advice is that there needs to be more time to really dismantle what this bill means to communities, because if there isn't more time given, then the communities are not going to sit by and watch this happen.
There's a pattern emerging here in Ontario and the pattern that is emerging is that people are now beginning to speak out on process. They elected a government maybe to deal with the deficit, but they didn't give the government the mandate to close down democracy on things that were going to happen.
Mr Silipo: I want to follow up on that same point as well, because it's certainly been an issue that, as you know, those of us in the opposition, the NDP and the Liberals, have been both equally concerned with.
I want to focus in on some of the comment that you made in your last answer, which is that the government seems to believe that because they have a majority, what they won on June 8 was also the right to basically push through this kind of legislation in the hasty way they wanted to. I would just remind you, as I'm sure you know, that the intention of the government was to pass this legislation by last week.
One of the things we are very much troubled with is, in effect, this assumption by the government that the majority that they have in the Parliament allows them to do whatever they wish and that it doesn't really matter what we in the opposition say or indeed what you or others might say, because, for us, as far as we're concerned, we're just the opposition and you're just another interest group. We've heard that constantly in these hearings, although it's only been a day and a half, and we've got many days to go. I'm sure that will continue to be the tune. What's your reaction to that?
Ms Hoshizaki: I always have a reaction when people are referred to as interest groups because I have no embarrassment in being referred to as an interest group. If my interest has to do with young children in Ontario, then go ahead, label me an interest group.
I agree. I don't think a majority will translate to the support of all the citizens in Ontario. I think that anybody, myself included, who is an elected politician must recognize that your responsibility goes past the election date and the responsibility that all politicians have is to govern fairly. I think governing fairly has to do with the democracy of a bill such as this. We're not asking a lot. We're asking for time to take a look at the impact that this bill and all the containments to the changes in the acts are going to have, and that's really what we're here to say.
You may have all your struggles and feuds within the Legislature, but what we're saying is that the citizens, particularly the families, the poorer families and the young children who come to our schools, need to have the opportunity to have voices from organizations such as ours, regardless of whether they're labelled self-interest groups or special interest groups. That's not enough to stop us, and we'll continue to do so.
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Mr Young: I was very glad to hear you say that your mission is to represent young children, and I see that as our mission also. You know that we're spending almost $9 billion a year more than we're taking in in the province of Ontario and you know that every group we speak to, every group that comes to speak to us, says, "Don't cut me." So what we're trying to do is spread the pain. I wanted to ask you what initiatives you would recommend for us to save money in education.
Ms Hoshizaki: I'm not sure of the connection, actually, to the presentation on the omnibus bill, but because we represent the education community, I'll respond. I think it's unfortunate that you didn't use the campaign slogan "Spread the Pain" because I think we would have had a different result in the election. However, at the same time, if we're talking about cuts in education, then there has to be an open and full consultation process on where that happens.
We're not here saying, "Don't cut us." We haven't said that in any of the briefs we've presented as an organization. We have said that certain cuts into publicly funded education will devastate the system and will decrease the opportunities for young children, in particular vulnerable children, children who come from families that are poor, to put it quite simply.
However, at the same time, the cuts -- we'll say to you today as we've said before -- are too deep and too fast. There needs to be some time. I was a principal in a school and for several years I worked within an operating budget that was cut back year by year by year, but at least it was a graduated process. There were opportunities to restructure within it. It didn't mean that the quality of education that could be provided in that school was any better five years down the line than it was at the beginning. However, at the same time, what we're asking for here today is process, not the fact that we agree to or don't agree to.
Publicly funded education, to put it quite simply, if you want an answer, cannot afford more extraction out of it financially, period, or you're going to have a different system.
Mr Sampson: Did you, in the previous government, make any representations or deputations with respect to what was then called Bill 175?
Ms Hoshizaki: I'm not sure.
Mr Sampson: It's a piece of legislation that's not too dissimilar with this. In fact, it has, let me see, 15 various sections to it dealing with 15 different ministries, one of which was education. In fact, it affected the pensions of the people within your group. Did you make deputations to them with regard to the effect of that and other aspects of the legislation?
Ms Hoshizaki: You will have to give me the name, I'm sorry, of the legislation.
Mr Sampson: It's called An Act to amend the Statutes of Ontario with respect to the provision of services to the public, administration of government programs and the management of government resources. Did you make a deputation to that committee?
Ms Hoshizaki: I wouldn't have personally. I was not present at the time.
Mr Sampson: Did your group?
Ms Hoshizaki: We don't think so.
Mr Sampson: It dealt with the pensions of your group. In fact, it dealt with 18 separate ministries. I'm not surprised to hear you didn't make a deputation because there was no committee time allowed to that particular legislation. Did you know that?
Ms Hoshizaki: That was my next question, as to your point.
Mr Sampson: Would you be surprised about that?
Ms Hoshizaki: Would I be surprised about it?
Mr Sampson: Yes.
Ms Hoshizaki: Not necessarily so.
Mr Sampson: Is that an affront to democracy, as you put it?
Ms Hoshizaki: We're not here in support of a political party or opposition. The legislation is not within our mandate. What we're saying to you today is the omnibus bill that was tabled is going to have a great impact on communities, and quite frankly we're not going to tolerate it because it's going to dismantle systems that support families and children. Bringing the point that you're bringing to me has absolutely no relationship to the reason we're here.
Mr Sampson: But you were prepared to tolerate it with Bill 175 under the previous government.
Ms Hoshizaki: Since I'm at a disadvantage, since I'm not certain of the point you're making or the legislation you're talking about, it's really difficult to comment on.
Mr Sampson: I suggest you might take the record for 175 and take a look at it. It did affect the pensions of teachers, among a number of other statutes, a total of 19 ministries, and yet there was no public debate and I don't recall any submission from you people that that was a draconian piece of legislation and a misuse of democracy.
Ms Hoshizaki: What I do find interesting though -- your point being that we're self-interest groups. Obviously, if we were a self-interest group, that would be legislation since it obviously, as you said, must have affected our pensions. We would have been the first one at the table. However, what we're the first one at the table about is legislation that's going to impact on children.
The Chair: Unfortunately, we've exhausted the time. I'd like to thank you for coming today and appearing before the committee.
CITIZENS FOR PUBLIC JUSTICE
The Chair: Next to appear before the committee today will be the Citizens for Public Justice. Thank you for coming today to appear before the standing committee on general government. You have 30 minutes today for your presentation. You can use that time as you see fit. You may wish to leave some time at the end of your presentation so that each caucus may respond or ask questions. Before you begin, I would appreciate it if you could tell us about your association and read your names into the record for Hansard and the committee members.
Mr Gerald Vandezande: My name is Gerald Vandezande. With me are Jennifer Harris and Brian Walsh. They're co-chairs of the Citizens for Public Justice, an independent national citizens' organization that works on a non-partisan basis on the development and advocacy of alternative social, economic and fiscal policies that we interact with with government. There's a description of our organization in the notes for remarks that are being circulated.
I'm conscious of the time limitations and therefore propose that we as quickly as possible introduce our concerns through a summary that will take up to, at the most, 12 minutes. Recognizing the rules, we would like to respond to each party's comments or questions, assuming they stick to the three minutes, and we will use those and that way we each get a fair chance to speak our mind.
As a non-partisan organization, we have really been struck by the fact that Bill 26, the way it emerged, the way it was dealt with in the Legislature and the way it is now being dealt with, has become the focal point of a real controversy in the province that we think must be avoided in future.
It clearly spells deep trouble when people become extremely angry with one another and that anger is entrenched over the violation of what people perceive to be fundamental principles of our democracy as to how you deal with the massive restructuring of our society and the establishment of budget priorities that deal with the future of our social safety net and other matters of major concern.
As our notes indicate, Citizens for Public Justice has appeared before a variety of committees of the Legislature, and in 1989 there was a unanimous recommendation by all the members of the committee -- so that was a cross-party agreement -- to establish a round table on social policy and the economy to provide for the integration of social and economic policies. We very much pushed that idea.
If anything, Bill 26 has demonstrated, at a huge, angry debate around the tax cuts that have been imposed, particularly on the poor and the vulnerable, that we need dialogue in this province, through a process in which everyone feels that he or she is taken seriously, so that the stakeholders who deal directly with the people who often face desperate situations, as well as the people who are caught in those situations, can be heard, can be taken seriously and whose ideas can be taken into consideration before laws are drafted, policies are developed, programs are being implemented.
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We fully agreed with the standing committee of the Legislature that there ought to be this round table, at arm's length removed from the government, which allows for a critical examination of all the options that are available so we benefit from the best insight available, not only within the Legislature but also beyond, particularly among the stakeholders; and that therefore a consultation process takes place, as we propose at the bottom of page 2 in our first recommendation, that involves the municipalities and the other transfer partners as well as other members of the non-government sector, whose major concern would be the elimination of hunger, material poverty and homelessness in the province in a way that would be fiscally responsible.
Our second recommendation on top of page 3 deals with the need to eliminate poverty. For us poverty, like national unity, is a non-partisan issue. We need to deal with that social misery, that societal disease, in the most cooperative way possible in which everyone feels free to contribute, is enabled to contribute.
In order to do that, I think it is crucial that when the government considers what actions need to be taken we get the benefit of the advice out in the community; before, for example, cuts on welfare are imposed, that there be long-term impact analysis as well as withdrawal of community and social services. What impact would that have on deficit and debt reduction? What impact would those measures have on job creation? How would these measures that are contained in the fiscal and economic statement by Mr Eves and the forthcoming budget get at the necessity to reduce poverty, homelessness and hunger in this province?
We're prepared to say more about the composition of the round table and how the standing committees, such as this one, could engage in community-wide hearings before the vital decisions are made with respect to the future of the economy and our social policies.
I want to address for a moment the statements made in the Common Sense Revolution. The summary lists those well, on page 20. No one really wants to quarrel with the objectives, the goals, of the Common Sense Revolution. However, I think before they're implemented, this committee, the government, the round table, the community are entitled to know what impact, for example, the 30% cut in provincial income tax rates will have on the economy as a whole, on the people who will be positively affected as well as negatively affected by those income tax rates.
This morning Mr Harris, in a very interesting dialogue with Peter Gzowski on the CBC show, made the point that the 30% tax cut is a self-financing job creation program. That may well be true, but we need to hear the facts. How do you confirm to Ontarians that this indeed will finance a job creation program that produces three quarters of a million jobs? That's your contention in the Common Sense Revolution. That's in the throne speech. That's in Mr Eves's statement. That's in the material that was tabled in connection with Bill 26. But you need to produce the studies that show that that indeed will happen.
I have given to the clerk for your consideration a copy of a bunch of studies done by the non-partisan Canadian Council on Social Development, and I refer you to charts 19 and 20, where you see how the tax cut will be distributed. You will see that, contrary to what Mr Harris said on the CBC program this morning, only 2% of the proposed tax cut will go to 29% of the population with an income under $25,000, that the bulk of the tax cut, namely, 41%, goes to 13% of the population who earn $85,000 and over. Clearly that is an inequitable distribution of the tax cut.
That needs to be examined carefully by a round table or a standing committee, together with other factual information that other people may have, including the Conservative Party, so that we can come to a clear, comprehensive, unbiased understanding of how we can best strengthen the social safety net, enable people to live with dignity, free from poverty and from homelessness, and thus achieve one of the goals that this government has set for itself. I will leave it at that for now.
Just to conclude, it is important that as one of the recommendations of this committee looking forward to the future, trying to prevent a debacle from recurring, you as a committee as a whole, or if necessary as individual parties signing your name to a report, strongly recommend to the Legislature that in order to prevent the kind of unfortunate confrontation that occurred in the Legislature, you establish by common consent a common process that invites the common people of this province to participate for the common good in such a way that no one feels ignored, no one feels excluded from the democratic process, but everyone feels part of the decision-making that affects our common future. But that means common participation by the common people and that no one is taken for granted or taken for a ride, that everyone is given equitable treatment.
Thank you, Mr Chair. We'll be glad to answer any questions you may have, and my colleagues will be more than pleased to respond.
The Chair: Thank you and we'll start off -- we have seven minutes per caucus -- with Mr Silipo.
Mr Silipo: I'll just start by saying that I think the point and the information that you're supplying to us around the tax cut is helpful, and I thank you for that, because it certainly makes the point that we've been trying to make, which is that, first of all, this is what is driving the government's agenda, and secondly, the distribution of the tax cut will really benefit greatly those who already earn more and are better off than the average citizen in the province.
But going beyond that, I wonder if I can just sort of play the devil's advocate a little bit, if you'll forgive me for that turn of phrase --
Mr Vandezande: Well, you've used it.
Mr Silipo: But in terms of the thrust of your brief, while it makes a lot of points I certainly find quite easy to agree with, if I were looking at this I guess from the perspective of the government, I would say what you're suggesting to us really is a big discussion process here and we've got major economic problems that have to be addressed. So how is this going to lead to us fixing the problems that we have in front of us?
Mr Vandezande: My colleagues may want to add, I think Bill 26 should not proceed as it is. I think those vital elements of the bill that deal with the restructuring of power and authority relationship between the Ontario government and the Ontario municipalities, a section that you are dealing with, should be set aside until further hearings have taken place, not only with Mrs McCallion from Mississauga but also with other mayors, asking, "What is the best structural relationship that allows for a co-decisive process?" not simply saying to municipalities: "This is the way you've got to do it. If you don't, we're going to force you to do it."
I think, therefore, certain parts of Bill 26 need to be split from those sections that could proceed. There is a section dealing with the authority to borrow, and clearly that's a routine measure that needs to go forward. But other vital measures that radically change the authority relationships between the provincial and municipal government, as the transfer partners, need to be looked at further before you make decisions that you may regret later, and then you have to come back and revise the legislation again.
Mr Silipo: You're suggesting that in those conversations what we need to be doing is addressing the points that you make here on page 3 of your brief, starting with the human needs of the people of the province, the social rights and responsibilities of our communities.
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Again, these are things that certainly I, for one, would support. But just to pursue the point, how would we structure that kind of a conversation or discussion in a way that we as parliamentarians at the end of the day would feel that there are conclusions drawn that would be guiding both the province and the municipalities and others in the delivery of services across the province?
Ms Jennifer Harris: I think central to what we are recommending is a process that was agreed to unanimously by this committee in 1989, the idea of a round table on social and economic policy. We don't conceive of this as something that would have binding authority on the Legislature but rather it would give input for people who have some expertise, some stake and some creativity to work together to come up with better ideas.
Our sense is that the kind of roadblock that this legislation is hitting is based, essentially, on a lack of input and a lack of the creativity that such input could bring. There's never been a process such as the one that was recommended and was agreed upon unanimously by the standing committee. The Premier's councils never really functioned in the way that we're talking about. They themselves were split between social and economic policies, under the NDP government anyway.
What we're suggesting is something that would bring people together to come up with the kind of creative solutions that I think are available and would enable us as a province to move together towards solving these problems rather than the adversarial situation we find ourselves in now. Surely this cannot bring any kind of peaceable resolution to our common problems, if we're all fighting with each other, which seems to be the situation right now.
Mr Hardeman: Going back to the question that was just made by the presenter concerning the municipalities and striking out that section that aids the realignment of municipalities and their ability to restructure and become a more efficient and effective form of government, the suggestion that we should hear from more than two mayors, I want to tell you I've been one of those mayors and I've been in municipal government for a lot of years and it seems to me that we have heard from numerous municipal politicians who have been telling us for a considerable length of time that we need some form of process that will allow the realignment of municipal government to be more functional and more cost-effective.
I believe the legislation does in fact do that, provide the local initiative and provide the minister with the ability to make the process initiated locally happen. I was just wondering if you could outline for me what you would see would be required to deal with that, assuming that we have the local initiative that wants it to happen. Where would you go from here to say: "We don't want what's in the legislation. We want something different"? What would that be?
Mr Vandezande: I think it is important that the process go from the bottom up rather than from the top down. As you know from your own situation in Oxford county, in Woodstock there was a different sentiment as to how a municipal government plays a role in that largely rural area than you have in downtown Toronto.
I think the diverse needs as to what kind of structural relationships might be most appropriate to the kind of community that you find in different areas of the province need to be taken into consideration. To impose from the top down a uniform pattern, "This is how municipalities ought to be structured. Never mind what the local needs and sensitivities might be," is inviting this kind of alienation that we've experienced in the past.
My suggestion would be that if that section of Bill 26 was set aside, not to engage in discussion ad infinitum but to state seriously what AMO and other organizations have to say regarding the diversity of needs across this province, then to say perhaps we need to reword the way in which restructuring takes place.
Which local initiatives ought to happen? What kind of plebiscite or referenda need to take place so that local people feel that they own the process, that they have a stake in the new kind of structures through which their elected representatives can meaningfully deal with local situations in terms of social programs and community services and other obligations as well as in terms of their relationship to Queen's Park?
I think that process is important. Now -- and some people within your own caucus have shared that with me -- they feel that this is very bewildering. All at once, from Mount Olympus, comes this pronouncement, "This is the way it's going to be in the future." I think it needs to be owned locally.
Mr Hardeman: I would suggest that, in fact, the legislation does just that.
Mr Vandezande: But there is the power for the minister --
Mr Hardeman: The local initiative to allow the minister to expedite it along as opposed to going through legislation -- it could be done by regulation --
Mr Vandezande: But my concern --
Mr Hardeman: -- but it will be done from the bottom up.
Mr Vandezande: But my concern is that the minister has considerable power to say, "But this is the way it shall be" without there being any criteria in the act to say what conditions he or she must meet before he or she can give it final approval. So I think there ought to be criteria in the legislation that allows municipalities to determine, "These are the conditions and terms that we must take into consideration before we develop a plan;" and secondly, that the minister must, together with his or her colleagues, determine whether the actual application meets the criteria that have been set forth in the legislation. The legislation currently does not provide such criterion conditions.
Mr Hardeman: I think I would just go on with that one and point out that, in fact, AMO supports this type of approach strictly for the reason that you have just mentioned, that in fact you cannot set in legislation criteria that will match or that will suit the needs of the provincial municipalities. As you mentioned earlier, Metropolitan Toronto is different than Oxford county. We cannot have in legislation the type of criteria that each one must follow in order to meet a provincial standard. The legislation is written out so regulations can be provided for each local area that wishes to look at restructuring so they will be able to come up with a plan that suits that local need.
Mr Vandezande: With respect, my concern is that the regulations that would be developed -- they do not go through the Legislature, they do not go through a legislative committee, they are passed in cabinet and so there is no democratic input and participation in the formulation of those regulations. It's precisely the introduction of arbitrary regulations of that kind that has alienated people, whether it's on the social policy front, on environmental concerns, or now with municipal-provincial authority relationships. That will get people up in arms and say, "Why did we not get a chance to contribute to the formulation of this plan and these conditions?"
I personally am not that happy with the way regulations have been used to circumvent the legislative process and, worse, to circumvent the legitimate rights and freedoms of local citizens.
Mr Hardeman: You're implying that in fact the approach used in London-Middlesex, imposed by the province, was more democratic than what this new process would tend to meet?
Mr Vandezande: I'm not happy what took place in the past and I'm not happy what looks on the table now, and I say before we get caught in a trap that we really didn't anticipate, let's give the local people, like in Oxford county, a chance to say, "This is how we think about it," rather than having a few mayors and a few other politicians decide how things shall be done from here on in.
The Chair: Mr Young, you've got about 45 seconds.
Mr Young: Thank you for an excellent presentation. I just read through this paper as I was sitting here, the Backgrounder, and I agree with you, we have to make changes. You said, "We have to adapt our social programs and economic policies."
Do you have any recommendations for some creative solutions how to help 40% of welfare recipients who are children? Some new ideas how we can direct more help to the children?
Mr Vandezande: We're prepared to table with the committee copies of all the briefs and submissions that we've made to the Ontario government over the last decade, as well as to the federal government, dealing with those issues, and we'll be glad --
Mr Young: I would like to see them.
Mr Vandezande: We will be glad to meet with each individual caucus and with the appropriate committees of the Legislature to elaborate how that can be done. There is no question in our mind that something needs to be done with the current welfare system. But again, as I mentioned to Mr Hardeman, no radical changes in any system, be it the municipal authority or the welfare system, should be introduced without consulting those who are directly affected and often seriously affected by the regulations that are passed in a cabinet without consultation with the Legislature and the people who are going to be suffering because of it. So we'll be glad to meet and appear before this committee or another committee to go through those specifics.
The Chair: Thank you. The remaining time is left for the opposition party.
Mr Crozier: Thank you for your submission. Although it wasn't specifically mentioned in your brief I'd like your opinion on something, and I'm quoting from Hansard of the government agencies committee last week which appoints people to boards and commissions. A government member, Mr Wood, said that we had pointed out that the process that was followed for appointments is different now than it was under the Liberal and the NDP government, and he went on to say, "The people's decisions are going to be made by those who are elected by the people and the proof that this system is working is the appointment" we made that morning.
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I confirmed with that member that what he in essence was saying was that it was a patronage appointment but it was a PC or a Tory appointment per se. The reason I mention this leading up is that I suspect you have some views on people's privacy, notwithstanding the fact that they are on social assistance. This is what I want to zero in on, because the appointment to that committee, the person who was appointed to the Social Assistance Review Board, Mrs Dodds, said, "The right of the public to protect its money must outweigh the right of an individual to privacy." She said this to a legislative committee in 1994 in support of a demand that welfare recipients be stripped of all privacy rights.
I wonder, since privacy is part of this bill, if you might comment on that.
Mr Vandezande: Now that you raise the specific instance, as an organization we have grave concerns on two fronts. First of all, people who are placed in a position of public responsibility ought not to be there because of partisan affiliation but because they have demonstrated the necessary competence and qualifications needed in order to fill their public obligations to the larger community.
In the discharge of those public responsibilities and duties, it is crucial again that a board such as the one you mentioned has criteria that members must subscribe to but can't come there with their own private agenda. Everyone takes his or her convictions with them to the meeting, but it's crucial that a board such as this one is, as they say in legal jargon, seized by a mandate, is required to function within a task description from which no one can part. Otherwise, that person ought to resign.
So I think we need to have an independent assessment of the qualifications needed for the discharge of public responsibility on behalf of the government of Ontario, and that's not the Conservative Party or the Liberal or the New Democratic Party. Therefore, in my view, the person who was put forward should not have been nominated, should also not have been approved, but there should be an approval process through legislative committee.
Mr Crozier: But briefly, I'm concerned that to protect the public's money outweighs an individual's right to privacy.
Mr Vandezande: That is the point we have talked about in another section of our submission. We need, in the province, much more integration of views, rather than saying it's either this or that, it's either the fiscal deficit or the social deficit. We need an integrated approach. So a board such as that must of course deal with the protection of public money. We're custodians of the tax dollars that Canadians have entrusted to the treasury.
At the same time, we must be respectful of the privacy rights of citizens who, because of certain sections of the law, are entitled to social assistance. There's no question about that and I think the Human Rights Commission, if it remains, will quickly rule that this kind of investigation of a person's private life is a violation of the fundamental rights and freedoms that we've enjoyed in this province and in this country.
Mr Gerretsen: I wonder if I could just follow up on something, the discussions you had with Mr Hardeman, my former municipal colleague. Having been involved with AMO for some eight years on its executive and as president of that organization back some 10 years ago, I think what has been missed by the Minister of Municipal Affairs -- and I'd like your comments on this -- is the whole notion that once you talk to AMO, that sort of deals with the entire municipal concerns that are out there.
As you have pointed out in your presentation, the general public outside of the municipal councils have a great deal at stake as well. We've seen it in Bill 20, where there's been a direct attempt to take the general public out of it, because you can no longer appeal certain matters to the OMB etc. I'm just wondering what your comments are on that.
In coming up with the community values or the community way of doing things, it isn't just the municipalities that are doing that. I'm saying this as a former mayor. One of the things that makes municipalities work so well is because of the public processes they have. This process needs this as well. Regulations aren't going to do it. They may very well end up in the hands of the wrong person somewhere down the line. This Minister of Municipal Affairs may be the nicest person in the world and do the right thing, but the next person might just not be that way. That's where regulations put you into real difficulty. Do you have any comments on that?
Mr Vandezande: I won't repeat what I've argued earlier with respect to regulations, but you, as a former mayor of Kingston, know that your situation is different from Woodstock and Toronto. I'm also concerned that we do not assume, once we've talked to four or five or even 12 people from AMO, that this represents the views of all the municipalities in this province. Certainly, it doesn't mean that you've then heard all the views of people living within those diverse municipalities.
So I think during municipal election campaigns, it would be very useful if the people were asked to share their views or test the candidates running for public office as to what kind of a municipal plan they would like to put forward to the Minister of Municipal Affairs so that we get some genuine debates at the municipal level as to how we can best create, strengthen and advance the kind of community that has made Kingston, Woodstock or downtown Toronto unique. That should not happen behind closed doors; it should not happen through consultation with half a dozen AMO executives. We must have a much more participatory society in which the democratic rights and responsibilities of all are really being heard.
My concern is that this legislation perhaps unwittingly transgresses the borders between a government's clear obligation to give leadership, but you must make sure in giving leadership that people whom you seek to lead understand where you're leading them. If you don't, six months down the road you'll have another revolution on hand.
So common sense requires that you act for the common good on the basis of certain common values of mutual respect, mutual responsibility that takes people seriously and that says: "We've heard you. If necessary, we'll change the law." I think the best way the Harris government could confirm its commitment to what it perceives to be common sense is to say: "We want to hear from the common people in Ontario what their values are, what their shared commitment is to the future of this province. We'll listen to that and then we'll see whether the law shouldn't be changed."
The Chair: You've come to the end of your half-hour. Thank you for appearing today.
It's my understanding that we've had a cancellation for the 2 o'clock spot.
Mr Vandezande: We'll be glad to take that spot.
The Chair: The Aggregate Producers Association of Ontario will submit something in writing at a later date, so we will recess until 2:30.
The subcommittee recessed from 1358 to 1429.
ONTARIO TEACHERS' FEDERATION / FÉDÉRATION DES ENSEIGNANTES ET DES ENSEIGNANTS DE L'ONTARIO
The Chair: Good afternoon, gentlemen, and welcome to the standing committee on general government. This afternoon you'll have 30 minutes to make your presentation. You can use that time as you see fit. You may wish to leave some time at the end of the presentation for responses and questions.
Before you begin your presentation, I'd appreciate it if you could introduce yourselves and your organization for the benefit of the members and Hansard. You can commence at any time.
M. Ronald Robert : Bonjour, Monsieur le Président. Merci. Je vais commencer par présenter mes collègues.
The Chair: Excuse me; we've got listening devices we're going to pass out, translation devices. Give it a few minutes and we can do that. Okay?
Mr Robert: Okay, as long as you're not eating up my 30 minutes.
The Chair: No, we'll make allowance for that.
Mr Robert: All right, then, that's fine. The part that you've got is already in English. It's only part of my presentation that will be done in French.
Mr Pierre Lalonde: You have the text in English. We are a bilingual organization.
Mr Frank Klees (York-Mackenzie): In the interest of time --
The Chair: Mr Klees, I think we'll allow them to do their presentation as they see fit.
M. Robert : Merci, Monsieur le Président.
The Chair: Okay, we'll reset the clock and you can proceed.
M. Robert: Je vous remercie de nous avoir donné l'occasion de vous adresser dans l'autre langue officielle du Canada. Je voudrais reprendre les présentations que j'ai faites initialement : à ma gauche, le secrétaire-trésorier par intérim, M. Pierre Lalonde, ainsi qu'une collègue de travail, une adjointe administrative à la FEO, Mme Ruth Baumann. Mon nom, c'est Ronald Robert. Je suis le président de la Fédération des enseignantes et des enseignants de l'Ontario.
C'est au nom des 130 000 enseignantes et enseignants de l'Ontario que je vous remercie de l'occasion qui nous est donnée de présenter au comité permanent des affaires gouvernementales nos points de vue et inquiétudes à l'égard du projet de loi 26.
Nos membres sont les enseignantes et les enseignants qui oeuvrent au sein du système élémentaire et secondaire financé par les deniers publics, aussi bien les écoles séparées et publiques que les écoles de langue française et anglaise.
Nous sommes ici parce que nous croyons à la démocratie parlementaire et parce qu'une partie de notre tâche est d'éduquer les enfants, les jeunes, et bon nombre d'adultes au sujet des valeurs et du processus de cette même démocratie.
Les choses vont trop loin, trop vite, et avec trop peu de débat. Nous ne pouvons pas accepter ceci comme une façon légitime pour un gouvernement de mener ses affaires.
The people of Ontario have enjoyed the benefits and openness of parliamentary democracy for 128 years. The Legislature debates changes to laws. Committees of the Legislature engage in public hearings on issues of significant import, and regulatory changes made by the Lieutenant Governor in Council are made in an orderly and accountable context.
Bill 26, the Savings and Restructuring Act, tabled on November 29, 1995, introduces a new strategy of government: Change 44 laws and statutes in hundreds, if not thousands, of ways in the name of increased efficiencies and savings. Bundle the changes together in a great tangle. Make those changes with only minimal public hearings and without the separation of the whole into its parts. Do this because if examined separately and carefully, some or many of these changes will cause public concern and outcry.
As vast as it is, Bill 26 does not address a number of issues announced on November 29, such as the changes to the entitlements and funding for junior kindergarten and for secondary school programs for adults over 21. As representatives of Ontario's teachers, we wonder what the next omnibus bill will bring.
Finance Minister Ernie Eves defends the government's actions by saying, "Unprecedented circumstances call for some very decisive action to bring this expenditure spirally debt we have in this province under control." We say that the need for decisive action does not cancel the society's entitlement to frank and open debate and to have the opportunity to understand fully what changes are being proposed.
My colleagues and I would like to highlight some of the changes included in this legislation and their ramifications for the society in which we live.
Collective bargaining: The federation is concerned about the proposed changes to arbitration provisions of many public sector employees, including the School Boards and Teachers Collective Negotiations Act. When the Conservative government of Ontario introduced similar requirements in the Inflation Restraint Act of 1982 for public sector arbitrators to take into account the employer's ability to pay and the province's financial situation, those provisions of the legislation were the subject of a complaint at the International Labour Organization in Geneva and were the subject of a ruling in favour of the employee organizations in 1985.
Several respected arbitrators, including Owen Shime, Mr Justice George Adams, Kevin Burkett, Kenneth Swan and Martin Teplitsky, all clearly challenged the validity of such a requirement in the arbitration process, noting that it has always been part of the evidence which employers could introduce.
The requirement to apply the "ability to pay" has been criticized by arbitrators as nothing more than a code for "willingness to pay." In effect, this provision of the bill allows public sector employers to impose wage controls through another means. As with many other provisions in Bill 26, the government is offloading the responsibility to implement its policy to other agents while centralizing more and more control and authority over public policy in the government and the cabinet.
Health: As members of the public, we are concerned about the provisions of the bill which affect access to confidential records by the Minister of Health. Other proposed changes, such as deregulation of drug prices, privatization of some health facilities, and ending the preference for non-profit facilities and for Canadian ownership, threaten the fundamentals of our health system. The legislation would allow the minister to close hospitals unilaterally.
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Terence Corcoran of the Globe and Mail, usually a supporter of privatization and decentralization, describes Bill 26 and its health provisions as "the ominous bill...a draconian power grab by the health minister." The changes for doctors are "the most extreme coercion imposed on any group of employees since able-bodied men were drafted into the military," he went on to say.
Municipal restructuring: The Minister of Municipal Affairs will have much greater powers to restructure municipalities and, we assume, school board boundaries. The amendments refer to various municipal structures, including boards, and the section of the Municipal Act dealing with definitions makes clear that school boards are included. This bill must be amended to remove school boards from that definition.
The Ontario school board restructuring task force has been working since early spring on a report for the Minister of Education and Training. How will the amendments proposed in Bill 26 affect that work? There are amendments which will make the privatization of municipal utilities and the imposition of new user fees easier. Previously, the privatization of public utilities, including electricity, water, sewer or transportation services, required the holding of a municipal referendum on the issue. Municipal reorganization outside of Metro and the regions will no longer require public involvement. There will be an erosion of standards and services, and the downloading of costs to the municipal ratepayer.
The GTA task force commissioned a report on economic competitiveness. This report by David Pecaut, Boston Consulting Group of Canada, identifies the physical and service infrastructure of the greater Toronto area as one of the great attractions for investors. How attractive will Ontario be without good roads, garbage collection, water treatment etc? Where will our provincial community standards for service and infrastructure be?
Pay equity: Bill 26 removes proxy comparisons for public sector employees lacking appropriate comparator groups. It will affect thousands of child care workers, others in health care, seniors' homes. Ontarians have embraced the principles of pay equity, but there are many groups for whom the obvious mechanisms don't work. The proposed changes in these provisions will continue the ghettoization of these women.
The Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act: Institutions covered by the legislation will be able to deny access on the grounds that a request is frivolous or vexatious. All costs associated with a request can now be charged to the individual making the request. Tom Wright, Ontario's Information and Privacy Commissioner, has suggested that the proposed changes threaten the fundamental right of Ontarians to know what is going on. The debate about this legislation is about public scrutiny, public debate and public knowledge and consent.
The Information and Privacy Commissioner has also expressed his concerns about the effects of the changes on access to confidential health records. A fundamental tenet of democracy is an informed electorate. This legislation not only does not facilitate informing the people of Ontario, it creates barriers.
In conclusion, we are experiencing first hand a lesson in Ontario civics in 1995. This legislation transfers power from community institutions, like school boards and community hospital boards, to centralized provincial bureaucrats.
The legislation itself, and the government's insistence on speed before public consultation and debate, demonstrate disdain for the citizens of the province. As teachers, we would not treat students or parents in this manner, nor should we or our fellow citizens be subjected to this bullying.
It is incumbent on a government that is truly committed to governing democratically to respond to the public. It is clear that the complexity of this bill is confusing to even the government's own ministers. Several ministers have had to admit publicly that they either are ignorant of the contents or do not understand the effects of the proposed legislation. It is astounding that those who will be responsible for the administration of the laws created, should this bill pass in its present form, have so limited a knowledge of the legislation. Such comments alone should be enough for the government to withdraw this bill and reintroduce its schedules as several separate bills.
More time is needed to assess properly the contents and the effects of this proposed legislation before its passage. We are concerned about the lessons this government is teaching our students about the exercise of power in this regard for the democratic process.
Nous avons tenté d'obtenir une copie d'accompagnement, le document qui explique chaque changement du projet de loi 26. Le Bureau du greffier nous a avisé qu'il n'était pas disponible. À la suite de 10 appels téléphoniques à divers bureaux, y compris le bureau de l'accès à l'information, le ministère des Finances et la bibliothèque législative, nous apprenions que le document était disponible par photocopie à la bibliothèque seulement.
On demandait 30 cents par page et, de plus, on devait obtenir un rendez-vous. Afin de publier les quelque 2225 pages, le coût s'élevait à près de 700 $.
The people of Ontario deserve better. They deserve the opportunity to understand what these changes are and to voice their opinions about the acceptability of the proposals.
Mr Young: Thank you for coming here today and thank you very much for your presentation. I wonder if you could tell us, do you accept the need to reduce the cost of government and restructure, and if so, do you agree with your affiliate, the OSSTF, which talked to us this morning, that confederated boards would be a good way to go? If not, what do you agree on with regard to restructuring and cost reductions?
Mr Robert: I suppose if I had really wanted to get into that kind of decision-making, I would have run for Parliament the last time around. If I didn't, it's because I felt that there were maybe others who had to do the decision-making, and it's for you, the parliamentarian, to make that decision.
There are a few things we should remember. We did not get into this deficit position in the province of Ontario, nor in Canada, overnight. How many balanced budgets have we had in the last 44 years in the province?
Mr Gerretsen: One.
Mr Robert: Thank you. Therefore, if it took --
Mr Young: Thirty-three tax increases, but that's okay.
Mr Robert: Do you want the answer? Thank you.
If it took us 44 years to get the deficit position we are in now, we cannot go about this drastic change overnight. If I had one main concern that OTF is bringing to you, it's that one. You cannot do this radically without hurting the province of Ontario, without hurting the people.
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Now, specifically to your question on the OSSTF confederated school boards, we have not, at OTF, taken a position on the document itself. First of all, you must remember that OTF is composed of the five affiliates. We have the Ontario English Catholic teachers, who are fundamentally against confederated school boards. We then have the francophone teachers of Ontario, l'Association des enseignantes et des enseignants franco-ontariens, who have severe reservations about how francophone services would be met through a confederated school board. There are other opinions around the table, differing opinions. There is not unanimous consent at OTF on confederated school boards. It is the position of one affiliate, and one affiliate only.
Mr Young: Is there agreement among your affiliates on where the savings could be found and the need for savings?
Mr Robert: I don't think you're going to find the teachers saying that the deficit is not a problem. There is a problem. What we're saying is, slow down. This is not common sense. At the rate we want to go at it, it's nonsense. We have to look at how people are going to be affected.
I listened to Larry Grossman on November 30, where Larry said quite bluntly that the government must measure the impacts of the cuts it wants to bring forward. At the speed you are doing this, you're not going to have time to measure the impact.
Mr Phillips: Just to follow up on the comments from the Conservative member, what this exercise is all about is cutting expenditures so the government can fund a tax cut. I carry this around with me, the Common Sense Revolution. The government says it is planning a $5-billion tax cut and it will fund it by cutting expenditures by $8 billion. What we have is what you call deep, deep cuts. The government is planning to cut about $8 billion from its expenditures, and if it lives up to its word about not touching health care, that's 25% of everything else. That's $8 billion, $5 billion of it to the tax cut and $3 billion to the deficit. If this were just about fighting the deficit, I think they may have a lot more agreement around the province, but this is about funding a $5-billion tax cut, and it's personal income tax, so the more you make, the more you get.
As the Conservative member raised what this bill is all about, it is about implementing their tax cut. Has the OTF had an opportunity to take a position on whether you are in support of a $5-billion tax cut or whether you think there's a different route we should be taking?
Mr Robert: I think if we asked individuals in the province if they'd prefer the 30% tax cut to go into their pocket or to take the 30% tax cut and apply it to the deficit, many would say, let's eliminate the deficit so that everybody in the province could enjoy the benefits of that.
Let me be a little more specific as to education itself. The proposals that the trustees have brought forward are looking at dismantling a good public education system. They did not do this in any partnership way whatsoever. They're taking advantage of the situation, and that's what we fear, that we're not doing this to make sure the partners or education will be better as a result.
By dismantling education in the province, we will not be doing most of the population a great deal of good. It flies against all the proof we have out there now about the need for the education of our younger children -- junior kindergarten -- and the adults who need a second chance to get back on their feet and make an independent life for themselves. We're eliminating those processes and we're really not looking at the severity of the cuts.
I'll make a comparison with the free trade agreement. The Conservative government said, "We'll help those in transition who will lose their jobs." I ask you, what proof is there that they really did help? We probably get a lot more people saying, "We didn't get any help." We think the 30% tax cut could be used more wisely back on the debt rather than back in the pockets of the individuals. Then all of Ontario could benefit.
Mr Phillips: On the collective bargaining, on the interest arbitration area, I think this is going to be the subject of a lot of debate at this committee. I might add that we were very supportive of your recommendation to try to find a way that this bill have far more debate and far more input.
I would speculate that OTF has been working night and day just to figure out what's in the bill so far. And your time is up, frankly, because you can't be heard again. This is it for you.
On the collective bargaining issue, in the mid-1980s, I gather, it was taken to an international tribunal. We asked the question, does the language "ability to pay" exist anywhere else in Canada? We were told that at one time it did exist in British Columbia and Alberta, and I gather for a short period of time here in Ontario, but in all three cases it's been taken out, for whatever reason. Does OTF know why it was taken out in Alberta and British Columbia?
Mr Robert: No, we don't. Only one comment maybe on that, Mr Phillips, is that the ability to pay is already part of the process of the teachers' collective negotiations process where the fact-finder -- when we come into a critical situation, the question is asked, but it's an open debate then and it's to both sides to present their case of why or why not they can pay or not pay for such a service. It's an open debate. The arbitrator then plays the role he should be playing, a neutral person making the decision or helping those who are there making the decision around this. Right now, with this piece of legislation, we eliminate that process. The arbitrator will no longer be a neutral person. That's why many of the arbitrators rejected the proposal.
M. Silipo : Monsieur Robert, merci de votre présentation. Les choses vont trop loin, trop vite. As you said, things are going too far, too fast, and with too little open debate.
I want to note the strong language that you use throughout the brief, which I think is perhaps uncharacteristic of OTF. I thought I should note it for that reason, because I think it shows from your organization, as we've heard from many others so far, as I'm sure we'll continue to hear, the views of many across the province that this government is in fact trying to ram this legislation through. As you know, it would have been passed last week had the opposition not decided to prevent that from happening.
I think what we are trying to grapple with on this side of the committee table, as we hear more and more about the lack of consultation, the concentration of powers in the hands of ministers, despite and contrary to the seeming broadening of powers at the municipal level that this legislation gives in terms of powers of taxation, which are there but of which the minister also says, "We'll let them use it only if we like it," I guess we're looking, quite frankly, for advice as to what we do next to try to convince the government about the wisdom of breaking up this legislation into various pieces and allowing a significant amount of debate, which we are trying to impress upon them would be in the interests of the province and in the interests of good government. Is there any further advice that you can shed on that?
Mr Robert: I'll ask Ruth to share an answer on that.
Ms Ruth Baumann: I think our advice would be like the advice given to the person who wanted to eat an elephant: You do it one bite at a time and you try to cut it up into manageable pieces.
Speaking as the staff person responsible for government relations, the great frustration we've had with this is simply trying to figure out what all of the implications are. Between trying to pore through all the pieces, go back to the original statutes and documents to get the full context against which to weigh them and then follow the public debate in the papers and in the Legislature and everywhere else -- "It means this," "No, it doesn't mean that; it means this," "He says," "She says" -- it would certainly be, I think, preferable if the bill were divided according to the pieces of legislation that are being changed.
I'm not saying that more than one can't be put together where they're related, but in all the years that I've been around on the edge of government decision-making in one way or another, and it's getting close to 20 now, I can never remember seeing so many disparate and really different pieces of legislation bundled together. We've had omnibus legislation in education. It has been a series of small changes usually, sometimes the odd big one, but in a coherent package and not one where ministers of the day have had trouble explaining what the impact would be in their areas of responsibility.
The Chair: Thank you very much. We've come to the end of the added time. I want to thank you on behalf of the committee for appearing today and for your patience while we got prepared.
Mr Silipo: Mr Chair, could I raise a point of order before the next presenter?
The Chair: Surely.
Mr Silipo: I didn't want to address this as part of my questions to OTF, but I was struck by the information contained at the end of their presentation about the difficulties that they had in obtaining a copy of the compendium. I would just like to get some information from you or from the clerk around where this compendium is available, because if in fact the only place that it is available is the legislative library and people have to go and photocopy it there and make an appointment, I would be quite concerned, and I'm sure other members of the committee would be quite concerned.
The Chair: We can check into this and find out where it is as far as government printing is concerned, but I know that there's a turnaround time in printing and so on. I'll check into that. The clerk will check into that.
Mr Silipo: Could you bring that back to us perhaps before the day is over?
The Chair: Certainly.
Mr Gerretsen: If I could raise a point of order, and this is a legitimate point of order, there were some people in the audience here this morning who erroneously got to the wrong room, because I noticed them leave all of a sudden and later on I saw them with the health committee. I'm just wondering, there's no question about people or delegations being directed to the right room in this building on a particular --
The Chair: That's the responsibility of the Legislative Assembly, but I believe we have signs outside the door.
Clerk of the Committee (Ms Lynn Mellor): There are signs, and I would hope that when they're being scheduled they're given the right room number.
Mr Gerretsen: Okay. Thank you.
Mr Curling: The shuffling of different committee rooms would be bit confusing and we should make sure that they are not in the other room.
The Chair: I think this was an agreed-upon situation from all three parties, and we can't change that, but we can certainly make sure that the signage is perhaps clear outside the room. Give them another minute or two to see if they're here.
We've gone to see if the National Action Committee was in the other room, and it's not, so I guess we've got a cancellation. We'll have a recess until 3:30.
Mr Klees: They must be satisfied with the bill, eh?
The Chair: Recess until 3:30.
The committee recessed from 1505 to 1530.
The Chair: Can we please continue now.
CANADIAN UNION OF PUBLIC EMPLOYEES ONTARIO DIVISION
The Chair: I ask for the CUPE, Ontario Division, representative to come forward.
Mr Tascona: He's in the hall being interviewed.
The Chair: Okay, we'll just be patient for a few minutes. The presentation is here. Does everyone have a copy?
The representative from CUPE? Welcome to the standing committee on general government today. You have a little less than half an hour now to make your presentation. You can use that time as you see fit. You may wish to leave 10 minutes or so for questions and responses from the three parties.
I would ask that to begin with you introduce yourselves and your organization for the benefit of the committee and for Hansard.
Mr Sid Ryan: I'm Sid Ryan, president of CUPE Ontario. To my right is Jim Woodward, who is our legislative assistant.
I'm glad of the opportunity to come here today to express CUPE's grave concerns about this omnibus bill, a bill that will have serious consequences for the quality of life of the citizens of this province. Bill 26 will destroy local democratic institutions, devastate public services and impose hardship on the people of this province, especially the most disadvantaged.
I cannot speak here today about Bill 26 without talking about the undemocratic manner in which this bill was introduced and the sweeping powers it gives the provincial cabinet ministers. The government clearly hoped to avoid debate in the Legislature by tabling a bill with no warning when most opposition members and the media were in the lockup over the government's fiscal and economic statement. It is revealing that the government would go to such lengths to discourage attention to a bill that is so fundamental to its agenda.
It's also revealing that the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, among other government members, is unable to explain the meaning of this very important Bill 26. Only protests inside and outside the Legislature have forced the government to hold these public hearings. This is especially extraordinary, given the intent and consequences of this enormous piece of legislation.
It's difficult to predict the precise impacts of many sections of Bill 26. It gives very wide discretion to provincial ministers to change the rules for what other levels of government, such as municipalities, can and cannot do. The bill gives provincial ministers sweeping powers over municipalities, hospital boards, school boards and other bodies.
The provincial minister can change the regulations without having to debate them in the Legislature. Is this democracy? In our opinion, it is not.
This government argues that an extraordinary spending crisis justifies this legislation. During the election, the Progressive Conservative Party of course endorsed the government's spending hysteria, promoted by the corporate propaganda machine. However, the truth is that the continued recession and high unemployment, not overspending, are the reasons why Ontario's debt remains relatively high.
The real spending crisis for the Harris government is created by its commitment to cut taxes. A 30% reduction to the government's single largest source of revenue won't help to reduce the deficit. We say that this tax cut is reckless; it won't create jobs; it will deepen the recession.
The short title for Bill 26 is the Savings and Restructuring Act. What "restructuring" really means is a massive downsizing of the public sector, a step that will lead to a deterioration of living standards for thousands of citizens of this province.
Bill 26 adds to this government's attack on women, children and the poor. It takes away pay equity rights from 100,000 underpaid women who work hard in such workplaces as day care centres, libraries and nursing homes. Bill 26 sets the stage for user fees, another form of taxation. Note that it is not a form of taxation that is linked to income.
Inevitably, these changes will prevent many lower-income Ontarians from using services that are now universally available. The bill will increase the gulf between the haves and the have-nots. But this bill isn't just bad news for women and children; it isn't just bad news just for public sector workers; it isn't just bad news for the poor. This bill erodes services and the quality of life of virtually everyone in the province.
Look at health care. It gives the provincial government much more power over our health care system. It even encourages for-profit, foreign corporations to take over our health care system. It gives the Health minister sweeping powers to close hospitals and it takes away patient-doctor confidentiality. It brings in new user fees for drugs. This will cost seniors hundreds of dollars more per year. They don't deserve this treatment. Will many of them go without life-preserving drugs because they can't afford them? We think so.
Look at what this bill means for the environment. The Ontario Energy Board, the Environmental Appeal Board, the Niagara Escarpment Commission and the Environmental Compensation Corp -- funding for all of these is being reduced. Energy and Environment grants of $24 million are being cut. Blue box money is being eliminated. This bill decimates the budgets of our parks.
Let's look at what this bill means for municipalities and local boards. This legislation has an impact in three ways: how services are provided, how services are paid for and by whom, and how decisions are made about the provision of services. Bill 26 makes it a lot easier to privatize municipal services. It removes the requirement to have a municipal referendum. We've said it time and again: This government's true objective is to privatize government.
Foreign corporations are waiting in the wings. Laidlaw, Liberty Mutual, ServiceMaster are examples. Unless we are vigilant, we'll all end up with for-profit monopolies running Ontario. Taxpayers' money will end up in the hands of a few privileged people.
The bill demands audits and efficiency reports. They are another instrument to move municipalities towards contracting out and privatization. Funding is being cut dramatically. Inspections can be framed to make publicly provided services appear inefficient.
Privatization does not mean that costs go away. It does mean that decently paid municipal sector jobs are replaced by low-wage, non-unionized jobs. It also means that service quality suffers. None the less, this government has made it clear that it is ideologically committed to the goal of privatization, and it seems indifferent to the potential costs.
There is ample evidence of those costs. One example is utility privatization in Britain, where privatized water and sewer utilities resulted in massive increases in rates. Water bills increased by 74% in the first five years alone. According to the International Herald Tribune, the privatization of British electrical utilities has meant fat bonuses and paycheques for top executives, large-scale layoffs, higher bills for consumers and worse service. The British public is furious. In the meantime, the private firms are profiting to the tune of 108% in four years. This is our future with Bill 26.
If Bill 26 goes through, not only will many municipal workers' jobs be threatened but many long-term workers may lose their seniority rights, wages and their successor rights. Is this democracy? We think not.
This government has made it clear that it wants less government involvement in services. With this bill, it abdicates its responsibility to ensure that services are affordable, accessible and equitable.
The provincial government is offloading its responsibility to provide services on to the municipalities. Municipalities will have no choice. They'll have to increase taxes and charge user fees and other levies.
They'll also feel the pressure to contract out and privatize services. But of course this government isn't considering the cost of privatization. In fact, under this legislation, if a lower tier of government opposes the contracting out or privatization of a particular service that the minister favours, the municipality could be penalized or forced to accept the privatization.
Bill 26 will also give the minister and municipalities the power to change or dissolve local boards such as public utility boards, library boards or transportation commissions. Forced amalgamation of boards could be ordered by the minister on the recommendation of a local body or a restructuring committee.
The minister would have the power to alter the structure and delivery of services overseen by a local board, including -- surprise, surprise -- the contracting out and privatization of services. If a local board tried to resist the changes, the will of the minister could be imposed. The board would face an externally designed restructuring or be dissolved.
Bill 26 gives the government the power to annex, amalgamate, separate, join, dissolve or incorporate municipalities. Municipalities will not have the power over this decision.
Municipal politicians could be personally penalized if they oppose municipal restructuring and refuse to abide by provincially set regulations. Municipal councillors will be either forced to swim with the right-wing current or have a heavy price exacted on them and the constituencies they represent.
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Because the regulations haven't been revealed yet, we cannot know the full impact of this bill. It has frightening prospects.
The muzzling of elected officials will mean that CUPE locals may no longer really be negotiating with their direct employers. The province, through either the minister or the restructuring commission, will set the agenda for change and municipalities will be obligated to implement those changes.
The province will be the ghost at the bargaining table. Normal labour relations will be stymied. This is all on top of what has already been done to the municipalities. Their grants have been slashed by close to 50% over two years.
We know that communities have been forced to consider the elimination of community programs and arts programs, and of course municipalities will have to bring in user fees. Citizens of Ontario will find themselves paying directly for many services previously provided and supported by local or provincial taxes.
Let's examine what the shift to user fees means for the average- and lower-income taxpayers. Income taxes collected by the provincial government and transferred to municipalities are designed to draw more revenue from the wealthy taxpayers who can afford it. In stark contrast, user fees are a flat tax on all users regardless of their income or ability to pay.
Can the working poor or even the lower middle class afford to pay for road maintenance, garbage collection, blue box pickup, library services, parks and other services? Citizens will have no avenue for appealing unjust charges and fees. Bill 26 would prohibit appeals. Such fees will make important public services completely inaccessible to Ontarians with modest or low incomes.
It goes beyond user fees. Direct taxes could include increased income taxes and even a poll tax. The poll tax is a flat tax. Everyone pays the same amount regardless of their income or property value. Municipal poll taxes have not been seen in Canada for over a century. There's a reason for that. Poll taxes are unfair.
Public services should be universal and accessible. User fees and other charges place barriers between services and the most disadvantaged in our communities. The quality of life within a community will suffer and the disparity of services across Ontario communities will grow even deeper.
No one can calculate how much Ontarians will pay in new charges, user fees and increased local taxes. These costs will be determined in part by the provincial regulations that have not yet been revealed and by the decisions of municipal governments and local boards. This is a great cause for concern. Bill 26 is a green light for municipal politicians who, like Mel Lastman, intend to slap fees "on just about everything that moves."
CUPE is very concerned about privatization, about contracting out and about user fees. CUPE is also very concerned about the anti-labour parts of this bill.
We are strongly opposed to amendments proposed in Bill 26 to the interest arbitration process. It will affect employees of hospitals, the public service and school boards, most of them workers who do not have the right to strike.
The proposed legislation forces arbitrators to look at specific criteria when making a contract decision. It will result in collective agreements that are skewed in favour of employers. This violates the common acceptance among arbitrators and labour relations experts that arbitration boards must be independent of pressures or guidelines that could skew their judgement in favour of one party or the other.
It is up to the board of arbitration to independently weigh the evidence presented by the union and the employer and come to a decision. Under Bill 26, arbitrators would have to consider the employer's ability to pay, funding levels, the economic situation in Ontario and the employer's need for qualified employees.
CUPE strongly objects to the ability-to-pay stipulation. Funding in the public sector is determined by government spending decisions. With "ability to pay," interest arbitration, although ostensibly intact, would in reality be directed by the unilateral decisions of government. As arbitrator Harry Arthurs wrote in 1965, the consideration of ability to pay would make the interest arbitration process a sham. An ability-to-pay criterion also leaves the door open to employers to unilaterally budget for wage freezes or reductions.
Workers would be trapped in a catch-22 situation. What they could negotiate would be determined before they ever got to the bargaining table.
Labour fought long and hard for pay equity. Let us examine what this bill does to it.
It will eliminate the proxy method of job comparison. This method was introduced to accomplish pay equity for women workers in the broader public sector. They were denied pay equity because they had no male job classes in their workplaces. Most of these women work in day care centres, nursing homes, children's aid societies and women's shelters. These are experienced, dedicated workers. For years, they have been underpaid. It's interesting that the proxy provisions will still apply to the private sector. Pay equity is not a privilege; it is a right. It is an attempt to end pay discrimination. Hundreds of CUPE locals negotiated plans that promised to yield 20% to 50% pay increases to underpaid women. These increases will be reduced to 3%.
Bill 26 is bad news for the people of Ontario if it passes into law. Public services, programs and Ontario's infrastructure will be dismantled. Democratic institutions and standards will be destroyed. The people of Ontario will suffer irreversible harm. It is not democratic. It is not fair. It turns a blind eye to the traditions, the values and the institutions of our province. The Canadian Union of Public Employees calls for the scrapping of this bill.
The Chair: We have a little less than four minutes per caucus. We'll start with the opposition caucus.
Mr Gerretsen: How many members within your union are within the municipal sector, sir?
Mr Ryan: When you say "municipal sector," do you mean social services as well as inside workers, outside workers?
Mr Gerretsen: Yes, right.
Mr Ryan: Would you include school boards?
Mr Gerretsen: Sure.
Mr Ryan: I would think about 100,000.
Mr Gerretsen: About 100,000. Were you consulted in any way at all about any aspects of this bill by the government? Were there any consultations with CUPE?
Mr Ryan: None whatsoever. We never as much as received a phone call. We have spent a lot of time trying to get through to this government since it got elected last June. We've written letters. Jim, our legislative assistant, has made numerous phone calls, left numerous messages, written numerous letters, all to no avail, not a peep from this government.
Mr Gerretsen: To a number of different ministers, I take it, not just to either Municipal Affairs or Health?
Mr Ryan: Right across the entire spectrum. We've written to practically every ministry and asked for assistance. The one meeting that labour has had with any level of government was in the early days when the Ontario Federation of Labour had a meeting with Elizabeth Witmer on Bill 40, and of course she knew nothing about it. She could only recite back to us the mantra of the Common Sense Revolution. She had no clue about what Bill 40 covered, what it intended to cover. She was technically unable to answer any of our questions. The meeting was just a farce.
Mr Gerretsen: We all know we've had a $10-billion deficit in this province over the last number of years. The position that the government has basically taken is that it needs to take $8 billion out of the system in order to balance the deficit, but also to give a $5-billion tax cut. Let me ask you this: If it were put to your membership whether or not they'd prefer to have a tax cut or prefer to have the deficit reduction go at a slower, more rational pace, which would they prefer? Have you taken any surveys about that within your membership at any level?
Mr Ryan: There's no question. CUPE understands that we've got a deficit and we've got a debt and we have to deal with the deficit. Where we differ with the government, of course, is in how we reach that goal of a zero deficit. Clearly, we're saying that if you're selling us a bill of goods that tells us we have a significant problem with the deficit, some of our members can buy into that, but we cannot buy into it when you tell us at the same time that you're going to take $5 billion out of the economy and give it to the richest people in the province, because that seems to undermine the entire argument of reducing the deficit.
There's a debate, interestingly enough, taking place in the United States. We all know that Bill Clinton is no raving socialist but at least they're arguing down in the United States, "Should we be reducing the deficit in seven years or nine years?" What they're really saying is, "Let's take a longer-term view of deficit financing and let's gradually reduce the deficit."
I believe the NDP was on the right track when it was looking at reducing the deficit over a much longer period of time. Of course, at the same time you don't have the rupture to the public services that we've got right now with the current three- or four-year fiscal plan that the Tories are trying to follow.
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Mr Silipo: Like several other organizations that have been before us, Mr Ryan, you highlighted a number of the major flaws in this Legislation, starting from problems within the bill that probably, we hope at the very least, are the result of some very hurried drafting that maybe the government will have the courage to come forward and correct, at least those, to then a number of significant shifts that take place, as you highlighted, that shift powers into the hands of a few people and give the municipalities ability to pay, privatize and certainly look at reducing the wages of workers throughout the system.
Part of the problem we are having is convincing the government that it is wiser to take a course of action that says, "Let's take a look at this more carefully." I want to focus in on one area and then leave it up to you to comment on that or on any of the other points that I've made.
The proxy pay equity provisions which you mentioned and which we haven't, in my view, talked enough about so far in these hearings, as you point out, came about because we saw the need to ensure that the lowest paid women in the province also received the benefits of pay equity, and as a result of many discussions, and I know CUPE was involved in those, we managed to put together a scheme.
You'd be interested in knowing, I'm sure, that the only thing we've heard from the government so far on this was two lines in the minister's presentation the other day saying, "We're returning the system to what it was supposed to be," completely obliterating the fact that here we have 100,000 women, among the lowest paid women in the province, who are no longer going to benefit from the need for pay equity as of January 1, 1997.
Mr Ryan: I think this is just the Tory government's way of transferring the child care programs that we have in this province. We all know that child care workers were one of the most underpaid groups of professionals in the province and they have a pay equity increase coming to them as a result of the proxy method of evaluating their jobs.
If you take away pay equity for child care workers in the province, you will essentially have killed those programs because the workers will not be prepared to work for $10,000, $12,000, $13,000 per year, and I can understand that. Most of them are post-secondary educated, most of them carry university degrees and they're not prepared to work for $10,000, $12,000, $13,000 per year. The government recognized that. Previous governments, the Liberals and the NDP, both recognized that you've got to pay these people according to their skills and of course the valuable service they're providing. This is just one way, I think, of killing the child care program, the not-for-profit.
Just on that, we've also got nursing home workers and people who work in children's aid societies and we have managed to bring in 100,000 women who have been grossly underpaid in the province. We sat down with the previous government and the employer associations. This wasn't just the government and the unions. The employer associations themselves recognized that this had to be done and they negotiated a long-term plan that over a number of years would, in a significant way, raise the wages of these underpaid women. This was a typical win-win situation where both government, employers and employees got together and worked out an arrangement and the government comes in with this bill and trashes it. It's an absolute disgrace.
Mr Tascona: Mr Ryan, thank you for your presentation. There are a couple of areas I'd like to address though in terms of clarification on our part to you.
Page 19, dealing with the municipalities' power with respect to school boards, that provision, if you read it again, under subsection 210.4(4), it clearly provides that a municipality doesn't have the power to make any changes unless it's dictated by regulation and nothing has been made -- any changes in that area at this point in time. So there is no power at this time dealing with school boards. I'd just like to point that out to you, if you want to read that.
The other area I wanted to deal with is in terms of a clarification. It deals with page 25 of your brief in terms of denying women the right to complain on proxy. It clearly provides in the legislation that they can make complaints -- and I'd like to assure you of that -- any time up to the end of 1996. Certainly if there is any anticipation there would be a problem, they can put a complaint in and we understand those complaints will be dealt with.
I'd like to say with respect to your arguments with respect to ability to pay, certainly that has been an area of contention. We're hearing views on both sides, but other jurisdictions, other provinces have criteria with respect to arbitrability.
I'd like to ask you, at a time when the provincial government faces a critical deficit situation and transfer payments for its partners are being reduced, how can it not make sense for arbitrators to be given requirements to consider ability to pay and mandatory criteria?
Mr Ryan: You made a couple of comments. On school boards, I don't know if you meant to draw any consolation from the fact that you haven't yet given yourself the power to include school boards. Clearly, the way the piece of legislation is written, you fully intend to exercise those powers over school boards; it's already in the Municipal Act. If you're telling me now that you're not going to exercise that power over school boards and you're going to delete that from the legislation, that's fine, but given your track record to date --
Mr Tascona: What I'm saying, Mr Ryan --
Mr Ryan: Excuse me a second. You've had your opportunity to speak; let me respond, please. Your Common Sense Revolution didn't tell us you'd be attacking the poor and disabled of this province but yet you went ahead and did it. You'd didn't tell us you'd be ripping off the private sector in terms of selling it off to your partners and selling it off to your friends --
Mr Tascona: Mr Ryan, you're not responding to my question. I gave you a question on ability to pay. Why don't you respond to that?
Mr Ryan: You asked me two or three questions. The other one was on the proxy --
Mr Tascona: I just clarified two areas to assist you.
Mr Ryan: I'll touch upon proxy, if I could, for a second. There are 100,000 women in this province who are going to have their pay equity increases eliminated, and you're now telling me today that they have the ability to complain; that's in the act. Why don't you just turn around and eliminate that whole section and leave the 100,000 women alone who have gone out, and through a negotiated process with their employers, the government and their union, sat down and come to an agreement to pay the most underprivileged, underpaid women in this province -- we gave them an increase and brought their wages somewhat into line with those in the private sector --
Mr Tascona: But your point, Mr Ryan, is that they didn't have the right to complain. I'm saying they do have the right to complain.
Mr Ryan: Big deal. So they have the right to complain; you take away their pay equity increases and they can complain about it.
Mr Tascona: Certainly the proxy comparison method: You would agree that it's not in any other province; it also doesn't apply to the private sector. All we're doing is bringing it in line with the original principles of pay equity, which is the same establishment. That's all we're doing.
The Chair: I'm sorry, Mr Tascona and Mr Ryan. You've come to the end of your half-hour and we've been pretty strict on time. I'd like to thank you for appearing today before the committee.
ONTARIO HOME BUILDERS' ASSOCIATION
The Chair: I'd like to now call on representatives from the Ontario Home Builders' Association. Welcome, gentlemen, to the standing committee on general government. We appreciate your coming today to make a presentation. You have half an hour to do that. You may want to leave 10 or 15 minutes at the end of your presentation for questions. For the benefit of the committee members and Hansard, I'd appreciate it if you'd take the time to introduce yourselves.
Mr Tom Stricker: Good afternoon. My name is Tom Stricker. I'm president of the Greater Toronto Home Builders' Association. Unfortunately, in the brief we've got Ward Campbell, immediate past president of Ontario Home Builders' Association. He couldn't make it; he got tied up in a meeting. With me instead I have Andrew Manahan, who's director of industrial relations for Ontario Home Builders' Association.
The Ontario Home Builders' Association represents approximately 3,500 member companies which are organized into 35 local associations across Ontario. Greater Toronto Home Builders' Association is the largest local association with over 800 members. Our members produce over 80% of the province's new housing.
OHBA supports the many initiatives taken by the government to reduce Ontario's deficit. We wholeheartedly agree with the Premier that we'll look back five years from now -- or 10 -- with a booming and prosperous Ontario, known around the world as the number one jurisdiction to create jobs and invest and live in and play in and grow in and educate your children in. Our support for the government is based on a recent members' survey, which you may have seen in the weekend press: 80% of those surveyed rated the government's performance as excellent or good.
We wish to focus on only one aspect of Bill 26 which will have a potential impact on the residential construction industry -- I might amend that; it'll probably affect the construction industry -- namely, amendments to the Municipal Act with regard to powers being given to municipalities and local boards to impose fees or charges for any services or activities provided by them.
Ontario's housing industry has had a terrible year, with a 43-year low in terms of housing starts. There will be approximately 35,000 housing starts this year, which is dismal even when compared with the level during the recession experienced in the first half of the 1990s. We have attached a table on total starts, 1987-94.
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The Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, Al Leach, understands that the residential construction industry is overregulated and overtaxed. Last month's announcement by the minister with regard to the Planning Act reform and the proposed restriction of development charges to support hard municipal services is supported by our industry.
We are concerned, however, that Bill 26 has the potential of allowing municipalities to undermine these reforms somewhat by permitting fees and other charges to go up. This would be counterproductive to our industry.
A recent report prepared for the ministry on encouraging investment in new rental housing stated that municipal fees can typically total $2,500 to $3,000 per unit for new housing developments. Let me make that clear. Those are permit fees and so on; those are not development charges and other things. These fees include planning application process fees, building permit fees and charges for sewer hookups. In addition, there are a range of fees, depending on the municipality, for engineering, water metering, plumbing and hydro inspections, as well as parkland dedication. The cumulative cost of these fees and charges is considerable and, unfortunately, these costs have the potential to increase depending on the response of the municipalities to the new municipal supports grants process.
Builders understand the need to have fees for services which are provided by municipalities. In order to cover the expenses for building inspections and reviewing planning applications, builders pay permit fees. This is perfectly acceptable as long as there's no duplication in the charges from both regional and local municipalities for similar services.
During high growth years, municipalities have generated surpluses from these types of fees compared to the costs incurred for these services.
How many times have we heard municipal politicians proudly exclaim that they have kept property taxes at the same level for X amount of years while maintaining the same level of service? No doubt, some of the tax flat-lining has been achieved through greater operational efficiency. However, there have been interdepartmental transfers from building departments to transportation, social and other departments which have helped mitigate the costs of running these services that are of benefit to the general taxpayer.
A principle which we would like municipalities to adhere to is that revenues derived from new subdivisions and communities should not subsidize the services received by the general taxpayer.
In respect to user fees, municipalities have a number of revenue sources at their disposal such as property taxes, user fees and development charges. All levels of government must operate more cost-effectively and the appropriate mix of revenue sources must be determined during the restructuring process. For a number of municipally provided services we believe that user fees will play a more prominent role in municipal financing. In some cases, user fees could be used to fund the entire service while for other service categories a mix of property taxes and user fees might be appropriate.
OHBA views user fees as being critical for a number of reasons: to apportion costs fairly for municipal service provision; to demonstrate to users that there is a cost for services which governments provide; to recover costs for services provided and, for a range of municipal services, we advocate full-cost recovery; to instil a conservation ethic for services such as water supply; to lessen the reliance on property taxes for municipal service provision; and finally, to help balance the provincial budget by decreasing transfers to municipal government, where appropriate. We are hopeful that these spending cuts will result in economies being achieved throughout the system.
OHBA has no qualms with municipalities looking for innovative sources of funding as long as the fees and charges imposed are fair and just.
A newspaper columnist for the Toronto Star believes that "some local mayors...will start salivating over the new charges they can levy." Unfortunately, we predict that a number of municipalities will unjustly target the building industry to replenish the revenues which have been lost through provincial-municipal transfers rather than fairly charging users for certain services.
We'll give you the example of development charges. Many municipalities increased their development charges dramatically following passage of the Development Charges Act, 1989, two governments ago. This legislation allowed municipalities to impose charges for soft services such as recreational facilities, cultural, police, fire and social services, as well as the hard services, road, water and sewer, which were already charged for under the former lot levy system. Obviously, this dramatically increased the level of development charges imposed on a per-unit basis. For example, in Nepean, levies amounted to $9,105 in 1989 and are now $18,515 for regional and local charges. Over the same period, total development charges increased from $5,455 to $13,546 in Ajax. These figures exclude education development charges.
One of the reasons municipalities relied on development charges so strongly for revenue was to make up for the shortfall of previous provincial cutbacks in the late 1980s and early 1990s without having to raise property taxes. As new home buyers were more able to pay increases in house prices in the late 1980s, the development charges were easily passed on. Demand was more elastic, as the economists said. In addition, there was a view within municipal circles that because development charges were not visible to the new home-buying public, ie, they are paid by a builder at the building permit stage, there would be no public protests.
Price sensitivity is the watchword of the 1990s for our new home buyers, and average new home prices have dropped in the majority of municipalities. In fact, greater efficiencies, product design, technological changes and lower land costs have enabled builders to reduce prices on new houses despite cost pressures in other areas.
It is obvious to everyone now that the tremendous growth which occurred in the late 1980s was an aberration which could not be sustained forever. Growth and capital forecasts which were made as part of the development charge bylaw process were often overly optimistic and many municipal governments now recognize this. Furthermore, development charges unduly penalize new growth by attributing a high proportion of the costs on to new development even though existing residents benefit from the additional services. Surveys done by OHBA show that a number of municipalities have reduced the development charge quantum accordingly, although most have continued to increase these charges by an inflationary amount each year.
Those municipalities that have reduced charges recognize that there has been lower demand for new housing in the past few years than was expected during this prolonged recession and that a reduction in development charges would be a positive way to encourage new construction. There is also likely a recognition that the benefits of new communities in terms of social benefits, economic growth and the long-term expansion of the tax base far outweigh the short-term infusion of funds through development charges.
Announcements made by the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing concerning a fundamental reform of development charges will have an impact on certain municipalities. OHBA is concerned that reductions in development charges which are achieved through a more restrictive framework will be offset by municipalities through increases in other charges imposed on the industry.
We have given you some recommendations. We could go on at great length about these topics, but in the interest of allowing the committee members an opportunity to ask questions, we'll sum up with these five recommendations.
The government should impose a cap based on the rate of inflation for any existing user fees on new growth. If charges or fees are increased beyond this rate, a cost-benefit analysis should be conducted by the municipality to show that the increase is justifiable. In addition, we are very concerned that new fees or charges will be imposed against the development and building industry and would urge the provincial government to place restrictions on the creation of new charges and/or fees against new growth.
Public meetings must be held by the municipality prior to the imposition or modification of any fees or charges so that the decision-making process is made transparent and public. Those who will be impacted by the service charge policies must be given the opportunity to provide input into these policies.
Provision must be made in Bill 26 for an application to be made to the Ontario Municipal Board that the fees or charges are unfair or unjust. To limit this ability would provide unwarranted powers to the municipality to impose whatever it wanted despite the clauses in the bill referring to the regulatory overriding powers of the minister. We believe that these ministerial powers will be used primarily in situations where new, uncharted waters are being tested by a municipality.
That provision be made in the bill that municipalities not be able to hold up development applications for reasons related to a dispute over charges or fees. Your Planning Act is presently I think being amended and I believe that condition will be satisfied if it's approved, but we're asking for that in the interim.
Potential reductions in development charges which are achieved through a more restrictive development charge framework should not be allowed to be offset by increases in other costs.
So, there you go, and we're available for questions.
The Chair: Thank you very much. We've got six minutes per caucus and we'll start off with Mr Silipo.
Mr Silipo: Thank you very much. I appreciated very much the presentation. A couple of questions. First, I just want to be clear. Your brief starts by saying that you support the government's action, but then when you focus in on the bill you're clearly telling us that you have a number of problems with this.
Mr Stricker: That's correct.
Mr Silipo: You haven't commented on other sections of the bill, and I just want to make sure we don't take a wrong message from that. Is it because you don't have a position?
Mr Stricker: We don't have a position.
Mr Silipo: You don't have a position. So the piece that you are concerned with, you have a number of serious concerns that you've highlighted for us.
I just want to ask whether you or your organization was in any way consulted by the government prior to the introduction of the legislation.
Mr Stricker: No.
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Mr Silipo: You appreciate the fact that had it not been for these hearings, we wouldn't be able to hear your concerns and hopefully address them as we go through the process.
Mr Stricker: We were intending on writing this in to the Minister of Municipal Affairs, and these committee meetings made it appropriate we come down here.
Mr Silipo: You understand that if the government had had its way, the bill would have been approved by last week.
You have a number of suggestions that you make. Again, I just want to make sure I'm not incorrectly categorizing, but to just work back from a couple of them, you're saying under your recommendation 3 that we should leave in the present legislation, the present law, the right for an application to be made to the Ontario Municipal Board. Your basic point is, yes, there should be fees or charges, but the municipality needs to continue to demonstrate that those are fair and just rather than have an unfettered right to charge what it wishes.
Mr Stricker: Well, we're required to draw a building permit now. That's an OBC requirement. We have to deal with the municipality on that. We'd like to make sure the building permit fee is reasonable.
Mr Silipo: Have you had any discussions with, I guess in your case it would be the Ministry of Municipal Affairs, around any of your concerns since the bill was introduced?
Mr Stricker: No. I think this will be the first they've heard of this one.
Mr Silipo: Let's hope the government members are paying attention and listening to this, because certainly I find that there are a number of points you're making here that are worthwhile us considering and taking into account. I'll leave it at that, Mr Chair.
Mr Sampson: Just before I go on, I want to clarify a point that in fact there was a letter that was sent by the Deputy Premier and government House leader to the leaders of the opposition that indicated we were prepared to work to the end of this week to pass this legislation. I guess they continue to forget that one.
I want to focus on a couple of things. Actually, I thought I had known the numbers, but I'm quite shocked at the decline in housing starts since 1987 and 1994 you've displayed here.
Mr Stricker: So are we.
Mr Sampson: I bet you are. I'm wondering whether this indicates to you any sense of urgency to deal with the fiscal matters that are facing this province.
Mr Stricker: That would be appreciated. Consumer confidence is at its lowest ebb. Everybody's touched by what you're doing here, what they're doing at the federal level, and the quicker it is expedited, the quicker we see our housing starts picking up in the future.
Mr Sampson: So if we were to delay this, for instance, for a year or so, what would be the net impact in your view on your particular industry?
Mr Stricker: A continued consumer confidence problem. You're touching people's jobs and lives right now, and the quicker it's dealt with -- they know where they're going in the future -- the quicker everybody can recover and get back to being the best province in the world.
Mr Sampson: So there's a significant level of urgency, in your view, for us to proceed with the agenda items here?
Mr Stricker: Yes.
Mr Sampson: We've had some comment that perhaps we're going to be not encouraging a solution but causing a problem by providing a tax cut to hard-working Ontarians. What's the net effect of a tax cut on your particular industry and how will that impact the members of your association?
Mr Stricker: Actually, I've asked my accountant what it means to a guy who gets a $50,000-a-year salary, and it's $1,000 a year into his pocket. So that's what it is.
Mr Sampson: Is that likely to stimulate demand for new housing units? What'll be the impact upon your particular industry?
Mr Stricker: I presume the hard-working guy will benefit. I don't see that $1,000 making a difference on a fellow buying a house, but it'll go a long way to mortgage payments or other priorities in his life.
Mr Hardeman: Your brief supports user fees or the general pay-for-service principle. Your concern seems to hinge around whether in fact the municipalities would be fair about that distribution, whether it should be to new building or whether it should be to the existing tax base.
Mr Stricker: There are some pretty big surpluses out there in building. I don't know how many of you sat on municipal councils, but there is --
Mr Hardeman: If I could go on, I find it interesting, you also mentioned the issue of the development charges; in fact, how much they increased since the introduction by the previous government of development charges. Prior to the development charges bylaws, there was in fact no regulation, it was just the municipalities could charge what they thought was appropriate. It was then legislated and the local autonomy was taken away or was dictated by the province, and in fact you've seen the dramatic increase in development charges because in fact they could follow the provincial rules and they could charge far more. Do you relate that to the fact that that's what caused them to go more? Because it was under provincial legislation, they could blame another tier of government for the amount they were charging?
Mr Stricker: I'll leave that to Andy.
Mr Andrew Manahan: Essentially, I think there were a couple of problems with the development charges framework. One was that it allowed for soft services to be covered, and we did list a few of those areas in the brief. The other was that the legislation was supposed to bring in greater accountability and in our view it didn't really do that, so I wouldn't blame a previous government so much. I think the intent was there to try to make the fundamental legislation more accountable but it just didn't happen.
Mr Hardeman: If I could carry on with that, prior to the legislation, was there anything that prohibited municipalities from charging as much for development charges as there was subsequent to the development charges bylaws?
Mr Stricker: Just the OMB. You could go and challenge those charges at the OMB, but nobody wanted to do that.
The Chair: We'll turn to the opposition.
Mr Gerretsen: Let me first of all say that I'm a great supporter of the Kingston Home Builders, having been an associate member for the last 20 years, because I certainly believe that home building is one of the prime things that gets the economy going.
I don't think you should be under any false illusions, however, because in the compendium, which is the government's own document, it states that this legislative amendment will generally provide unlimited flexibility, thereby overriding all existing limitations on user fees, and the proposed amendments confer significant discretionary powers to council. So I'm not sure whether you can rely on sort of regulatory matters, and even if it were just done by regulation, you could have some real problems.
It's also very interesting to note that according to your own figures that you've provided here, there were 46,000 starts in housing in 1994, and according to the government's own document, they only estimate next year 42,500 housing starts, so there's some discrepancy there. Furthermore, Hazel McCallion was here yesterday and she feels that she wants the government to pass this as quickly as possible because she feels that gas taxes and sales taxes and other things, a head tax, may even be possible. So there are differences of opinion as to what exactly this provides.
What I would like to come at, though, is this, I've just got a report here from Kingston that says that as a result of these cutbacks, $83 million will be lost to the Kingston area, in the wider public service area expenditures, over the next three years. This is equal to losing 1,844 jobs that pay $45,000 a year. Queen's University stands to lose $19 million, St Lawrence College $6 million, the three school boards $10 million, six local governments $8 million, the four hospitals $40 million.
In light of all that information and the fact that there are about 100,000 in the greater Kingston area and we're going to lose 1,844 jobs in that area, what do you think this is going to do to the home building industry there, especially when, according to your own calculations, it's dropped from something like 1,600 housing starts in 1990 to only 498 starts in 1994? Isn't that going to have dramatic effect in a local area like that, because we're taking the deficit down as quickly as we are? What's your comment to that and what would you tell the Kingston Home Builders, with almost 2,000 jobs being lost?
Mr Stricker: We're all in the same boat proportionately. I don't see any disparities, everybody's down percentages pretty well the same in their areas within Ontario.
We're not happy with the housing starts as they are now. There must be a better answer and I guess if this deficit gets brought down we believe strongly that the economy will kick in and people will begin to buy houses again. It's not going to happen next year, but it's going to happen in time.
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Mr Gerretsen: Are you people in favour of the $5-billion tax cut which will be paid out of the $8-billion cut in expenditures? Are you people happy with that, so that in effect you'll only have a $3 billion lowering of the deficit of $10 billion?
Mr Manahan: We haven't surveyed our membership on that specific question, so I can't really give you an answer.
Mr Gerretsen: It's our view that if there wasn't this crazy tax cut notion out there, the deficit could be taken down over a much slower period of time so that communities can adjust and can absorb the job losses that we're talking about here. Do you have any comments on that?
Mr Stricker: Well, I've been around and spoken to about six mayors in the last couple of weeks around the area -- I won't name them; one of them you already did today -- and that's why we're here today asking.
Mr Gerretsen: And the mayors said what?
Mr Stricker: We're concerned our building permit fees and other fees will go up. That's an obvious target. If I'm sitting on a municipal council, you have two places to go. You go to the revenue side or you go to the expenditure side, and we're an easy guy to hit for the revenue side.
Mr Gerretsen: Especially in light of the fact that the minister, over the last three months, has said repeatedly that we're cutting the grants but we're going to give municipalities autonomy, as much autonomy as they want, basically. You can expect to see municipal councils react to this in different ways to make up the revenue shortfall, and you're concerned about that.
Mr Stricker: Yes.
Mr Manahan: That's why we're here.
Mr Crozier: I want to go back to development charges because you expressed concern about them, and you said that the soft services-hard services that you mentioned were already charged for under the former lot levy system. I want you to help me clarify something. The lot levy formula that municipalities use has to be revised periodically.
Mr Stricker: Every five years, presumably.
Mr Crozier: Right. So they have to justify those lot levies, although you said you didn't challenge them but --
Mr Stricker: No, that was previous when they didn't have them. They never justified anything; you negotiated everything. The new system, every five years they're supposed to -- supposed to, and they don't in a lot of cases -- come through with an audited statement showing where they spent the money and so on. It's just not happening. We're house builders, not bean counters; we don't want to be in the accounting business.
Mr Crozier: Well, if you aren't a bean counter these days you're not going to be in any business very long.
Mr Stricker: That's true.
Mr Crozier: My concern is that you seem not to like these lot levies and yet don't you think that if a developer opens a new subdivision and there are quality of life facilities in the town, they should contribute to those whether they're there or not, or whether they're planning in the future?
Mr Stricker: We're just dealing with that now; yes. Some people are taking a hard line -- water, sewer, roads only. I'm taking more of a softer approach -- police, fire, ambulance. Those things are certainly required. Maybe a theatre is required within an area, but give the developer an opportunity to discuss it, don't just charge him $500 a house for the honour of doing it. Many of these public facilities, they have budgeted $3 million and they spend $6 million. There has to be accountability, and it's not happening right now.
Mr Crozier: I haven't run into experiences like that either, but --
Mr Stricker: Well, we have.
The Chair: Thank you very much. I appreciate you taking the time to appear before the committee today.
Mr Phillips: Give them until 4:30.
The Chair: No. Mr Silipo passed on four minutes.
Mr Gerretsen: Didn't he give that time to us?
The Chair: No. We've agreed to divide it up and if your time isn't used to its fullest extent, then that's gone. It's my bank time for moving things along quickly, and so on and so forth. Thank you.
Mr Silipo: I'll make sure I use it from now on.
ASSOCIATION OF CONSERVATION AUTHORITIES OF ONTARIO
The Chair: Representatives from the association of conservation authorities, come forward, please. Good afternoon, gentlemen, and thank you for appearing before the standing committee on general government today. You have 30 minutes to make a presentation. You can use that time as you see fit. You may decide to leave some time left over at the end of your presentation to entertain the responses and questions from the three caucuses. I would appreciate it if you could introduce yourselves and your organization for the benefit of the committee and Hansard.
Mr Bob Gray: My name is Bob Gray. I'm the vice-chair of the Association of Conservation Authorities of Ontario. I'm chair of the North Bay-Mattawa Conservation Authority. With me is Gerry Houston, who is the chair of the Association of Conservation Authorities of Ontario. To his right is our general factotum, the GM, Jim Anderson, long and now an expatriate of the MNR.
We have in front of you a short brief, four pages of essentially preamble. The fifth page addresses the specific concerns, recommendations and discussions we had with respect to the legislation proposed before you. The last two pages, which we will get to before the end of this presentation, are in summary of those recommendations.
We're pleased to appear today to speak with you regarding our observations and our concerns respecting the so-called omnibus bill recommendations.
Conservation authorities are on record for a considerable length of time as -- and with preceding governments -- seeking to cooperate with provincial government to recognize economic realities of our times and to achieve efficient and effective resource management and environmental protection.
We have promoted a number of strategies over the past four or five years for the reduction of overlap and duplication, which is essentially the core of this bill in its myriad reaches. Through a succession of blueprint documents -- we have presented them to the previous government, this government and many specific party caucuses. These proposals constituted our famous -- or infamous, depending upon your point of view -- one-window approach to the delivery of environmental services on private or municipal lands.
The blueprint documents offered real solutions to help bring deficits under control in the area of resource management and environmental protection programs. Within this context, we would like to offer to you some comments to assist in achieving the goals of the proposed legislation and to promote an environmental vision for future generations.
We believe emphatically that the quality-of-life issues need to be considered within the connectivity of the economy and the environment. These have weighed very heavily on the minds of decision-makers for the past few decades but not the least the balancing of these two paradigms rests very heavily on the minds of the average Ontarian. We believe strongly that healthy communities relate directly to healthy environments and we are cautioning that one might be shortsighted to ignore environmental concerns even in perilous economic times, as this creates what we might call a deferred liability which falls on the backs of generation after generation of taxpayers yet to come.
We have stated on many occasions that we believe conservation authorities offer a framework within which municipalities can make collective resource management decisions on a watershed-connected basis. We believe strongly that in many cases they're the only extant logical basis upon which to make these decisions.
Quoting David Crombie, "Everything is connected to everything else" -- a maxim understood well before recorded time by generations lost to history.
The proposed legislative amendments suggested by Bill 26 provide provincial support for only the structural approach to flood control within the mandate of the CAs, and we are hoping that at some point this policy decision might be reconsidered and perhaps re-emphasized, as experience shows we need to be concerned with more than simply flood control.
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Several sections of the proposed legislation under proposed Bill 26 affect authorities directly, and others do so indirectly. Authorities are established, as you all know, under the Conservation Authorities Act of Ontario through the legislative framework of the provincial government and consensus decisions of member municipal partners.
Under this legislation authorities have a broad mandate associated with the conservation, restoration or rehabilitation, development and management of natural resources other than gas, oil, coal and minerals. There are 38 authorities across the province which have been established on the basis of watershed planning units.
The provincial government has, in its economic statement, redefined the provincial interest and spending priorities associated with the mandate by restricting their commitments to the maintenance and operation of flood control structures and their assets and the provision of municipal taxes on properties owned by CAs which are deemed to be of provincial significance.
We continue to believe that there is a strong need for provincial support to deal with the natural resources on an intermunicipal basis and that then embraces watershed planning and decision-making.
We further acknowledge the intention of the bill to afford member municipalities greater flexibility and control in redefining their interests through the enunciation of municipal spending priorities at the local level. We respectfully suggest there is a need to provide a supermunicipal framework within which fiscal and policy direction can be set on an intermunicipal watershed impact basis.
The majority of conservation authority members agree with the intent and aim of Bill 26, to streamline the operations of government. However, the bill as it is before you falls short in some places of reaching that goal and, in our view, may even produce counterproductive effects.
For instance, the present contents will achieve further duplications and redundancies in the administration of CA programs from the provincial perspective. Where previously there was one system for levying member municipalities under the previous legislation, Bill 26 may embrace a second layer and process which duplicates the administration cost structures again. The nature and character of that must await the regulation of the minister.
Some inconsistencies also exist in the proposed legislation before you. For example, the withdrawal of the province's ability to appoint members to the conservation authority boards while still retaining the ability of the Lieutenant Governor in Council to appoint the conservation authority chair and a member to the executive committee is clearly very counterproductive. We have some recommendations on that, but this is just one crystal example.
Today we're providing for your consideration further details of these examples and others, as well as our proposals for improvements. The information will, I think, provide you with the tools to make the proposed legislation more workable and to do so in a way that improves the opportunities for healthy watersheds across the province. We believe very clearly that our recommendations enhance the purpose and goal of Bill 26 rather than contradict it.
Our recommendations will allow conservation authorities and their local municipal partners to determine our fiscal priorities alongside and consistent with those set forward by policy at the provincial level.
Above all else, we believe the province must retain a commitment to environmental protection and should utilize the really only effective organizational tool it has right now, conservation authorities, to help provide that protection while allowing for responsible community social and economic development.
If you would turn to page 5 in the brief we presented to you, you will see that we have addressed specific subsections and schedules of the proposed legislation. These are then summarized on the last two pages of that brief in highlight form.
What we're hoping is that these recommendations, being as specific as they are, might generate some question or some request for more details from the members. If you like, what we will do is simply highlight them and then field the voluminous questioning that will follow, I'm sure.
If you turn to the summary, looking at the Municipal Act, section 83, the recommendation that you see before you and the explanation for that on page 5, it speaks to the issue of duplication.
Under the Municipal Act, section 207, the need for flood control operations to be carried out in a manner consistent with the watershed context, and the explanation on that page.
Respecting the Municipal Act, subsection 210(4): Include a clear definition of the term "local board."
Under the Municipal Act, section 220: The legislated ability to charge fees should be included in the amendments to the CA act for the sake of clarity and removal of overlap of provincial control.
Amendments to the Ontario Municipal Grant Support Act not apply to CAs as this creates duplication with the requirements of the Conservation Authorities Act.
With respect to the CA act itself, our first recommendation: Amendments to section 21 be revised to reflect that the process of dissolution of a conservation authority requires the same municipal support as the formation of a conservation authority; in other words, that there be a mirror process, the same requirements for dissolution as existed for formation. It was our understanding from many discussions with the minister and the PA, who is sitting here, that that was an intention they felt was reasonable.
The second under the Conservation Authorities Act: Amendments to section 21 be revised to provide that a determination of assets, liabilities and responsibilities be made available prior to the meeting convened for the purpose of dissolution.
The third: Amendments to section 21 of the CA act include a formula for the provincial recovery of funds, save and except where all contributing parties agree to reinvest the equity in further land purchases.
Subsection 24(7): We support that amendment.
Section 27: Proposed amendments to the Conservation Authorities Act be amended or altered to provide a mechanism to allow the member municipalities to agree on a majority basis to services and levies other than flood control.
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Then the last recommendation: Proposed amendments to the CA act be amended to provide a mechanism for raising funds for disentanglement costs associated with decisions to discontinue funding of CA programs and activities.
Then following are four which deal specifically with powers of the Lieutenant Governor. We recommend that certain powers he now holds, or that person who holds the title now holds, should be withdrawn to be consistent with the intention of Bill 26.
Likewise, the need for OMB approval to pay member salary expenses or allowances should also be withdrawn as a reflection of an archaic, overburdened, top-down system of management government.
That's a brief review, members, of our proposals. You have them in your hands. Your staff have them to so incorporate at your direction. If you wish to deliver questions, we sit before you.
The Chair: Thank you very much. We have about four minutes per caucus. We'll start off with Mr Klees.
Mr Klees: Thank you for your time and your thoughtful presentation. I would like to start off by just asking a couple of questions to put into context what we were trying to achieve in this legislation. Could I ask, what level of government do conservation authorities in this province have the closest working relationship with now?
Mr Gray: With municipal government.
Mr Klees: Given that most of your day-to-day relationships are with the municipal government, does it make sense to you that the province should withdraw and encourage a closer working relationship and give municipalities and conservation authorities more flexibility to create working relationships with each other?
Mr Gray: Absolutely, and it was within that spirit that we made the recommendations that we've made today.
Mr Klees: Would you agree that the legislation, the initiative that we've taken as a government through Bill 26, although it may not be perfect, and we thank you for your submissions, takes a major step in that direction to establish that relationship?
Mr Gray: Clearly. We have no trouble expressing our comprehension of Bill 26 as a method to implement the economic statement. As difficult as that economic statement might have been in terms of the economic disadvantages to us, there's no question that we stand fully in support of the need for it. We want to get on with our business of affirming our municipal partnerships and looking for alternative sources of funding, which, by the way, we're going to be doing through the delivery of developmentally specific fee-for-service. That is the spirit in which we are here today.
Mr Klees: I realize that in the interest of time you couldn't take the committee's time, your time specifically, to talk about all of the things in Bill 26 that you do agree with, and that's probably why it wasn't mentioned. But I think in the interest of clarification, some of the things that Bill 26 clearly does is, for example, provides greater flexibility for determining levy apportionment; eliminates provincial appointments to CA boards; eliminates the need for CAs to seek provincial approval for land dispositions where no provincial grant is involved; includes provisions to assist in the voluntary amalgamation of CAs. These are provisions that were specifically requested by your association to be included in this bill. Is that not true?
Mr Gray: Absolutely.
Mr Klees: So there are some things in the context of what our government is doing that are welcomed by your association. Is that true?
Mr Gray: Clearly.
Mr Klees: This is the first time today that we've heard words like that, and I appreciate your support.
Mr Silipo: Your own special-interest group.
Mr Klees: It's not a special-interest group. The fact is, we didn't prepare this brief for you. You did it on your own, which again may be very different from previously.
Let me also just confirm for you, because you have --
The Chair: You've come to the end of your four minutes. Sorry to interrupt, but we have to be quite strict about time limits.
Mr Klees: Thank you very much.
The Chair: Now we'll move on to members from the opposition party. Mr Phillips.
Mr Phillips: I'm trying to just sort of characterize your recommendation to us. Can I characterize it that the conservation authorities of Ontario are basically quite happy with the provisions in the bill? You don't have any significant reservations about the provision in the bill and you're speaking on behalf, I gather, of the various conservation authorities and your advice to us is: "Don't worry much about this section of the bill, because the conservation authorities are quite pleased with it. Worry about other sections of the bill." Is that how I can characterize your report?
Mr Gray: If you want to want to take a simplistic view of it, sure.
Mr Phillips: The government member just said you're happy with the bill. I think you've indicated you're happy with the bill.
Mr Gray: We have found some aspects of this bill which, in our estimation, have the capacity or the potential to be counterproductive to the issue of creating flexibility and local decision-making on an intermunicipal basis, so we've highlighted those areas which we feel need specific addressing. We haven't attacked, as some of us well could have with our long history in municipal government, the whole Municipal Act. We're only looking at those sections in which there might be some indirect impingement on the relationship with authorities.
Mr Phillips: The reason I raise it is because we now have 1,000 groups that want to address this committee, across the province, with concerns about the bill. We've had chambers of commerce come and say, "We like the bill but," and then they --
Mr Klees: On a point of order, Mr Chairman: I think it's important that this committee deal with facts, and reference has been made to the fact that 1,000 groups have asked. Do you have those numbers?
Mr Phillips: Yes.
Mr Klees: And those are available to this committee?
Mr Phillips: Yes, they are.
The Chair: That's not a point of order. The operations can continue.
Mr Phillips: I'll feel free to interrupt you the next time, when you're wrong.
We've had the board of trade, the chamber of commerce, home builders, even the ones that said, "We support the bill," that then went on to indicate major reservations about the bill, urging us not to pass the bill as it's proposed. I'm just trying to get an idea. You'd be the first group that essentially has told us, in your section, "Don't worry about it."
Mr Gray: Let me say that this is not the first time I've appeared before a parliamentary committee with respect to provisions of omnibus bills. I have a long history in dealing with them, and nobody in their right mind would ever look at any omnibus bill introduced by any government and say that holus-bolus it is a positive piece of work.
It requires a lot of work. You're engaged in committee hearings precisely to shape, modify and redesign where necessary.
We felt our obligation was to speak to the environmental issues that we wanted to place on the table. We felt there were some specific recommendations we could make to the intent of the legislation which we felt would not accomplish the goals expressed with respect to our operations in the environment and we have expressed what we think should be done by way of change.
Mr Gerretsen: So just on part III of schedule M.
Mr Phillips: Are your recommendations that you've given to us major and ones that we should really devote a lot of energy to or are they relatively minor housekeeping things that you want done?
Mr Gray: My feeling and our feeling is that there should be a fair amount of concurrence because these are, I think, on the face fairly simple adjustments to proposals. All we're really stressing here is that these are the kinds of changes we would like to see so that we can get about our job, having received a major cutback in transfer payments, in protecting the environment so that economic development continues harmoniously with that objective, not antagonistically towards it.
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The Chair: That's the end of the time for the opposition and included an extra minute for the point of order.
Mr Silipo: Could I just follow up on that? Is there anything in Bill 26 as it relates to conservation authorities that in your view needs to be done now, needs to be adopted now? The reason I ask that is, when I look at a number of the suggestions that you've made of further amendments, some of them, I would agree with you, seem to be pretty straightforward. Others I think might require some further reflection. Is there a rush to get the pieces that are now in the bill done, from your perspective?
Mr Gray: I'm going to ask Jim Anderson to respond to that, Tony, if you don't mind.
Mr Jim Anderson: There are two specific situations that have some urgency to them. Number one is the fact that the levying power of conservation authorities beyond flood control is indeterminate as it stands now. The act suggests that the minister "may" create a regulation, not "will." This leaves this second layer, municipalities and their local conservation authority, in Never Land.
Mr Silipo: The question of a regulation was actually something I wanted to pursue as well with respect to another point, because I think in one of your recommendations you ask for a clear definition of the term "local board," which a couple of other presenters have asked for for different reasons as well -- maybe for the same reason, because I think, as has been pointed out to us, this is another situation where the minister may make regulation providing that a local board is a local board of the municipality specified in the regulation, and so it goes on.
Is your concern here about who defines whether you are or are not a local board? I want to make sure I understand that, because it seems like a pretty straightforward request but I'm not sure if there's more behind it.
Mr Anderson: Quite simply, the definition of "local board," the conditions in which authorities operate will be governed by the Conservation Authorities Act and may or may not be governed to a certain degree by the Municipal Act. What we need is clarification so we know the rules of operation.
Mr Silipo: Your preference is that that clarification happen in legislation, not by regulation?
Mr Anderson: That it happen in legislation, and that legislation be the Conservation Authorities Act.
Mr Silipo: Do I have more time, Mr Chair?
The Chair: Yes, you still have about two minutes.
Mr Silipo: Oh, great. In your brief you talk about the three basic principles of local involvement, senior government support through cost-sharing and watershed management, as things that have been practised for almost 50 years by conservation authorities. Then you use some interesting language to talk about the provincial government, through the economic statement, having redefined the provincial interest. I take that to mean the reference to the cuts in funding. Can you tell us a little bit about what that means in terms of the future of conservation authorities and your ability to continue doing the work that you've been doing?
Mr Gray: The economic statement clearly indicated that transfers from the provincial government would be directed towards two purposes: flood control and its assets, and to the maintenance of the tax base on provincially significant lands. That leaves then in a void a number of other practices that the authorities have been engaged in, with the support of the provincial government, through transfer payments under acts which are the aegis of the provincial government, not the least of which is the requirement for watershed planning and watershed management studies along the paradigm of planning. There's a whole section with respect to water rehabilitation, to stream rehabilitation. These are just a couple of the most obvious ones.
Those now are not the intended targets of the transfer payments. So it leaves watershed partners in this position: If they wish to pursue the benefits of watershed management planning, where a number of parties exist along the riparian, then where will the moneys come from to do that? And the issue is, does the province in fact have a stake in that kind of planning? Well, the present government has set a clear policy direction: It does not have. So that requires of us, then, alternative sources of funding, and that's the business of our whole restructuring. I might just say that this is not a new game for us because, Tony, you're well aware that we've been receiving fairly significant cuts for the last five years under a government you may have some familiarity with.
The Chair: Mr Gray, I'm sorry to interrupt, but that's the conclusion of your half-hour and we've been pretty strict on half-hours. I'd like to thank you for coming today to make your presentation to the committee.
Mr Gray: Thank you for the privilege of so doing.
The Chair: Quickly, before we leave, some housekeeping duties before we recess for dinner. There are the same arrangements for dinner as last night for regular members of the committee.
With regard to compendiums, we had a question regarding that earlier, compendiums are explanatory notes prepared by each ministry for opposition critics under standing order 38(c). These are available for public purview in the legislative library or for viewing in the journals branch. That's ongoing. That's the way it's always been.
Mr Gerretsen: Well, that doesn't make it right.
Mr Silipo: Mr Chair, I'll pursue that and I'll raise it back with the committee if I find it necessary. But I just find it a bit peculiar, given the nature of this bill and the fact that this is not a housekeeping omnibus bill. This is a pretty significant piece of legislation, and therefore many members of the public want to have access to that. That seems to me to be a pretty limited way to do that.
Mr Phillips: What do they have to pay to get a copy?
Mr Gerretsen: Seven hundred bucks.
The Chair: I don't have any cost estimates for that. I'm not even sure, in fact, if they're allowed to check them out of the library and photocopy them themselves somewhere cheaper. They have to be photocopied in there. But I believe this is the way it is with all sets of legislation and it's been that way for quite some time. It may be something you want to address in the future with regard to the standing orders.
Mr Silipo: I think we may. Just before we recess, Mr Chairman, on another point I think Mr Phillips raised earlier, that a number of people have in fact attempted to address or have indicated their interest in addressing the committee: I appreciate that the clerk's office is still working through this, but could we get as soon as possible, even after the dinner break if possible, just a sense -- I'm not looking for a precise number -- of where we are now with respect to the number of people that have made requests to speak to us either here in Toronto or elsewhere?
The Chair: We are continually updating that and putting it into the computer. I believe that members of each caucus have a list as to where we are now. Subcommittee members should have that chart. So Ms Lankin should have it for your caucus, I believe.
Mr Silipo: All right, okay. But that means that you have it as well, Mr Chair.
The Chair: That'll be continually updated as we go and receive people coming in and asking to appear. It'll continue to be updated for you.
Mr Silipo: Okay.
The Chair: Thank you. We'll recess until 6 pm.
The subcommittee recessed from 1658 to 1800.
CHIEFS OF ONTARIO
The Chair: Can I have a representative from the Chiefs of Ontario come forward, please. Good evening, gentlemen, and thank you for appearing before the standing committee on general government this evening. You have 30 minutes to make a presentation and you can use that 30 minutes as you wish. Most people leave 10 minutes or so for question and answer or response from caucuses afterwards. I'd appreciate it for the benefit of Hansard and the committee members if you'd read your names and your organization into the record.
Chief Gordon Peters: Good evening and thank you very much. My name is Gordon Peters. I'm the Ontario regional chief with the Assembly of First Nations.
Mr Mike Sherry: I'm Mike Sherry, legal counsel for the Chiefs of Ontario.
Chief Peters: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for taking the time to be able to hear some of the concerns that we have as first nations people in regard to the complexity of Bill 26.
In my opinion, first of all, the bill should be unbundled and unravelled and some additional time should be allowed for public consultation. Provisions directly related to the economic statement that are required may be fast-tracked a bit. However, I think there are some really essential independent items tied to the larger agenda that need to be addressed and that need to be given more thought in terms of their application to first nations.
First, I want to describe who we are. There are within this region approximately 132 first nations communities, 22 tribal councils and four major political organizations that deal with a number of issues in relation to our development as a people. Right now I think what we're trying to do most of all at this gathering this evening is to give you an example of where we're at and what we see as some of the possible implications of Bill 26.
At this point we've only had a short time to look at the bill itself and, although I do have parts of a written presentation with me, I will forward the written comments I have to the clerk to make sure that a copy is distributed to people. I don't know if other aboriginal people will be testifying here at the committee as to the impacts of Bill 26, but I want to make sure for the record you do understand that the 132 communities in this region are directly impacted by this particular bill.
I want to address the issue of the relationship that we have. I believe that we did establish a relationship in 1991 with the provincial government and that relationship in part is based on a 1990 Supreme Court decision which requires consultation in regard to duties and responsibilities that are undertaken in relation to aboriginal people within this country. When we talk about the fiduciary duty and the obligation of the crown, we're talking about section 35 of the Constitution Act that's currently there. I think that Sparrow sets out a very clear process of how consultation has to take place.
Based on that understanding from the Supreme Court of what has to happen, in 1991 we signed an agreement with the provincial government which said that we were going to operate on a government-to-government basis. On that government-to-government basis, we believe that there has to be adequate consultation on all the items that are put forward that are going to impact on us. If those items that are going to impact on us are not put forward, we think those particular pieces of legislation are very suspect and we believe some of them may not be legal under the constitutional regime that currently exists within Canada.
I say that because when I look at some of the things that happened to us over the years, we've been involved in many disputes where those issues have arisen. The latest dispute we've had where there was a lot of action around what was potentially possible and whether or not there was sufficient consultation was the gun control legislation that was done federally. The view we put forward at that particular time was that because the consultation was not done in accordance with the Supreme Court and Sparrow, that particular bill was not constitutional.
I would suggest these same things that are being done under these particular circumstances are of the same mind. We understand that we did sign a Statement of Political Relationship with the provincial government and we believe there's a convention, because that agreement has been conducted over the last four years. It has gone on on the basis of a government-to-government relationship, and we believe as part of that government-to-government relationship that that same kind of consultation should have taken place.
I want to address some specifics without trying to address many of the things in the bill, as there are a great many areas that are of concern. I want to make my remarks specific to the land issues. That's under section N of Bill 26, which sets out amendments to the following statutes that are administered by the Minister of Natural Resources: the Forest Fires Prevention Act, the Game and Fish Act, the Lakes and Rivers Improvement Act and the Public Lands Act. As far as I can determine, none of the significant changes to these statutes are necessarily tied to the November 28 economic statement.
Before I talk to you about the proposed changes, I want to talk to you very briefly about first nations positions in relation to land and resources. We've never accepted the provincial view in regard to lands and resources within this region that we're restricted to the small reserves that we're placed on. In fact our people are very adamant in understanding their interpretation of the treaties and their access to the traditional land use areas that they've had, and most of those are protected by the treaties.
It's very clear to say that in dealing with any kind of legislation, our people are very concerned that on anything that alters the situation there must be adequate dialogue with ourselves to understand what's going to happen in those particular areas.
Our people feel very strongly that there's a real spiritual and timeless connection to the lands, and I think that goes without saying. We've said that and we've been saying those kinds of things for a long time. We think that connection with the land that we have will outlast the current governments that have come to occupy our lands. As we look around us right now, we say that the federation of Canada itself is on shaky ground and we believe that unless we deal with these issues that directly connect us to the land and connect with the first nations people, we're going to continue to experience the same kinds of difficulties.
The Forest Fires Prevention Act, which falls under sections 11 and 13 of the act, requires permits for the setting of outdoor fires and entry to restricted zones and requires permits for certain kinds of work in proximity to forests or woodlands. We think the forest fire protection offered by section 15 is very important, because we've had a number of cases in which our communities have suffered because of the kinds of fires accidently started around areas. This past summer in the area of Longlac a fire wiped out a lot of the timber that was of value to them and the operations they want to deal with economically.
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I think the requirements of permits under this particular act gave us an opportunity to have our views heard in relation to the land use issues. Now, the removal of these kinds of permits, I guess I would say the removal of the blanket permit, a fact that currently has been in place, will eliminate the ability of first nations to be able to deal with those matters in relation to environmental issues, forest fire protection and those kinds of things that surround our communities. Instead I think we'll have a process where cabinet itself will be able to provide those kinds of permits. I don't know at this time whether there are any appeal mechanisms, but I think that appeal mechanism for those kinds of permits has also been eliminated.
I think when we talk about the lands again, and we talked about the traditional territories of first nations, we see this having a major effect on our communities with that kind of land area that we talk about because we know, in relation to this kind of process, that our communities are exposed to these kinds of forest fires that occur every summer.
The Game and Fish Act was another one that I thought directly affected our communities. The bottom line of the Game and Fish Act is that it deals with the royalties that are collected, the process that gets set up to be able to utilize those moneys for wildlife purposes. While that is being utilized at this particular time, we understand that the amounts of moneys that are being collected now are going to be set aside under a pot of dollars that will be administered directly by the minister or may be transferred to a designated person.
We have a lot of difficulty with that again because it appears that the person designated doesn't necessarily have to be an MNR official, and the moneys that are collected under the act would then have to be spent on the performance of enforcement and other functions under the act.
When we get into the broad area of where this is dealt with, we believe right now that there's more than the $42 million that is collected under this fund, and we think that there's a possibility that this particular pot of money may end up in the hands of people who are certainly not interested in the same kind of relationship and striking a working relationship that we've had in the past.
To be specific, we certainly don't want to see this kind of responsibility given to the hunters and anglers organizations for the day-to-day administration because of the current relationship that we have, which is very inflammatory at this point.
I think the real danger in that kind of move right now is that it will lead to an increased level of resource use conflict. That's something we're always aware of at all times. We're always in a battle for the use of resources between ourselves and the citizens of Ontario and the user groups that are out there trying to utilize the same resource. I think right now, unless there's a mechanism that will provide assurances of the accountability under these particular provisions, what we'll run into is again continued conflict under this particular area. I believe we'll find ourselves in a situation where the end products of this kind of relationship won't be the kinds of things that we need.
The other thing I wanted to touch on was the Lakes and Rivers Improvement Act, under subsection 14(1). Again, these are issues that deal with permits, and most of these kinds of things that we're addressing tonight do deal with permits and the changing of permits, removing the blanket effect of the permits, and again, our ability to be able to contest those areas where lakes and rivers improvements have always had, for the most part, a negative effect on our community. Whether they've been done in terms of hydro generation, whether they've been the flooding of our communities or whatever the result may be, the only avenue that we've had, again, to be able to protest those kinds of particular things without getting into a direct conflict situation is through these kinds of processes where there are committees, where there is time taken to decide the impacts of those kinds of actions that are taken.
I think basically these kinds of things that deal with the lakes and rivers improvement, the Public Lands Act and all of those particular areas provide a tremendous opportunity for us to be able to have our direct input into how we see a lot of management in these areas.
I don't think at this particular point in time, when we get to this situation, that I can say these are going to be positive changes for us. I think these negative changes for us can only lead to greater conflict at the community level in terms of how things are going to be done. At this stage right now, it's really hard for us to evaluate the total effect that this omnibus bill is going to have on first nations. As I've indicated in the beginning, I think we should be talking about, particularly in these land areas, a relationship with first nations communities in all those areas that are directly affected. Instead of opening up the process and having a direct ability to be able to licence in those areas, I think it would be most beneficial if we did follow through with a relationship and we did talk about how we're going to work together in the field and if we did find a way for us to be able to deal with the issue of cojurisdiction and the ability to share resources in those particular areas.
So this evening I wanted to make that short presentation to you and I wanted to concentrate on all the land areas so that you would be aware that right now the only avenue we have to be able to impact is being taken away from us in this process. I can only say to you that we don't want to have to say to anyone that we are afraid of the abuse of the resources, we're afraid of the impact that may occur on our people, and we're also afraid of the kinds of backlashes that we may find. I hope that through this committee process people will have the opportunity to be able to see the tremendous effect it's going to have on aboriginal people within this region.
Mr Chairman, that's the end of my remarks. I will open the floor to any questions anybody wants to ask.
The Chair: Thank you very much. We'll start with the opposition party.
Mr Phillips: Chief Peters, I appreciate your thoughtful presentation. You've raised concerns in an area of the bill that we've had very little opportunity to hear from groups on. I might add that we're going to have twice as many people wanting to present to us as we're going to have time to present.
I think you've illustrated in your presentation, in just this small section in pages -- I gather it's four pages out of a bill that's 210 pages long -- four areas that the native community, our first nations, have maybe some significant concerns around: the Forest Fires Prevention Act, the Game and Fish Act, the Public Lands Act.
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Our problem, frankly, is that we agree this is a major area, but the bill is going through so fast, with so little time for input -- and as you yourself have said, you've had comparatively little time for the first nations to look at it, and that's understandable. The bill was introduced first, I guess, two weeks ago, is it now, November 29?
Mr Gerretsen: Three weeks ago.
Mr Phillips: Three weeks ago, and was going to be law by the end of this week.
I just wanted to say to the chief that we will do our best to try and take into account your concerns and to try and see if we can reflect those concerns, recognizing there's lots of interest at stake here, but frankly, the government has indicated they are determined to pass the bill by January 29, to hold no more public hearings than we've already got. I feel badly about that because I know you're expressing some major reservations to us here about the implications of this bill.
One thing I wanted to ask you is around the convention, I think you called it, that you signed with the Ontario government outlining a process for consultation on major bills, if I'm interpreting that right. Has the government consulted with the first nations on this bill?
Chief Peters: No, we haven't had any consultation in regard to any legislation that's going forward.
Mr Phillips: Has the government explained why they haven't consulted with you on the bill?
Chief Peters: No, they haven't. We have had a very limited dialogue at this stage with the new government.
Mr Phillips: Have you attempted to reach the new government?
Chief Peters: We have. In relation to the shooting at Ipperwash, we tried several times to make contact. In fact, at that particular point in time, one of the sessions that was held was with the Premier, but it was in direct relation to the issues that were happening at Ipperwash at that particular point in time. Since then we've had very limited dialogue in relation to any issues that are going forward.
The Chair: I apologize for interrupting, but that's the end of the opposition's time.
Mr Silipo: Let me pick up on that because that was one of the points I wanted to pursue.
Chief Peters, thank you for your presentation. I hear what you're saying, that you haven't had much discussion with the government, or they with you. Do you have any idea about what position the Conservative government has taken on that Statement of Political Relationship? Are they intending to live up to it? Are they saying that it no longer holds? What's your sense of where they are on it?
Chief Peters: I've inquired. I've had meetings where I've asked very specifically in relation to the SPR, the Statement of Political Relationship, whether it was going to be maintained or not, and the only comments we've got back is that the provincial government was undergoing its own process of determining what kind of framework was going to be necessary for them to be able to talk to aboriginal people. Beyond that, we've had no input into any kinds of dialogues around any kind of framework.
Mr Silipo: When the minister was here -- I'm trying to remember who was here. Mr Johnson; I'm looking at his. I think the Minister of Natural Resources made some other comments. But the premise upon which the changes that you address tonight are being made is that by changing from mandatory permits to a process of regulation -- and your concern, as I hear it, is that by changing that, it denies you the ability to be able to appear when those permits are being dealt with and to make your views known. Have I got that right?
Chief Peters: Yes.
Mr Silipo: Their rationale for doing it is that by making this change they're going to reduce the province's costs of issuing permits and therefore save about $3 million over the next couple of years. What's your reaction to that?
Chief Peters: I guess if the cost factor is reduced and people think that by reducing the cost in some way it will save money, the only thing I can respond to that is that if we do have an altercation, if someone decides they're not going to let any kind of action take place as a result of their inability to address one of these permits, I think it'll cost us more in the long run in terms of the relationship and also in terms of the financial costs that will be associated with that.
Again, I'm not trying to lay the heavies on anybody about any kind of situation, but we've had those in the past even when we've had a Statement of Political Relationship in place, and I think we'll have those things again in the future.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Silipo. From the government side, first Mr Klees, then Mr Young.
Mr Klees: Thank you for your presentation. I just have a few questions for you. How many governments in this province have you been involved with in discussions over the last few years?
Chief Peters: I think you're the fourth government.
Mr Klees: And with how many governments in the past have you been involved in the initial drafting of legislation?
Chief Peters: Maybe two.
Mr Klees: To what degree were you involved in the initial drafting of that legislation?
Chief Peters: I think in the one we had with the NDP government, there was extensive consultation that took place. There were actual people who were designated to help in the writing of those particular documents. There was a fairly major role.
On one of the other ones we were given in the past, not with the NDP government but with the Liberal government prior to that, we were given the opportunity to be part of the writing process and we were asked if we would write one particular section that directly related to aboriginal children.
Mr Klees: Thank you. With regard to your concerns around the issue of permitting, you're aware that right now some 54,000 permits are issued annually through the section 15 that you refer to. One of the reasons for the repeal of that section is that we have had significant input from people regarding the interference of those permits in the course of doing business. Do you feel that by streamlining the approval process, you would benefit and in fact the community in general would benefit from the economic development that would be enhanced by streamlining?
Chief Peters: We have very rarely ever benefited from the economic development around our communities. Even when we've struck agreements with mining companies that were supposed to train our people, where jobs were supposed to be undertaken, those things never happened. They've always found legal loopholes and other things that were available to make sure we didn't participate in the economic opportunities that were available.
Mr Klees: Are you hopeful, though, that this in fact could lead to that so that your peoples could benefit from the economic development this would lead to?
Chief Peters: I guess I've always got a problem in understanding what price you pay for economic development. When we talk about the value of the land and our understanding of our relationship to the land, we always have to ask ourselves what you would call the ethical questions in relation to development, whether that development is environmentally feasible or not.
I think those are the same questions that we have to ask ourselves in relation to the land, and if there's a possibility that some of those things may be environmentally acceptable, then that would be fine, but under this current process there's no way for us to be able to tell you whether or not we feel those things are environmentally acceptable or not.
The Chair: Thank you. I'm sorry, Mr Klees and Mr Young. The last foray there exhausted the time.
Chief Peters, I'd like to thank you again for appearing today before the committee.
Chief Peters: Thank you. We will send you a brief.
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ONTARIO PUBLIC SERVICE EMPLOYEES UNION, REGION 3
The Chair: Can we please have members from OPSEU, region 3, come forward. Welcome to the standing committee on general government. You have 30 minutes for a presentation, which you can use as you see fit. You may wish to leave some time for questions. I would appreciate it if you would read your name and the name of the organization for the benefit of Hansard and the committee members.
Ms Joan Gates: My name is Joan Gates and I'm with the Ontario Public Service Employees Union. I'm a registered nurse at the Whitby Mental Health Centre. I am vice-president of OPSEU, region 3, which takes in about 4,700 members.
I'm here to comment on Bill 26. I wanted to talk virtually about concerns I have around it, and I've highlighted them on the first page. There's been no preparation for this, I don't see any prioritization, I don't see any standards, I don't see a lot of adjustment, I don't see a lot of accountability, I would say I don't see management, I don't see worker fairness, I see no evaluation, and I don't see vision here.
With no preparation, I wanted to comment that huge changes, such as those contained in Bill 26, require preparation and planning. This government has responsibility to consult with its citizens, to ensure that the citizens are aware and have input into changes. This isn't happening.
In my workplace today, I was walking down the corridor talking to people about Bill 26. They're just starting to realize the impact Bill 26 is going to have on them, but for the majority of them, this is the Christmas season and people are into Christmas. I'm really concerned that this is happening. People with whom I deal virtually have no understanding of the impacts on their lives and, quite frankly, I don't have the full understanding of the impacts this legislation is going to have on my life.
This government did not take the time to consult with affected parties on consequences of the actions contemplated in Bill 26, and there was virtually no debate until Mr Curling forced it.
Changes don't happen easily in the government of Ontario. I've worked for it for 18 years, which is not necessarily a positive or a negative thing at times, but I know you just can't decide today you're going to change something tomorrow; it doesn't happen that easily. Actually, my feeling is that the cat will lose its kittens in Queen's Park, but that's a personal opinion.
Prioritization: In order to accomplish some things, you need to prioritize them. Prioritizing one's goals makes the successful completion of a job or a goal achievable, allows for communication, clarification and allows for responses from people who can be affected by the stated aims and goals. How can the electorate be expected to respond in any meaningful way when concerned parties have chopped their way from one item to the next, vague, incomplete and disorganized? Picking up the pieces and trying to put things together to follow on with a plan means that the end result of the plan, indeed the plan itself, is in jeopardy. The goals may not be attainable unless you prioritize them.
The government is not prioritizing some amendments so that passing some and allowing for a reasonable passage of time will give it feedback on how these changes are working or are not working.
No standards, a whole bunch of stuff with regard to the standards: no standards imposed on access to medical records, personal information, to ensure confidentiality. My understanding is that in Alberta now they're having problems with the access to personal information. The private insurance companies have that information. There's no defined accountability, no standards of conduct, no definition of acceptable and not acceptable behaviour.
On standards of care and standards of treatment, if you're going to privatize this stuff, how do you account for standards of care or standards of treatment?
For years and years and years in the government of Ontario, a lot of workers weren't qualified to do the work they did. We finally got workers who are qualified to do the work they're doing in Ontario and now we want to reverse the trend. We want to say: "Hold on. All of a sudden, maybe we don't need nurses or we don't need that type of person to do that work. Now we don't need those skills. We're going to have unqualified people again." It took us years -- actually, I understand that some of our hospitals couldn't be accredited because we didn't have ratios that would allow that, and now we're going backwards.
No adjustment: Job loss will occur and has occurred through previous government actions and through measures contained in Bill 26. No adjustment measures are imposed to ensure a transition for individuals who lose their jobs. Bill 7 took away some labour adjustment plans, and this government will impose minimum standards on employees who lose their jobs, regardless of long service and age.
Also, I don't think adjustments have been considered for some clients and consumers of services who will lose their services. The halfway houses -- those people actually were transferred directly back into prisons at times. That costs a lot more money.
There's something I'm really confused about. We're saying we're going to give a lot of work to the volunteer sector. I was on the phone to the United Way today. They do volunteer leadership training, and Comsoc cut their funding for volunteer leadership training; that doesn't exist any more. They used to train people to sit on boards. They don't have that funding any more. I don't know.
No evaluation or accountability: I'm concerned. If you implement all these changes, who's going to monitor the changes contemplated under the act and the consequences of these changes, whether negative or positive? Who will be there to be talked to, to be cried to? Who will have the authority or ability to investigate and change a new system to fit the needs of the public? Should we rely on the politicians' goodwill and sense for the balance of our lives? Once again, these are huge changes in here. It's simply too big to do all at once, in my mind.
No management or worker fairness: I'm a public sector worker and I have been for 18 years now; actually, probably longer than that because I worked in another hospital before working for the government of Ontario. I make a decent salary -- and I don't apologize to anyone for that; I haven't had a raise in five years, though -- but I spend it in my community. I was hearing Mr Harris on a radio talk show this noonhour today talking about people not buying cars. Well, you have to make a good salary in order to buy a car. If you're in a minimum-wage job, you don't.
Public sector workers have been under attack since the inception of the phrase. I don't think it's acceptable. There has been little or no consultation with the most-affected parties to the actions contemplated by Bill 26. Many cooperative employers and unions normally will negotiate change in good faith, given the needs of both parties. If we know there's a problem, talk to us. My understanding is that people aren't talking to us. These actions under Bill 26 are imposed mostly on unwilling parties and will create confrontation at a time when all of Canada, and certainly Ontario, deserves much, much better. We are reasonable people.
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No vision: The radical changes being contemplated by many of the items in this act are absent of any vision for the social and economic fabric of Ontario. Economists -- quite frankly, I'm tired of hearing from economists -- argue that the impact of these changes will create a depression. Social activists point out the devastation the changes will have on women, minorities and the poor. This government has not demonstrated that it has the vision for a new Ontario, other than a much harsher society. We may have a lower deficit, but it didn't work in New Zealand; my understanding is that the deficit there didn't go down.
I'm really disappointed today to hear the news that women, for the first time in 10 years -- pay equity, actually. Men are gaining and women are declining again. That really disappoints me as a citizen of Ontario.
If it is your intent to privatize this province, keep in mind that private providers set exclusionary rules. I work in a mental health centre, and at times we're made to set exclusionary rules that keep certain high-care, high-risk, and therefore high-cost, people out. Where are these people going to go if there's no place for them? Who will ensure that those high-risk, high-cost people will have a place to go? Who is responsible for ensuring that quality services still exist within Ontario? Who will be responsible for deciding who defines a quality service when providers' only interest is the bottom line?
I recently had a friend from England staying with me. England privatized its water system -- a wonderful idea, to privatize the water system. They did it under Margaret Thatcher, and they have to make money on the water system when it's privatized. This person was telling me that everyone thought it was great: Buy shares in the water situation. Then they had to delayer it, and then they couldn't afford to maintain it. In six years, seven years down the road, when the water system isn't doing too well, I can't go to an alternative water provider. Embark on this stuff with much caution.
Thank you for hearing from me today.
The Chair: Thank you very much. We have a little less than five minutes per caucus, starting with Mr Silipo.
Ms Gates: I was watching your clock instead of mine.
Mr Silipo: Thank you very much, Ms Gates, for your presentation, which, in fairness, is a little different from the ones we've heard so far. You focus more on the process, and from that, talk about some of the substantive changes that you see coming.
Looking at your list on the first page, I could easily add three or four others, such as no consultation, no discussion, no disclosure and no process, just to keep the list going. This is one of the frustrations we have been feeling as members of the opposition, that this government seems intent on pressing through with this bill.
To pick up on one of the points you were making at the beginning of your presentation, it's that people still have very little understanding of the far-reaching impact of this bill, although I think it's changing and we think it's changing. I'd like your comment on this: We're not just here protecting the democratic process, which in and of itself is worthwhile, but we're also doing it because it's important, we believe, that people understand that what's at the basis of what the government is doing is that it needs to find, in its estimation, $5 billion -- we think more -- to pay for the tax cuts, tax cuts which, as we were told earlier today in another presentation, are going to largely benefit people in the higher-income brackets. In fact, the statistics we saw today indicated that 41% of the benefit of the tax cut will go to the 13% of Ontarians who are at the income level of $85,000 or more. So that's the spread, the way it looks, and in order to pay for that, people are going to end up sacrificing service after service, from health care to many other services, looking at paying more for services that we now have available to us through municipalities and others, all for the sake of this tax cut.
I guess I would just ask your thoughts on what more can be done so that the people of the province have a better appreciation for what in fact is being done through this bill, which is, after all, an extension of the economic policies of the government.
Ms Gates: I think that there probably should be further consultation. I believe that this bill is too large to pass as one bill. I don't think that's the proper process.
Mr Silipo: One of the points that you mentioned was pay equity, and although I know that the changes in the bill, as far as I understand, don't affect your members, because you're covered --
Ms Gates: Well, actually it does. It affects the broader public service people, Tony.
Mr Silipo: That's right, yes. Sorry, I'm thinking particularly of your region, and maybe I just didn't understand, in fact, which members you represent. But one of the things that again we're trying to point out here is the absurdity of removing proxy pay equity, which is the mechanism that allows about 100,000 of the lowest-paid women in the province to reach, over albeit a long period of time, some sense of equity in terms of what they're paid.
Again, what we're getting from the government is this rationale that it needs to bring the system back to the way it was, limiting pay equity to only situations where you can make a straight comparator, as you would in the Ontario public service, for example, and just being completely oblivious to the fact that by doing that it is preventing some of the lowest-paid women in the province from being treated equally to other women and to men who are in comparable jobs. Again, do you have any thoughts on that point?
Ms Gates: I know there are a lot of disappointed women out there, Tony. There are a lot of women who had hoped that possibly this would allow them to pay for their own child care and to actually get ahead in their own life, because historically women have not. I don't need to tell people here that historically women have been lower-paid; I shouldn't need to.
The Chair: We must turn to the government caucus.
Mr Tascona: Thank you for your presentation. I have a couple of questions. Schedule Q of the act deals with arbitrators. Have you read that provision?
Ms Gates: I have glanced through some of it. I can tell you I haven't read through it completely. I can take a look at schedule Q. Actually, I am really concerned about some of the provisions around arbitrators and rulings of arbitrators, because I've already been at some board meetings where the employers are saying --
Mr Tascona: I just wanted to know if you had read it. Okay, you've just glanced at it.
Ms Gates: The employers are saying, "`Ability to pay' -- we can't pay."
Mr Tascona: Could I just ask you a question, ma'am? I take it that you've glanced at it. Do you oppose mandatory criteria for interest arbitrators?
Ms Gates: Again, I probably would have to take a good read of that section again, because there are many sections in here that I am not sure exactly what they mean, quite frankly.
Mr Tascona: Okay, maybe I'll help you a little bit. In schedule Q there are mandatory criteria for interest arbitrators to follow in the areas that are covered by interest arbitration, specifically police forces, firefighters, hospitals, to give you a couple. In those provisions there are a number of criteria, but there are no powers for the arbitrators to order service reductions. I want you to be clear on that when you do read it.
What the focus has been on here in the hearings has been the ability to pay. What we're trying to put in force is a method to control costs, specifically in the wages and the employment area. I'd like to hear your views with respect to the fact that we want to put in a system because the provincial government faces, as you know, a deficit situation and there is going to be a reduction in transfer payments for such areas as municipalities, school boards etc. I'd just like to know whether you think it's unreasonable to ask arbitrators to consider an employer's ability to pay when setting contract awards.
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Ms Gates: My understanding is that actually there's always been a consideration at times around that. Again, I've seen that within the recent weeks, since this has come out, people pointing to, "Oh, Bill 26 contains ability-to-pay stuff in it." Frankly, I think that if my employer could pay me next to nothing, they'd do it.
Mr Tascona: "Ability to pay" is dealing with the situation. We've heard both sides, where "ability to pay" has been used basically to pass on to the employer a tax, you know, the increase in salaries, and they'll basically just increase taxes. Certainly it hasn't been given a serious amount of thought by arbitrators in the sense that that's a critical criterion. A lot of them just say it's not. What we're trying to put in place here is that ability to pay is a very important consideration.
I'd just like you to consider that because the ability to pay will definitely affect the costs of providing services and in effect how we manage our operations in the different entities. So, would you think ability to pay is important for arbitrators to consider in determining what kinds of awards?
Ms Gates: In my mind, that's complex at the moment. Before I get into that I'd like some genuine cost-cutting, some genuine cooperative cost-cutting that happens. I'd like some genuine delayering in some of the bureaucracies that I see. I'm not necessarily willing to jump to ability to pay.
Mr Tascona: But you wouldn't want that to be made as a result of an arbitrator's award saying, "I'm going to give a certain amount of increase," and then the employer is faced with how to deal with that increase. Correct?
Ms Gates: Again -- I said it in the presentation -- there are places where people actually negotiate, knowing, opening the books and taking a look at the cash flow. If it isn't there, I know that it's happened, that people have been reasonable.
The Chair: We'll move to the opposition side.
Mr Phillips: First, I appreciate your presentation. As Mr Silipo said, I think it's slightly different than many we've had in that it deals more with the overview of the bill. But I think it illustrates too that there's been very little time for groups like yours to understand the implications of the bill and that the comments we've just had from the government members illustrate that.
In this bill, if you are a hospital worker or an institution that comes under those negotiations, there is no doubt it is the government's intention to fundamentally change your bargaining position -- and that will be true with the firefighters and the police and the teachers -- by putting in a clause that frankly doesn't exist anywhere else in Canada, has been taken away in three jurisdictions, I think, including here, and that's this criterion around ability to pay. As I say, I think the previous Conservative government was taken to an international court where it had to be removed.
So I think the government member has made your point for you, which is something that fundamental that your organization has not had even yet a chance to really get involved with it and come to a point of view on it.
Just to follow up on that a little bit, has OPSEU, the overarching OPSEU, had a chance to give you its feedback on this part of the bill, on the arbitration part of the bill? Have you had a chance to review it with --
Ms Gates: I haven't discussed it thoroughly with them. My understanding is our main presentation will be made tomorrow. Yes, I think it will be made tomorrow by Leah Casselman. That's my understanding.
Mr Phillips: I think that will be helpful.
In terms of your members, I think you've indicated here that your members have virtually no understanding yet of what's in the bill. That's not surprising, by the way. I'm not surprised that your members don't. It's 210 pages long. None of us saw this until November 29. It is without doubt the most sweeping piece of legislation that we've ever seen here. I don't think there's any doubt about that.
I would just say that your members have every right to be concerned, because it will touch on them in terms of the medical records being made far more available, the right of the minister to close unilaterally hospitals, to say to every hospital in this province what services can and cannot be provided. I would also say that this document takes away at least $225 million of your pension fund by unilaterally exempting the government from the Pension Benefits Act. There is a law in this province called the Pension Benefits Act that protects pensioners. The government, if you can believe this, is actually going to exempt itself from the Pension Benefits Act, and that will clearly have an impact on your members.
How long do you think it would take for your membership to have a chance to get an idea of what's in this bill? How long should we be attempting to push back the hearings to give you more time to look at this bill?
Ms Gates: Oh, gosh. This stuff absolutely intimidates people at the best of times. I would say eight weeks of hearings, at least. Actually, I was trying to clarify the pension provisions today.
Mr Phillips: The pension provisions are two pages in this bill but they will cost your members $225 million. I saw a higher figure in the paper today from the minister, actually.
Just to let you know, we in the opposition will do whatever we can to try and provide more time for it. I must tell you I'm not optimistic. My colleague Mr Curling did his best to get what we've got now, which is a delay -- this bill would have been law by now -- till January 29 at least.
Mr Gerretsen: By tomorrow.
Mr Phillips: By tomorrow. Well, at one stage it was going to be law by last week -- but by tomorrow -- and we did our best to delay it. We'll try and get some more time on it, but I would just urge you to get your membership involved quickly.
The Chair: Excuse me, Mr Phillips. The time is exhausted with this witness. I apologize for having to interrupt.
I want to thank you very much for appearing today before the committee.
We have a cancellation, committee members. Because of that, we'll have a recess until 7:30 pm.
The subcommittee recessed from 1858 to 1927.
ONTARIO PROFESSIONAL FIRE FIGHTERS' ASSOCIATION
The Vice-Chair (Mr Joseph N. Tascona): I think we are ready to proceed. We have the Ontario Professional Fire Fighters' Association. We welcome you here tonight. Any time you want to proceed.
Mr Jim Lee: My name's Jim Lee. I'm a full-time firefighter with the city of North York and I'm also the president of the Ontario Professional Fire Fighters' Association. To my immediate right is Peter Skowronek. He's a firefighter in the city of Niagara Falls. He's also the executive vice-president of the Ontario Professional Fire Fighters' Association.
The Ontario Professional Fire Fighters' Association is made up of 53 associations throughout the province of Ontario from as far south as Windsor, as far east as Cornwall and as far north as Kenora and Fort Frances. We represent over 4,000 full-time professional firefighters from associations as small as three members, such as Gananoque, to a 650-member association such as the city of North York.
Before I get into my specific areas of Bill 26 that directly affect the fire service, I would like to make a few overall comments about Bill 26.
This unprecedented and sweeping omnibus legislation contains 17 schedules which enact or amend 40 separate pieces of legislation. If passed, the bill would vest in cabinet and the ministers of the crown the unconstrained power to make decisions affecting the delivery of public services. In many cases, these decisions could be made by regulation, ministerial direction or administrative order, without parliamentary debate or meaningful opportunity for public scrutiny and without community, local or stakeholder input.
The bill would also grant cabinet and appointed officials the authority to make decisions affecting important individual and group interests and societal values in many areas, including the loss of the right to earn a livelihood. These powers are granted in the broadest of terms, without the statutory limitations or conditions traditionally provided in order to ensure political accountability and effective recourse to the courts.
The bill also contains provisions authorizing cabinet or the ministers to extinguish contractual rights and obligations contained in existing binding agreements and to prevent enforcement in the courts. The bill would empower cabinet or ministers to make regulations or to issue directions overriding the provisions of any contractual agreements and even overriding or providing exemptions from the provisions of other legislation.
The bill also purports to reverse and render of no effect certain decisions already made by the courts or tribunals under existing legislation and agreements, and to insulate the government against liability arising from future court or tribunal decisions.
We feel that the mandate given to the Conservative Party by the people of Ontario when it was elected in no way suggests that the general public would endorse a piece of legislation which will give certain individuals such sweeping powers with no opportunity for public scrutiny or stakeholder input.
Having said all of the above, I would like to move to the specific areas in Bill 26 that we feel will have a direct impact on the fire service and public safety in the province of Ontario.
Under schedule Q, the government is legislatively imposing criteria on the interest arbitration process for firefighters, thereby striking at the independence and the integrity of the only method available to essential service workers for settling the terms and conditions of their collective agreements if negotiations fail. These provisions constitute a significant interference with the independence and integrity of the arbitration process, requiring boards of arbitration to consider governmental criteria in awarding collective agreements.
Arbitrators have stated that basing an award on the ability to pay could render the interest arbitration process largely irrelevant, since the use of the ability to pay could allow the government and the employers to unilaterally determine wages and benefits by simply allocating a fixed or reduced amount for employee compensation in their transfer payments or budgets. The ability-to-pay criterion leads arbitrators to reach pre-determined results and biases their decision in favour of employers. Reliance on ability to pay would undermine the independence of arbitrators and the integrity of the arbitration process.
If employers can unilaterally fix or reduce the budget for employee compensation, and then argue that the arbitrators are bound by the employers' budgetary decisions, this could also undermine the process of collective bargaining itself, since there would be little, if any, incentive for employers to reach an agreement when it is clear that arbitrators will have no choice at the end of the day other than to award the employers' position.
Arbitrators have also criticized the requirement to apply the ability-to-pay criterion on the basis that it requires public sector employees to subsidize public services through substandard wages, a situation criticized by all arbitrators as unacceptable. Since there is no objective test for measuring of public sector employers' ability to pay, arbitrators have held that ability to pay really amounts to no more than the willingness to pay.
By imposing this criterion on arbitrators, government may be able to effectively implement wage controls without doing so directly, thereby using arbitrators as a buffer to escape the responsibility.
Similar legislation was adopted by the Conservative government for a temporary period in the early 1980s. At that time, the chair of the Ontario Police Arbitration Commission expressed concern that "arbitrators may cease to be available since the proposed legislation will impinge on their independence." As a result of such concerns, the legislation was not renewed after a period of one year.
The ability-to-pay criterion deprives employees of a fair and impartial mechanism for determining their terms and conditions of employment. If arbitrators are directly appointed by the government, which lays down in legislation certain criteria that the arbitrators are bound to follow in the determination of their awards, it is inevitable that the confidence in the system will diminish.
The Association of Municipalities of Ontario would lead you to believe that the vast majority of firefighter wage settlements are determined by boards of arbitration. This simply is not true. In actual fact, the reverse is true. Over 85% of all agreements have been successfully and freely negotiated by the respective parties without resorting to interest arbitration.
The Association of Municipalities of Ontario has insinuated for years that because of certain arbitration awards, the firefighters had the arbitrators in their so-called "back pockets." We find that type of attitude totally unacceptable and insulting to the present list of arbitrators in the province of Ontario, when in actual fact it was the unpreparedness and incompetence of the people presenting on behalf of the corporations to put forward a proper argument to the arbitration board to justify their demands. The Association of Municipalities of Ontario has now turned to the provincial government to fill the void for its incompetence.
The bill also requires arbitrators to consider the extent to which services may have to be reduced if current levels are not increased. The intent of this provision is not clear, along with the other criteria listed in the legislation, but it may be to encourage arbitrators to make awards which require employees to subsidize the maintenance of current levels of service through substandard wages.
It also may well be to involve arbitrators in decisions respecting the level of service that should be provided by employers, thereby relieving the public sector employers of their responsibility for making decisions for which they can be held accountable.
The Ontario Professional Fire Fighters Association has discussed the list of criteria with Mr David Burnside, legal counsel for the Ministry of the Attorney General, who is assigned to the Ministry of the Solicitor General. We asked for clarification on the criteria as listed in the legislation and if the arbitrators would be able to go beyond the list of five criteria when making awards.
Mr Burnside was unable to answer our questions and he informed us that in all probability the questions we had asked would have to be decided in the courts under judicial review, at a tremendous cost to both parties. We find this comment very disturbing and totally unacceptable to the entire membership of the Ontario Professional Fire Fighters Association.
The other specific area of Bill 26 that we feel directly impacts on public safety is schedule M. Schedule M would amend the Municipal Act to provide the government with wide powers to restructure existing municipalities and localities.
The powers to be exercised by the minister or commission in implementing a restructuring proposal are left entirely to be established by regulation or by the commission itself. The minister is given virtually unlimited powers to determine, by regulation, the composition and functioning of the restructuring commission, including authorizing the commission to apportion its costs among the municipalities or local bodies affected by the commission's report. Further, the minister is entitled to establish restructuring principles that must be considered by municipalities, other bodies and the commission when developing restructuring proposals.
Apart from the power to restructure municipalities, the bill would give the minister, together with the municipalities, broad powers to alter or eliminate local boards under the control of one or more municipalities. The definition of a local board includes school boards, public utility commissions, transportation commissions, public library boards, boards of park management, boards of health, police services boards and other boards which perform municipal functions. In addition, the cabinet would have the power, by regulation, to deem any other body which performs public functions to be a local board for the purpose of these powers.
Under the bill, the council of a municipality would have the power to dissolve or make other changes to any local board simply by passing a resolution, and this power applies despite any other legislation. Furthermore, the bill would also give the minister the power to make regulations exempting a municipality which has taken over the operations of a local board from the application of any other legislation.
While the full impact of these proposed changes on the operation of municipal services will only be understood when regulations are enacted, the bill would provide the authority for municipalities to eliminate or fundamentally alter the structure and delivery of municipal services. Municipalities may well argue that this power extends to relieve them of the obligation to comply with the requirements of any other legislation, including the labour relations legislation. Furthermore, it may be that the power to make changes to a local board could result in significant contracting out or the elimination of municipal services, if the regulations so permit.
Upper-tier municipalities, including counties, regional, metropolitan and district municipalities, are given the power to pass bylaws assuming services or facilities provided by local municipalities or local boards, where those services are prescribed by regulation. These provisions may allow regional municipalities to assume functions, such as firefighting, presently performed by local municipalities.
In a conversation with Mr David Burnside, legal counsel for the Solicitor General, this exact scenario was put before him and he was asked what protection would the firefighters have if an upper-tier municipality assumed the function of fire protection. He informed us that those employees affected would have no collective agreement and no protection whatsoever. They could be dismissed at that point in time with no recourse whatsoever.
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I ask the committee here today, do you believe that employees who risk their lives for the taxpayers of a community should be treated in this fashion by the municipalities? I find it very difficult to believe that the Conservative government ever intended this to happen when giving such sweeping powers to a single individual or to the municipalities in the province of Ontario.
Municipalities and local boards are given broad new powers to pass bylaws imposing fees or charges on any class of persons. These fees and charges may be levied for any services or activities provided by the municipality, for any costs payable by it for services and activities and for the use of any of its property.
In addition, the nature of the charges that may be made appears virtually unlimited, including fees or charges which are in the nature of a direct tax. Such fees or charges can vary on any basis that the municipality or local board considers appropriate. In this connection, the municipality may treat different classes of persons differently and may deal with each class in a different way.
Mel Lastman, mayor of the city of North York, looks on specific user fees as a goldmine for the city of North York. He already has plans in place to charge vehicle owners $300 if they are unfortunate enough to have a vehicle fire while travelling through the city of North York. He also suggests the charging of a fee to high-rise building owners for excessive false alarms.
The Ontario Professional Fire Fighters Association feels that user fees in the fire service is a recipe for disaster. We will have individuals trying to extinguish vehicle fires on their own to avoid a charge, exposing themselves and others to severe injury. The potential for high-rise owners to deactivate their alarm systems to avoid charges will potentially put at risk a great number residents and taxpayers who live and work in high-rise buildings in the city of North York.
We feel that schedule M will have a direct impact on public safety in the entire province of Ontario.
The firefighters are currently involved in a review of the fire service in the province of Ontario under the direction of the Solicitor General, the person appointed by the government to be responsible for the fire service in the province of Ontario.
We are dealing with the Fire Departments Act, a specific piece of legislation, and there are potentially a number of amendments that would directly affect the level and delivery of fire service in the province of Ontario. Prior to the election of the Conservative government, we solicited comments from potential candidates who were seeking election on what their position would be on proposed changes to the Fire Departments Act.
We received written responses from a great number of potential MPPs seeking election on behalf of the Conservative Party. In those written responses we received letters from the now Premier of the province of Ontario, Mike Harris; the now Solicitor General, Bob Runciman; the now Minister of Labour, Elizabeth Witmer; and also the now Minister of Health, Jim Wilson, all stating the following:
"No changes will be made under a Harris government until such time as your members have been thoroughly consulted. And we will insist that all changes be fully costed -- both from the point of view of workers, as well as management."
Under Bill 26, the Fire Departments Act is about to be drastically altered with virtually no consultation or input by the Ontario Professional Fire Fighters Association.
In a conversation on December 14, 1995, last week, the Solicitor General, Mr Runciman, agreed with me that we had not been thoroughly consulted as was promised by the Premier and other ministers of the current government.
We are here today to ask the Conservative government to live up to their commitment to us before there are any changes to the Fire Departments Act. We are asking the government to exempt the firefighters and the fire service from the impact of Bill 26 and allow us to continue discussions on our own piece of legislation, the Fire Departments Act, as was promised by the Conservative government prior to their election.
All of this is respectfully submitted on behalf of the Ontario Professional Fire Fighters Association. I thank you for the opportunity to voice our concerns with Bill 26.
The Chair: There are about four minutes for each caucus to ask questions. We'll start off with the government caucus, Mr Young.
Mr Young: Thank you for an excellent presentation and thank you for coming. I really appreciate it.
We've had delegations representing teachers and child care workers and people from all different sectors, and the message we get is, "We understand that you need to reduce government and bureaucracy and we understand that you have to cut spending, but don't do it to us."
I wanted to ask you, because I've been struggling with this -- I represent the northern part of two towns, Oakville and Burlington -- how can we have an arbitrator make a decision for taxpayers without looking at affordability?
Mr Lee: That definitely doesn't happen. I would ask the question, how many of you in this room have ever attended a board of arbitration? How many of you in the room have ever read an award from a board of arbitration? I've done numerous boards of arbitration of behalf of firefighters in the province of Ontario and they definitely look into the ability to pay by the municipality. People who are telling you they don't aren't telling you the truth.
Mr Young: So then I don't understand why you have an objection to having it in there.
Mr Lee: I'm saying that when you put in a specific criterion, you're telling the arbitrator that you're removing his independence. I say to you that what you have to do is to allow the arbitrator to decide on his award by listening to both sides. Let them both put their best argument forward and let the independent individual make the decision along with the two nominees.
The funny part is that the firefighters in the province of Ontario present their own boards of arbitration. We don't have legal people come in and do our boards. It's firefighters that ride the tailboard of the trucks that present the boards of arbitration, not legal counsel like the corporations do.
When they fail to put the best argument forward they blame the arbitrator. I'm telling you here tonight they should be blaming themselves.
Mr Tascona: I'd just like to comment. I've personally dealt with firefighter interest arbitrations and you do a very good job, but we're in a situation right now where we have a fiscal crunch, and for us to exempt you where you're subject to interest arbitration and other groups wouldn't be exempt, and we're dealing with a financial crunch and so are the municipalities, how can we realistically not have ability to pay as a factor and not have mandatory criteria for arbitrators to deal with this? How can we deal with the situation and exempt you?
Mr Lee: Mr Tascona, I would ask you then, why wouldn't the Conservative government, the Premier of this province of Ontario and a number of ministers -- the Solicitor General, the Minister of Labour and the Minister of Health -- live up to their commitment to us that we would be fully consulted before any changes to the arbitration process? We were not consulted. We weren't informed that there was going to be an alteration of the Fire Departments Act under section 6, which you people have put in place. All I want you to do, as the Conservative government, is to live up to your commitment to us prior to the time you were elected.
Mr Tascona: We are living up to our commitment.
Mr Lee: I don't think you are. I have letters --
Mr Tascona: We're consulting with you now. I haven't seen anything specific in terms of the criterion you don't like. We did make a commitment that you would have renewed collective bargaining within a fiscal framework. We put together a fiscal framework and I haven't heard a criterion that you would support. I can say to you that the arbitrators aren't going to be put in there to reduce service levels. That's certainly going to be something that the municipality and the firefighters would determine.
But I would like to hear from you some constructive comments with respect to how this system can be addressed to deal with our financial crunch. If we don't consider ability to pay, we're not going to be able to address the cost control problems.
Mr Lee: I think the arbitrators have to be independent. The arbitrators have to be able to work independently of the government. That's what I said in my brief. I come back to the position that arbitrators in the province of Ontario deal with the ability to pay. You know, when you look at 87 professional firefighter groups in the province of Ontario, and I went back 14 years today on boards of arbitration, and over those 14 years, out of a possible 1,281 boards of arbitration, we had 141.
Do you think we need to put a criterion in place for arbitrators that is going to affect the independence of the arbitration system because of 141 boards of arbitration over the last 14 years? I don't think that's required.
Mr Tascona: You know as well as I do that those 141 arbitrations would set the tone for the rest of the agreements for the rest of the province.
Mr Lee: That is not true, sir.
The Chair: Sorry, Mr Tascona, but we have to move on to the opposition members.
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Mr Gerretsen: Let me just say that as a former mayor, I totally agree with your concept of the arbitration. Also, having worked some 10 years or so ago on a similar kind of committee with the Solicitor General, dealing with the Fire Departments Act, on behalf of AMO at that time, I know it's a long and arduous process. Do you feel that you've been lied to by these four individuals who have written you letters?
Mr Lee: Not only the four individuals who wrote us letters, and our letters are in our brief with their exact wording, but also a number of other MPPs that were elected on behalf of the Conservative government. We did a grass-roots campaign prior to the election and we did a very extensive cross-section of the MPPs in the province of Ontario, and to an individual, they told us that we would be consulted before there would be any changes to the Fire Departments Act. They unilaterally changed the Fire Departments Act under section 6 without any consultation, and the Solicitor General of the province of Ontario, currently, agrees with us, that we weren't consulted.
Mr Gerretsen: You've probably given, in synopsis form, the best schedule M attack that I've seen yet in the last two weeks here, and with all due respect to all my colleagues in the Legislature, I think you've hit the nail right on the head: This is not specifically about money, but it's about power that municipalities will be given, and if for some reason the minister doesn't like what municipalities have been given, then the minister can overregulate that or can change it by way of regulations. So it doesn't deal with money directly, as my friend across the way says; it gives municipalities the power basically to make up potentially for that revenue they've lost as a result of the grants.
Mr Lee: What I can tell you is that obviously we're concerned about schedule Q, the criteria for arbitrators, but my main point here tonight is schedule M. Schedule M is going to have an impact on public safety in the province of Ontario if it's allowed to go through the way it is currently written in the legislation.
Mr Crozier: When it comes to consultation I believe you have company, because in casual conversations I've had many of the members of the Conservative caucus were not consulted on this legislation, and in fact it has appeared to us on occasion that even the ministers themselves had some difficulty understanding the act.
Mr Young: That's hearsay.
Mr Crozier: But if I could though, even though you do concentrate on schedule M, refer to schedule Q in the short time that I have left, and I want your comments: It's been said that in paragraph 2 under the criteria, "The extent to which services may have to be reduced, if the current funding levels are not increased," it doesn't say that the municipalities and the firefighters will decide this; it says the arbitrator will consider this. Don't you think that's rather ominous in itself?
Mr Lee: That obviously is very ominous to me. I think it's very clear on what they've given to the arbitrator there. I would suggest that in giving him that criterion, "The extent to which the services may...be reduced, if the current funding levels are not increased," there is no indication with regard to public safety, either for the taxpayers or the firefighters themselves who have to go in and put the fire out.
Mr Silipo: Mr Lee, thank you very much for calling a spade a spade and for being so clear and straightforward in your presentation to us this evening. I quite frankly wish that more and more of the presentations were exactly like this, not because I happen to agree with what you're saying but because I think that it's important to be that upfront and straightforward.
I'm very concerned about the issues you raise with respect to public safety, and knowing the work as we all do and appreciating the work that you and your members continue to do on a day-to-day basis, that when you tell us about some of the potential for public safety being endangered because, in order to avoid those fees that municipalities will be able to and will in fact apply under this legislation, there will be greater danger. I'd be happy to hear any more comments that you have, but I just wanted to note that.
The other irony, I guess, that I see in this that you've flagged for us is that you have the process that's now under way with the government where you're looking at changes to the legislation, and when you have a Solicitor General who's admitted that he and his government have broken a very key promise to you as an organization to consult you, it would therefore seem logical for them to agree to fold this part of the bill at least into that process. Do you have any idea why they're continuing to refuse to do that?
Mr Lee: I have no idea. That's a good question. I met with the Solicitor General last week and we have a very frank discussion on where the process was going, where the Fire Services Review Committee is going right now, and he's full steam ahead on changing the act further. I said to him, "Maybe we should see how Bill 26 impacts on the Fire Services Review Committee before I'm required to put a report before you by the end of the year." He's given me until February 15 to give my opinion on where the Fire Services Review Committee is going.
There is another point I wanted to make with regard to the arbitration process. We had a comment made that the arbitrators make a decision and then all the other locals fall in behind. That is not true. What happens is that the vast majority are freely negotiated and then the arbitrator replicates the freely negotiated collective agreements in the province of Ontario, in the vast majority of cases.
Mr Silipo: The other point you make in your brief which I found helpful, which attacks another myth that we continue to hear, is that over 85% of all agreements are successfully negotiated rather than going to arbitration.
Mr Lee: That's correct.
Mr Silipo: It's quite true, as you said, that the impression we are given through municipalities and through the government is that there's a great need to put in this ability-to-pay provision to control costs. This is really not even such a back-door way, as you called it, of doing wage controls. If they had the courage to do that and say, "This is what we're doing," then at least we could deal with that up front.
Mr Lee: What you're being told is simply untrue. You don't see the firefighters on the front lawn at Queen's Park all that often. You don't see the firefighters in the province of Ontario down here making statements at standing committees of the Legislature. What I'm telling you about the impact of Bill 26 is why the firefighters are here. We have a concern about the public safety, we have a concern about the firefighters' safety, and we have a concern about schedule Q regarding the criteria for arbitrators.
But our main concern is that we deliver the service, and who better to tell you how to deliver that service than the individuals who have to go in and deliver that service? That's why we're here tonight.
The Chair: Mr Lee, you've wrapped up the time allotted for your presentation. I want to thank you for appearing today in front of the committee.
Mr Lee: Thank you very much.
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CHINESE CANADIAN NATIONAL COUNCIL
METRO TORONTO CHINESE AND SOUTHEAST ASIAN LEGAL CLINIC
The Chair: Could we please have representatives from the Metro Toronto Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic come forward. Welcome. You'll have 30 minutes to make your presentation, which you can use as you see fit. Most presenters choose to leave 10 minutes or so for question and response from the three caucuses. I'd appreciate it if you would read your names for the benefit of the members and Hansard.
Ms Avvy Go: Thank you. My name is Avvy Go. I'm not Amy Go, the name given on the list. Amy Go will introduce herself later. I'm the clinic director of the Metro Toronto Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic.
Ms Amy Go: My name is Amy Go, and I'm the chair of the national board of directors of the Chinese Canadian National Council. Just to give you a bit of background, the Chinese Canadian National Council is a national organization with 29 chapters across the country, 11 of them located in Ontario. We are a public-interest group that is mandated to improve race relations and to promote equality among all Canadians. Avvy will make our deputation, then we'll be very happy to answer questions.
Ms Avvy Go: I'm here to speak only on behalf of the Metro Toronto Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic. Our clinic provides services to low-income immigrants and refugees from the Chinese, Vietnamese, Cambodian and Laotian communities in the Metro Toronto area. People of Chinese origin, as you know, make up the fastest-growing community in Canada. This is confirmed by the Statistics Canada report released earlier this week. Ontario absorbs the largest proportion of Chinese immigrants arriving in Canada every year. As a growing community, the needs of the Chinese Canadian must not be ignored by this government.
A typical client that comes to the clinic is someone who does not speak English very well and faces various barriers in accessing the legal system and other social services. Because of these barriers, many of them have limited access to the political process and are often barred from participating in public debates and political fora such as this one.
I'm not here to speak on behalf of the entire Chinese community or the immigrant community in general. My presence here tonight serves to bring up some critical issues raised in Bill 26 and, in general, policies that have been put forward by this government since it came into power. We are here to ask the committee to consider how these various changes would impact on the community of immigrants and refugees in Ontario. Let me now turn to some of the specifics of our concern on Bill 26.
Like many marginalized communities, the immigrant community is aware of the deficit problem, but like many other conscientious Ontarians, we are also concerned about the speed and the way in which the deficit is being reduced. We are affected, if not more severely, by the series of cutbacks we are seeing everywhere we turn. There are, in addition, certain amendments under Bill 26 which are of particular concern to the immigrant community.
I recognize that this committee in particular deals with the issues that are not related to health issues, but I have to make a point of stating that many of the amendments with regard to the powers of the Minister of Health in the restructuring of public and private hospitals and the shift towards private, for-profit health facilities have a great impact on the immigrants. Our general concern around the erosion of the principle of universality of health care, the principle of publicly funded health care, is a significant one. Particularly for ethnoracial minority groups, any time health care gets more privatized we will be the first to suffer, because it is not in the interest of profit-making facilities to provide culturally appropriate services or linguistically appropriate services to the immigrants.
We are also concerned about deregulation of drugs and all the other issues, and we want to make that clear at this committee hearing as well. I have a client who came in the other day with a diabetic condition, and he's really telling me that he has to think twice about buying drugs in the future, even though he seriously needs them.
Of course, the privatization of health care has a non-health impact as well. The increased privatization in health care and other essential services is not only alarming because of its implication in terms of the services provided. We are also concerned about the people providing the service, because in terms of the percentage, more and more people will be employed in the private sector as more privatization takes place. We know that in the private sector, from the experience of the clinics, violations of employment standards are more rampant and employment inequities are more commonly found. At the same time that the repeal of Bill 40 is making it harder for workers to become unionized, employment equity is no longer legally required.
All these are going to give rise to a result that puts marginalized workers, disadvantaged workers, in a more vulnerable position, and among these workers would be immigrant workers.
With respect to the Pay Equity Act, the act was never broad enough to benefit the immigrant women who are ghettoized in low-end, female-dominated jobs in the private sector. But the amendment that is being put forward in Bill 26 is going to lead to the loss of whatever little progress we have made so far.
We are also concerned about the increased charging of user fees at the municipal level or any other government level. On average, during the first few years of arrival, immigrants tend to use more public services, although in the long run the services they use are going to be repaid, as immigrants tend to pay more taxes than Canadian-born citizens. But with the increasing use of user fees by the government, immigrants and many other Canadians are in effect asked to pay double, once when they use the specific service and once when they pay their taxes.
As history tells us, direct user fees are more open to be applied in a discriminatory way than general taxation mechanisms. The most obvious examples I can think of are the Chinese head tax and now the new right-of-landing fee. But there are numerous examples in Canadian history where user fees have been charged to specific target groups. For example, toll fees of various natures were being used against Chinese and other Asian immigrants at the turn of the century by local government.
While governments today rarely openly introduce user fees directed at any one particular racial group, the more insidious form of discrimination is bound to take place. The fact that the omnibus bill provides that the fees cannot be appealed on the grounds that they are unfair or unjust serves as an open invitation, in our minds, for such creative taxation to take place.
But putting aside all these specific concerns, by far the most fundamental problem we see with Bill 26 lies in the fact that it is anti-democratic, as evidenced in the so-called public hearing process leading up to its final and inevitable enactment. There is a big irony about the way we are being governed today. While this government speaks constantly about allowing more community participation and serving people better, at the same time it has consistently acted in an anti-democratic and anti-community way, which is evidenced in the way the welfare rate was cut and now the introduction of Bill 26.
Even if we concede that this government has been elected democratically, in a true democracy a general election does not grant a majority government absolute power to do whatever it wants. At best, the election result is an indication that voters accept either a particular local MPP or the party platform in the general sense. It in no way indicates that voters accept each and every aspect of the ruling party's election platform, let alone the things that are not even indicated or included in the election platform.
What are some of the things included in Bill 26 but not covered by the Common Sense Revolution? The first thing, of course, is cuts to health care and the closing down of hospitals. Indeed, the very contrary is stated in the Common Sense Revolution: "We will not cut health care spending. It's far too important.... Under this plan, health care spending will be guaranteed."
The other thing I can think of is services to seniors and the disabled. The Common Sense Revolution says, "Aid for seniors and the disabled will not be cut."
The other element of Bill 26 which threatens the whole idea of democracy is the protection of privacy and freedom of information. Nothing in the Common Sense Revolution gives this government the power to intrude on individual privacy by tracing movements electronically, nor does the Common Sense Revolution talk about limiting individuals' right to access their own personal information by imposing excessive fees.
The implication of these amendments for our democratic system is astounding, yet citizens of this province are not given the adequate time to even understand what the government has in store for them. The few weeks of hearings will not give access to people who are silenced by the cuts and are too afraid to come forward. The people we serve will not be able to understand the 2,000-page document this bill contains, nor are there any real means to ensure they can truly participate.
What does all this mean to the immigrant community, particularly when so many immigrants or refugees came to Canada to seek a new life or to escape persecution under a totalitarian state? It is really ironic. Many immigrants came to Canada because they believed Canada is a democratic society where equity and justice are respected and honoured. Many came here to escape a totalitarian state where there's no political or civil rights, but having arrived here, these individuals still have no meaningful access to political participation.
Are we really that different from the totalitarian states where the refugees come from? In form, yes, we are, but in substance sometimes the difference is obscure. What this government is doing and saying essentially is this: "You get your say every five years with whatever information I'm prepared to give you. But, in the meantime, you just have to take whatever is given and keep your mouth shut."
True, there are immigrants who support the agenda put forward by this government, but you have to listen very carefully to them and you would understand the reason for their support. As I said, there are immigrants and refugees who came from countries where democracy does not exist, where there is forever only one ruling party. These immigrants accept the cuts to social services because they do not think there is any other option available to them. They realize that the big corporations and the well-to-do are not paying their fair share of taxes, but they simply accept the notion that the government is there to serve the rich and the privileged, not the poor and the deprived. What this government is doing is to reinforce such notions of autocratic democracy.
There are, on the other hand, immigrants and refugees who support this government's position on deficit for a different reason. They came from places where there is no real social safety net and individuals are left to survive on their own. They are used to the dog-eat-dog approach. To some of these people, any form of welfare is better than none. They have never had any support from their government because the government they used to know did not believe in collective responsibility and equity. So does our government take pride in advancing an agenda that is deprived of any commitment to social justice and a basic sense of human decency? I certainly hope not.
If this government truly believes in making itself work better for the people it serves, as is repeatedly stated in the Common Sense Revolution, then it should roll back the fundamental changes that are being introduced in Bill 26. At the very least, it should open up the debate, break down each specific section of the bill for public information-sharing and then consultation so that you can make the process truly inclusive of all the people in Ontario.
The Chair: Thank you. We have five minutes each, starting with the members from the opposition.
Mr Crozier: Good evening, ladies, and welcome. I'm glad you're here with us tonight.
In this bill, and you may not have touched on it too much, although you talked a bit about health care -- and we can discuss health care here as well, I think; we're as well informed as the others are. But in this bill it talks a lot about privacy. In my community -- I come from a small community in southwestern Ontario -- we have a lot of probably third- or fourth-generation Italians and Germans, second-generation Arabic and Portuguese and first-generation Vietnamese, and I've marvelled and always admired them for at some point in their lives having chosen Canada, and in this case Ontario in particular, to come to.
Because of some of their backgrounds, as you have alluded to, privacy is maybe something they value among some of the other values that they see in Ontario. It's a concern to me in this bill, and I wish you'd express your feelings in your words, the extent to which your private lives are being invaded by this government, to the point that any number of things the privacy commissioner has mentioned -- previous medical history, history of family, sexual orientation, all those kinds of things -- may be made available. I wish that in your words and from your experience you'd express your feelings on that.
Ms Avvy Go: I guess the notion of privacy is an important one to the extent that it covers the relationship between the individual and the state. If you look at privacy in the family context, then I think there will be a different notion, a different idea that varies from one community to another.
But as far as privacy between individuals and the state, for many of the immigrants and the Vietnamese refugees that you refer to, it speaks to how far a government can go to control their lives. These people come from countries where there is no privacy as far as the government is concerned. So I think the bill really redefines the privacy that we know in Canada, and we are beginning more and more to resemble the kind of privacy notion, or the lack thereof, in some other countries that some of my clients come from. I think that is really unfortunate and that is something we should try to avoid at all costs.
Mr Crozier: Thank you for your observations.
Mr Gerretsen: I was very touched by your definition of democracy, because a democracy or a society is really judged not by how the majority rules but by how it treats its minorities.
I'm from an immigrant family as well, as a matter of fact. I wasn't born in Canada and I know that at least one other member of the committee, maybe more than that, is an immigrant as well. I know that in the 1950s and 1960s the immigrants were always the first to get jobs and get established, and it's still like that in a large part of our community, with the Portuguese who came later on and many of the other groups.
Have you ever done any studies as to the people who are in touch with your office during the first year, let's say, for whatever service they require, and how well they do three or four or five years later? Are they still a burden on the system to some extent, or have they in effect "made it"?
Ms Avvy Go: Amy may have some other comments to make on this point. We haven't done the studies ourselves, but there are many professors and so on who have studied and traced the history of immigrants in Canada.
There's one that I can think of which was done by the Clarke Institute that followed the southeast Asian immigrants and saw that 10 years later most of them are doing extremely well. I don't have the statistics in front of me, but certainly that was one example of showing how, given a welcoming environment -- because the southeast Asian refugees, the so-called boat people, were accepted in a very welcoming way by Canada during the late 1970s and they were for a time allowed to establish themselves successfully in Canada. There are other studies, one by a professor out in the east that traced the taxation pattern of immigrants, and he discovered that immigrants, on average, pay $2,000 more in taxes than Canadian-born citizens. I think that's averaged out over a number of years.
So there are many studies out there that show immigrants are able to integrate well in Canada. But I think the question is also, does that mean they have to pay more for the services, which is one of the notions that is being introduced now? On top of paying taxes, they also have to pay for the specific services, which we believe is wrong, given that we have the general tax system that is there specifically to deal with services for Canadian citizens.
Mr Silipo: Let me just say at the outset that I appreciate in particular the exchange around the question of privacy, because that's something that I know is very much heartfelt, as you said.
I want to come back to another area that you talked about a bit, and that is the sense among the people you serve, and I think perhaps even in the broader community, that really people don't expect from their government anything other than that those who are well off are going to be taken care of and those who are not are going to continue to be not treated as well. It frightens me to hear that, because we're seeing that very much with what this government is doing. We're seeing instance after instance where that is happening. You referred to the welfare cuts, for example. I remember Mike Harris saying very clearly not just during the election, before the election, but even after the election that he would not cut welfare rates until there was in place a workfare program; the government would invest some of the money in there. Well, we know that the cuts were made way before anything else was put in place.
We saw them talk very clearly during the election that there would be no cuts to health care, and we see cuts to health care being now put in place.
The words that come out of the government continue to say there's a fiscal crisis and so that's why we have to do this, and yet we have information in front of us that tells us that it's the tax cut that's driving what the government is doing and in fact most of the benefit of that tax cut is going to a small proportion of people, to the proportion that is the most well off.
What is it going to take to change this approach, or is it simply a question that what we have now in front of us is really a government that's being clear about approving that sense you talked about there among communities that in fact government is just going to continue to take care of those who are already well off, thank you very much?
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Ms Avvy Go: I think the government must realize it has certain minimum responsibilities. We may have a lot of differences in ideology, but whatever minimum standards are out there, they still need to be respected.
The sense that I get from my clients -- take as an example people who work in a factory or restaurant who are making less than minimum wage. The day after the election -- and this is a true story -- I have a client who came in about something and she told me that she just went in for a job interview and the employer said to her: "Thirty-five dollars a day. Take it or leave it. We have a new government in now and we're not afraid of the government any more."
It's the message that is being sent out there to employers, to landlords, to people who are in power vis-à-vis the immigrants and the most vulnerable group. I think a strong message must be sent, regardless of your ideology, that there are certain values that we uphold. So you cannot break the law, for example, you cannot break the law on minimum wage or overtime or whatever, that this government, whatever is the ideology, would still be committed to at least enforce some of the standards that have been in existence for so long. But unfortunately, having read Bill 26 and looking at what this government has done, I think the opposite message has been consistently sent out, and that is making people more and more scared. They are less and less willing to come out and speak.
Mr Young: Thank you for coming tonight. Do you provide legal advice to your clients?
Ms Avvy Go: Yes.
Mr Young: Out of your presentation, my understanding was that you're saying the system of government we have in Ontario is not much different from a Third World dictatorship. Should I take that meaning from what you're saying?
Ms Avvy Go: I am saying that if we are not careful, this is the kind of message we will be sending out, especially for people who have experienced a totalitarian state.
Mr Young: So you're not comparing the government of Ontario to a Third World dictatorship, really.
Ms Avvy Go: I'm not comparing that, no.
Ms Amy Go: I think the main point about the presentation is that the experience of some of the Ontarians will not be that different from those people who are in a developing country.
Mr Young: With regard to your concern about a poll tax, if it were put into the bill that a poll tax is not allowed, how would you feel about that?
Ms Avvy Go: Certainly that would be a lot better than what we have right now. Given that you're giving more power to municipalities, whether to be more so-called flexible in providing services or impose direct taxes, I think that's the very minimum that you could do, that it does not mean they can impose a poll tax.
Mr Hardeman: First of all, I want to say -- I think it was somewhat hinted to -- in fact I am a first-generation Canadian and I was an immigrant. I guess now I'm a citizen. When we came to Ontario it was by choice and it was because it was a place of hope and opportunity. I would suggest that a lot of the people you work with have that same perception.
One of the things that I've found since that time, and at least that our government has found, is that in fact the financial situation is such that unless we do something, that hope and opportunity will disappear.
You mentioned the one issue of user fees that seemed to trouble you somewhat, but from the people that you speak for, do you see the option of reducing the service completely as a better option than taking those services that are not core services and putting user fees to them so in fact we can keep the services that we have grown accustomed to in our local community by paying for them in a different way?
Ms Avvy Go: I think the issue of government spending, deficit, can be addressed in a drastically different way from the way this government is addressing it now. I'm not saying that's only the provincial government, but even the federal government which is in power that focuses solely on reducing services as opposed to looking at the revenue generation. I think there's a lot more that could be done there, and maybe a lot more negotiation even with the federal government in terms of transfer payments to provinces, which we are also very concerned about.
I don't think the solution is to ask the people who need the services most, who are the least able to pay for the services, to bear the burden. I think somebody else with a lot more resources, like the banks, like big corporations, which have not paid their fair share of taxes, could share some of the burden, because investment in human resources is beneficial to their interests as well.
Ms Amy Go: I think we should not be so shortsighted too. I work with seniors, and many of the seniors, when we told them about raising a meal by just a dollar, they would not order the meal, because it imposes hardship on them. As a result of that, by not ordering that meal, the seniors' frailty is just going to go downhill drastically. As a result, the person will go in the hospital earlier or go into the institution, as we all know, which is going to cost us even more. So I think we should not be so shortsighted as to say, "Yes, let's impose more user fees and make them pay so that we can maintain those services," when in the long run we are paying more in the other end too.
The Chair: Mr Sampson, quickly; one minute.
Mr Sampson: I think today it was announced that one of the automotive companies was going to expand here in Ontario, creating quite a few more jobs. I'm wondering what their response would have been to that investment decision if they had heard what I think I just heard a few minutes ago from you, that we should tax the corporations more.
Ms Avvy Go: Yes, I think so.
Mr Sampson: Do you believe those jobs would have been a major --
Ms Avvy Go: I'm not the expert, but the experts have said their piece in many studies, including the Fair Tax Commission that was done in this province a couple of years ago. One of the findings that was made by the commission was that the level of taxation is not a key factor to determine where corporations invest their money.
Mr Sampson: So your view is that Honda -- I think it was Honda -- would still have made the decision if you had said to them, "Tomorrow your taxes are twice what they are today"?
Ms Avvy Go: I think Honda would invest in this province if they think we're stable politically, economically. But our political stability depends very much on the wellbeing of individuals.
Mr Sampson: We're talking in the neighbourhood of a $10-billion shortfall each year. That's just to keep us above water; we're not paying down debt. That's a significant amount of money to raise in taxes.
The Chair: I'm sorry to interrupt, but time has expired. Thank you for coming tonight and making a presentation to the committee.
TORONTO TEACHERS' FEDERATION
The Chair: Would the members from the Toronto Teachers' Federation please come forward. Good evening and welcome to the standing committee on general government. You'll have 30 minutes tonight to make your presentation. You can use that 30 minutes as you see fit. You may decide to leave some time at the end of your presentation for questions, as most folks do. Before you begin, I'd ask that you would please read your names and your organization into the record for the benefit of both the committee members and Hansard.
Ms Frances Gladstone: My name is Frances Gladstone. I am the president of the Toronto Teachers' Federation. I would also like to introduce those colleagues who are with me here at the table; they are also members of the executive of the Toronto Teachers' Federation. To my far left is Maureen Coleman, who is an area councillor in the north section of the city; to my immediate left is Jennifer Burrell, vice-president of grievances; and to my right is Linda Conetta, vice-president of political action and public relations.
I'm certain that the message you are hearing now has been echoed and re-echoed throughout the day, but its importance is unquestionable, and the more often you hear it, the greater the possibility that you will act on it.
I've lived all my life in Toronto and have always considered myself fortunate in this respect. I also consider myself fortunate to have been born a Canadian. The one thing that I never expected to experience living in this country is how it felt to live in a dictatorship. But since this government has come to power, that's how I'm beginning to feel.
This government has rammed through legislation with no debate, no discussion, no opportunity for consultation and no regard for the implications of your legislation. You have one idea only, and that is to cut the deficit no matter the cost to people or institutions.
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Now you have capped your earlier performances by attempting to pass an omnibus bill that encompasses over 40 separate pieces of legislation. This bill confers enormous power on your government and on individual ministers -- powers to shut hospitals, annex municipalities and disclose personal medical information. As Bob Rae said: "If a government intends to change public policy -- and people's lives -- so fundamentally, it cannot proceed without public input that is informed and accessible and citing consultation on the Common Sense Revolution doesn't cut it. The Tories didn't campaign on health care cuts and user fees or on giving overriding powers to ministers."
These are sweeping, fundamental, irreversible changes, none of which had been made clear to the public or, for that matter, to the opposition parties. This government had no desire to make these changes clear. After all, knowledge might lead to a refusal to accept. Once people in large numbers began to protest, it would not be so easy to simply pass the bill through; far easier to have pushed ahead with debate or consultation. It would be a long time before people realized what had happened, and by then the legislation would have long been enacted as part of the Common Sense Revolution. Your decision to hold these hearings is a positive step. We can only hope that you will listen well to the concerns expressed and respond appropriately to them.
Using health care as an example of the vast powers this government is conferring upon itself, I would point out the following: The amendments to health care alone give this government sweeping powers. Currently, you must give preference to non-profit and Canadian-owned health care facilities. This legislation will allow American companies to increase their scope and numbers, much to our detriment. In addition, among the Minister of Health's new powers would be the right to contract with anyone chosen, without requesting proposals to be submitted. He could also close hospitals, appoint new hospital supervisors or tell individual hospitals what services to provide. That's not just power, that's absolute power, and absolute power is just another work for dictatorship.
But that isn't enough power for this government. This bill also removes the right of the OMA to negotiate. It cancels their legal agreements and removes doctors' rights. It also goes after pharmacists and drug prices and disclosure of medical information. These changes are unconscionable, as they appear to abrogate the democratic process.
In another sphere, closer to my specific area of interest, the right to strike has suddenly disappeared for police, for firefighters and for hospital workers. I suppose this government would say that they are essential services and cannot be allowed the luxury of strike action. Well, they are indeed essential, but that does not mean they have not the same right as all other workers to negotiate their collective agreements up to and including the right to strike. Once that right is removed, people are at the mercy of not always benevolent employers. Teachers were fortunately left out of this mix, but we too will be included in the changes to arbitration.
The Tories feel they need to spell out for arbitrators how to reach an appropriate decision. If the boss says he can't afford the cost, don't charge him. This criterion, the employer's ability to pay, strikes at the independence and integrity of the only method available for settling disputes around collective agreements. It will undermine the process of collective bargaining, since employers will know that their position must ultimately be upheld. Is this what this government considers unbiased, objective arbitration?
None of these issues was ever mentioned in the concept of the Common Sense Revolution. It strikes me, though not for the first time, that this concept was merely an election ploy, designed to play to the need of the public to see some changes, to feel some relief from the concerns that faced us all -- an overwhelming deficit, high unemployment and difficulty managing our resources.
I'm not here today to go through, one by one, the massive changes this bill is proposing. The general theme is clearly evident in the changes I've cited. This bill, and I'm quoting from Robert Sheppard of the Globe and Mail, has the power "to extinguish the statutory or contractual bargaining rights of three large public sector groups, to reduce the pension benefits of some long-serving police, firefighters and almost any other public employees who might be declared redundant, to override at least three court decisions, to allow for highway tolls, user fees and municipal head taxes, and to repeal the Bread Sales Act of 1980. I'm just scratching the surface here."
This bill will take away many of our rights as well as the privileges we have enjoyed and were led to believe would continue. The bill confers such broad powers on ministers that decisions could be made through their direction or administrative order, by regulation and without debate, public scrutiny or local input. This is not democracy. This is no Common Sense Revolution. It is a massive, unprecedented intrusion by government, by one swift, shocking movement, into all our lives.
There has been nothing with this kind of sweep in this province before. Rolling so many issues into one omnibus bill denies the opposition the chance to oppose effectively and the public the chance to understand and react.
What we are seeing here is the dismantling of the democratic process through removal of the right to discuss, debate, seek clarification and reject a concept if desired. The government has abrogated the people's right to participate.
Given the dictionary definition of the term "dictatorship" as "a government which holds absolute power," it seems to me that there is no other name to apply to the behaviour of this government. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you. We have seven minutes per caucus. We'll start with the third party, Mr Silipo.
Mr Silipo: Thank you for the presentation, Ms Gladstone. I'm sure that the government members will take great exception to your labelling the government as a dictatorship, but I think it's helpful that you've ended your presentation with a dictionary definition.
I wanted to just pursue one issue with you, because you say early on that what you think is driving this government is its yearning to cut the deficit, no matter the cost to people or institutions. I have to say to you that as much as I would disagree if that were in fact the intent of the government, I think it's actually worse than that, because I think that what we are seeing is that it's not so much the issue of cutting the deficit that's driving the government, but it's in fact their intent to provide a 30% tax cut.
The reason that is actually worse is because the amount of money that's necessary to pay for that tax cut they've estimated at about $5 billion, in their own numbers; we think it's actually higher. But that amount of money is actually higher than the amount of money that they're cutting for other purposes. One could say that if they were really serious about cutting the deficit, they wouldn't be providing this tax cut or they could, alternatively, be reducing the deficit over a longer period of time, giving people the time to adjust to the changes without the tax cut. They're doing neither of those. They're intent on doing the tax cut.
I think it's important that we address that issue as well because, again, what we see happening as a result of the tax cut is that about 40% of the value of that tax cut is going to go to 13% of the taxpayers and the balance of it is going to have to be shared among the remaining 87% of the taxpayers. We're seeing again that those who are the most well off are going to benefit to the greatest degree by that.
We've heard this through presentation after presentation. What we are seeing clearly is a shift here, and a pretty clear direction by this government, to move resources into the hands of those who are most well off. The previous presenters we had -- I don't know if you had to chance to hear them -- talked about their dismay that what this government was doing was in fact confirming the worst in the public's sentiments about government; that is, that government does not exist to take care of all of us, but government exists to basically continue to improve the situation for those who are already well off.
As teachers, it seems to me that you're in a unique situation to talk to us about what happens when government perpetuates, not just by its rhetoric but indeed by its actions, that perception about government as an institution, what that does to the kind of society that we are developing when the kinds of things that you see and the kind of future that you see for the young people you teach and care for for the better part of the day.
Ms Gladstone: I'd like to just start by saying that with regard to the taxation and with regard to the tax cuts, I somehow see this government as Robin Hood in reverse, taking from the poor to give to the rich.
Going on to your final point, we have a real problem with what's happening now, because teaching and learning in our classroom centres on freedom of expression and respect for the ideas of our students. We need a government that models this ideal, and I don't think that this government is currently doing that. The way that we have to present them, the things that are happening currently aren't going to allow us to use as a model for what is suitable behaviour for our children this current government.
We have a number of other problems as well. When you talk about the tax cuts, I quite agree with you that if we're talking about deficit reduction while at the same time we're looking for tax cuts, the two don't quite go together. I don't think anybody objects to having money, but to have the money given back to the very people who need it least while taking it away from the people who need it most is quite unconscionable.
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Mr Silipo: One of the difficulties we are having -- and we've been at this for only a couple of days, so we'll see if the process of these hearings generates any kind of movement among the government. We've certainly heard so far admissions by ministers, even before these hearings began, of areas they recognized there were mistakes in, that there are things in the legislation that they thought were not there, didn't know were there, thought said different things than they appear to say now. But with all of that, while we expect to see some amendments at the end of this process, I'm not sure we're going to see a real effort by the government or a real willingness to make some substantive changes.
I was curious to know if you had any thoughts about what more needs to be done so that the government understands that what it is dealing with here is something far more than just a typical omnibus bill which changes in a minor way a whole bunch of legislation, that we are talking here about some pretty significant changes that, as you say, among other things puts into the hands of a few people a lot of power and thereby undermines the very essence of the democratic process we live under.
Ms Gladstone: What I would ideally like to see happen is that this bill be taken apart entirely and that it be presented piece by piece, each piece of legislation separately.
An omnibus bill, in my understanding -- and I don't pretend to understand a great deal about it -- usually encompasses a similar thread throughout and deals with one specific issue and takes together a number of different parts of that issue and puts them together into one bill. In this bill, the issues have nothing to do with one another. They are as separate as the mining and the health care. They're totally disparate, there's no similarity among them. That's the first thing I would like to see happen.
The second thing I would like to see happen in this bill is that these powers not be given to the ministers. The amount of power, the kind of power this bill will be giving to the ministers is truly the kind of power that I liken to dictatorship, and that's the only thing I can compare it to.
The Chair: We have several members from the government caucus, starting with Mr Young.
Mr Young: I find your definition of "dictatorship" simple and totally inadequate. A dictatorship is a government which holds absolute power, but one which tolerates no opposition --
Ms Gladstone: Well?
Mr Young: -- and one where there is no democratic process.
Mr Silipo: So what's your point?
Mr Young: You're out of order.
The very fact that you're here tonight belies that there's any such similar situation in Ontario. I really find it irresponsible of you to use that language, comparing the type of government we have in Ontario.
Ms Gladstone: I'll accept your opinion.
Mr Young: You said that we dismantled the democratic process etc, yet on page 2 you say: "Your decision to hold these hearings is a positive step. We can only hope you will listen well to the current concerns expressed and respond appropriately." We are listening and we will respond, so I don't know how that fits in with what you said on the first page, which is that there's no opportunity for consultation.
As we're now spending $9 billion a year on interest on government debt in Ontario, more than we spend on public school education and all our hospitals, what kind of model are we having for our students if we have a bankrupt province, where we can't afford a proper school system, we can't afford health care, we can't afford welfare, we can't afford universities?
Ms Gladstone: You're quite right; the amount of the deficit is extremely high. What I really believe is that you're going about getting the money for it the wrong way. I would agree with the previous speaker. There are other ways, apart from cutting services, by which you can enrich the coffers and reduce the deficit. Those are to tax corporations, to tax banks -- and you've heard the story before; I'm not saying this for the first time, I know that. But those are never the people whose money you go after.
Mr Young: Did you know that the last time the NDP raised taxes, no new money came in? They sat there scratching their heads and what they came up with was the social contract, because they realized there's no new money out there. People stop working, they move away, they go underground. There's no more tax revenue out there.
Ms Gladstone: Then maybe what we need is a leaving tax, so that if people decide to go away, they have to pay to leave.
Mr Young: There's a good idea. That's called dictatorship.
Ms Gladstone: No, it's not. That's called taxation.
Mr Tascona: I'd just like to clarify that Bill 26 does not affect police or firefighters or hospital workers. They don't have the right to strike, never have, and they're not impacted by Bill 26. Teachers are not impacted by this piece of legislation either, because they have the right to strike and they're not affected by arbitration; they don't have to go to arbitration. I just wanted to clarify that.
With respect to the arbitration process, other jurisdictions in other provinces have mandatory criteria for arbitration. The purpose of the provision is to control costs; it's not to set service levels with respect to arbitrators. I'd just like to put to you that it's in the public interest for ability to pay to apply. What we've found is that arbitrators don't consider ability to pay as a factor because they believe it just can be passed on in tax increases. The situation we're facing is that we've got a critical deficit situation, we've got a reduction in transfer payments to municipalities. How could it be unreasonable to ask arbitrators to consider an employer's ability to pay when setting contract awards?
Ms Gladstone: Because then you no longer have an objective arbitrator. You have an arbitrator who has been told what he can and cannot do.
Mr Tascona: He's being told what to consider.
Ms Gladstone: That's right.
Mr Tascona: What's wrong with that, when we have to control costs? We can't pass on taxes to the taxpayers.
Ms Gladstone: I would assume that any arbitrator would consider all the facts before him, including costs. That's what an arbitrator's job is. But for you to put in that he must look at costs, must include costs, takes away his ability to be an objective arbitrator.
Mr Tascona: An objective arbitrator would look at the ability to pay.
Ms Gladstone: That's right, but you don't need to tell them that they must.
Mr Tascona: We put the criteria in because they don't, and that's the problem.
Ms Gladstone: That's not true.
Mr Tascona: But that's what we've heard all today.
Ms Gladstone: In our board, through our collective negotiations we're in arbitration often enough that the arbitrator must look at costs among all the other factors that they have to consider.
Mr Tascona: I understand that fact-finders look at that, but fact-finding for teachers is not subject to the legislation. We're not dictating any criterion for that. For arbitration we have, but you're not subject to arbitration. What we've heard from the groups that are subject to arbitration is that arbitrators do not consider the ability to pay.
Ms Gladstone: I think you're mistaken. We are subject to arbitration, to my knowledge.
Mr Tascona: No, you're not.
Ms Gladstone: Well, our legal firm --
Mr Tascona: No, you're not mandated for arbitration. You can check that out.
Ms Gladstone: Perhaps your language and mine is different. I may not understand what you're saying.
Mr Tascona: We've listened to five teachers' groups, and they've all indicated they're not.
Ms Gladstone: I was taking a look through the memorandum that Sack, Goldblatt, Mitchell prepared on this bill, and it was in there that I found this.
Mr Tascona: Well, we can agree to disagree.
Ms Gladstone: We can agree to disagree.
The Chair: Thank you. Members of the opposition; Mr Gerretsen.
Mr Gerretsen: I'd just like to correct the member. If you look at page 210, section 5 says, "Section 35 of the School Boards and Teachers Collective Negotiations Act is amended by adding the following subsections" dealing with the arbitration section. Maybe you should have read the bill a little bit more closely.
Mr Tascona: I've read it. You should read it.
Mr Gerretsen: I'd like to get back to this deficit situation. I think you'd agree with me as much as with anybody that we have to do something about the deficit.
Ms Gladstone: Yes.
Mr Gerretsen: To put it in simplistic terms, the province has about $45 billion coming in in revenues, and $55 billion going out in expenditures leaves about a $10-billion annual deficit currently, in that neighbourhood. What the tax cut is doing is taking $5 billion off the $45 billion of revenue, and we'll only have $40 billion of revenue, so we've got to come up with $15 billion to make it match. The government could be doing something about it immediately by getting rid of a third of it by just forgetting about its idiotic tax cut. Would you agree with that?
Ms Gladstone: I would definitely agree with that.
Mr Gerretsen: The other thing, as you so ably pointed out, is this bill has more schedules in it than anybody has ever seen. It deals with the Mining Act, it deals with hospitals, it deals with correctional services, with interest arbitration, with the Municipal Act, with the physicians' act, with pay equity, and you can just go on and on and on. Would you not agree that the better way to have dealt with this bill is to have cut it into different sections and have each section discussed at some length?
Ms Gladstone: Absolutely. As I said earlier, this bill should have been presented piece by piece, each piece of legislation separately. If the pieces of legislation tied together, they could have perhaps been presented in groups.
Mr Gerretsen: Before turning it over to my colleague, I would just state once again that if Mr Curling hadn't taken the most peaceable way in which someone could possibly demonstrate -- you can't demonstrate any more peaceably than just sitting in a chair and refusing to get up. If he hadn't done that, we wouldn't be here today discussing it, or if we had been here today we wouldn't be here tomorrow; we'd be voting on it. At least what we've got is about another three weeks of public hearings.
Originally, the idea was that the bill be passed by December 14. That was the original intent, and then later on there was some sort of notion brought that there would be 360 hours of hearings in two weeks, which would have meant 180 hours per week when there are only 168 hours in a week to start with, or by two or three subcommittees all sitting at the same time listening to delegations for 40- or 50-hour stretches. If you call that part of the democratic process, I disagree with that as well.
Mr Crozier: I like to try and ask each delegation a different question. I've heard the same questions time after time from over there. I'm going to ask you this, and I don't think it will take long for you to decide.
If you had two people to vote for, and one said, "I'm not going to cut one cent from health care," but the other one said, "I'm going to put a user fee on the Ontario drug benefit plan, but that's not cutting health care; I'm going to take $1.3 billion away from hospitals; I'm going to be giving the authority to charge you for doing your laundry when you're in the hospital, your soap, your Kleenex, maybe even your meals," which one would you vote for?
Ms Gladstone: I'd vote for the one that said, "I'm not cutting one cent from health care."
Mr Crozier: And do you know what, ladies? They're the same person, they're Mike Harris, because that's exactly what was said.
Ms Gladstone: That was what was said before the election. Things that are said before an election are seldom the same as things that are done after an election. We all know that.
Mr Crozier: That's my point. Another thing that has come up is, "We're not going to take anything out of classroom education," but the other day --
Ms Gladstone: Oh, I know, except $400 million.
Mr Crozier: But the other day there was a report that said, "But we're going to consider JK, all-day kindergarten, French immersion, anglais for certain grades," and I can't remember exactly which ones, "French core, adult education." Do you know how we're going to do that? We're going to make those non-classroom items, you see. What we do is that we have our bottom line we want to get to, and you know how we get to the bottom line? You eliminate all these other things and make them exclusive. From an educational standpoint, would you agree with that?
Ms Gladstone: Of course none of that will affect the classroom, needless to say, not the loss of kindergartens, not the loss of French immersion, not the loss of whatever other programs are planned to be cut. And $400 million of course can be taken very easily, without any effect whatsoever to the classroom. Well, I would like our worthy government to show us how. I'm sure they have some ideas of how they're going to do that, but we haven't yet figured it out and we're still waiting to hear. Of course $400 million is a very large sum of money and I would be very interested to hear how it can be taken without any effect on the classroom.
Mr Crozier: We all agree that expenses have to be reduced, so my two points were to get away, just for a moment, from talking about money to talk about integrity.
The Chair: On that note, ladies, thank you for appearing tonight before the committee.
That's our last witness for the evening. Now some housekeeping notes.
Mr Hardeman: This morning there was a question from the Toronto board of trade presentation and from something the minister had said yesterday about the Metro areas not being part of the restructuring, the M section of the bill.
In fact, if we look at the schedule, amendments to the Municipal Act on page 133, in subsection 25.2(1) there's a definition of "municipality": "`Municipality' means a county and a local municipality but does not include a local municipality which forms part of a regional, metropolitan or district municipality or the county of Oxford."
The Chair: This was a request made by members that we get that clarified, so I allowed that.
Mr Silipo: Mr Chair, I don't want to prolong this, because I'm sure we're all tired, but while I appreciate that and I think it's helpful, I understand there are other sections -- I was trying to find them, and maybe the parliamentary assistant could help us with this as well, either tonight or tomorrow -- that deal with the shifting of powers between different tiers that do apply and would apply to the GTA.
Mr Hardeman: I would point out that the definition we read applies only to that portion of the act on the restructuring. I think the board of trade was inferring that the restructuring part would apply in Metropolitan Toronto.
Mr Silipo: So the restructuring doesn't apply, but the shifting of powers does apply.
Mr Hardeman: The shifting of powers does in fact have a different definition.
The Chair: I'd like to remind the members that tomorrow we'll be meeting at 9 am, not 9:30, in committee room 1. We stand adjourned until tomorrow.
The subcommittee adjourned at 2055.